This article addresses the problem of the significance of empirical variation in security moves towards immigration and the consequent question of the role of context in securitization theory. Drawing on the analysis of a set of 4,464 newspaper articles published by La Presse and the National Post on the subject of international immigration to Canada between January 1, 1998, and December 31, 2015, it investigates the link between the frequency with which these two Canadian broadsheet dailies depict immigration as a threat to the physical well-being of the state or its population and the occurrence of six major migratory events. It finds that the saliency of security discourse on immigration in the written press is strongly and positively impacted by the incidence of such events. The paper also proposes further conceptualization of the cohabitation and complementarity between exceptional and routinized securitization practices.
RésuméCet article propose une documentation empirique du processus social de construction de l'immigration comme un problème de sécurité pour l’État canadien et sa population, et ce, au travers d'une analyse de contenu thématique d'articles de journaux publiés par La Presse et le National Post entre 1998 et 2015. Il quantifie et compare la place occupée par quatre discours-types au sein du discours médiatique canadien sur l'immigration. Ultimement, il révèle un discours de sécurité publique élevé fluctuant de façon importante sur la période et réfute l'hypothèse d'une intensification linéaire de la sécuritisation.
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