Albanians Ante Portas: Representation of Albanian Migrants in the British Media

The topic of Albanian immigration to the UK recently gained prominence in the British media, evoking sensationalist claims and tropes of Albanians being prone to criminal activities, comprising a majority of people crossing to the UK illegally via the English Channel by small rafts and boats, even emphasising a surge of children born in the UK to Albanian parents. In this article, the authors conducted nominative and predicative discourse analysis in order to identify crucial discursive strategies of the British media’s reporting on Albanian immigration in 2022 and 2023. Three representative outlets were considered: left-oriented The Guardian, conservative The Times and right-wing The Sun. Some 200 articles featuring Albania/ns overall were identified and analysed, the majority of which focused on immigration. It is argued that the over-representation of Albanian immigration in the British media and political life reiterates centuries-old prejudices and stereotypes about the Balkans, often presenting Albanians collectively as “intruders”, “criminals”, abusers of public funds, villains in the old threat narrative about the invasion of the British shores, and arguably instrumentalised them as a smokescreen for pressing internal economic and political problems.