SPOŁECZNE I KULTUROWE SKUTKI MIGRACJI POAKCESYJNEJ NA ŁAMACH TYGODNIKÓW OPINII W LATACH 2004-2012

One of the most significant aspects of the recent wave of migration from Poland is the way in which migrants’ social and cultural experiences are being depicted in press articles. Migratory experiences in journalistic descriptions are structured in the form of narratives which are reproduced in public debate. Then they form a part of ‘common knowledge’ and finally become an element of the whole reservoir of social consciousness. Media narratives describe processes which are the object of academic exploration of sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists. Among these processes there are such phenomena as: social mobility, cultural change (norms, values, lifestyles), emergence of ‘new identities’, the shape of ethnic and interethnic relations or changes in family patterns. The aim of the paper is a synthesis of the main narrative motives of the social and cultural consequences of post-accession migration in Polish weekly magazines between 2004 and 2012. The synthesis has been based on systematic content analysis of press articles (n=172) published in four weekly magazines. The goal of the analysis is a discussion of the way the consequences of migration are being depicted from the global (country), local (region), and individual perspective (migrant). The research project also aimed at discussing the intersection of journalistic and academic fields in press narratives and its role in the legitimization of ‘the official version’ of the depicted process. The analysis concerned the linguistic structure of journalistic narration in the context of Stanley Cohen’s concept of moral panic.