Moroccan Media and Sub-Saharan Migration: Narrative Construction and Representation Issues

Abstract

Sub-Saharan migration to Morocco has, in recent years, become a central issue in public debate, largely shaped by media discourse. Within a context marked by the implementation of Morocco's new migration policy, the media play a decisive role in constructing social representations of migrants, influencing perceptions, attitudes, and processes of legitimation or delegitimation of their presence within the social space. This article examines how the Moroccan press addresses Sub-Saharan migration and discursively frames migrants' trajectories, living conditions, and figures of migratory otherness. Drawing on a theoretical framework that combines social representation theory, media constructions of otherness, and critical discourse analysis, the study is based on a qualitative analysis of a corpus of articles from the Moroccan print and digital press, published after the adoption of the new migration policy. The analysis brings to light ambivalent discursive logics, oscillating between narratives of vulnerability and victimization, security-oriented registers, and attempts at humanization and symbolic integration of Sub-Saharan migrants. The findings show that while some media outlets contribute to deconstructing stereotypes and promoting an inclusive representation of migration, others participate in reproducing stigmatizing discourses, sometimes fuelled by forms of simplification, dramatization, or misinformation. This contribution thus interrogates the role of Moroccan media in shaping the social imaginaries linked to migration and in the contemporary dynamics of otherness.