Portrayal of Immigrants in Italian Newspapers: The Role of Linguistic Abstraction and Valence of Terms

Abstract

This contribution examines the role of linguistic abstraction and valence of terms in the portrayal of immigrants and Italians in national and local newspapers with different political leanings. Specifically, it investigates how linguistic abstraction and valence of terms vary between the two most popular Italian national outlets and between these and a highly read local newspaper. The sample consisted of 218 newspaper articles on immigration. Results showed that across newspapers, immigrants are generally described using negative terms at a higher level of abstraction than Italians, as well as with negative terms at a higher level of abstraction than positive terms. Furthermore, national newspaper articles used terms at a higher level of abstraction than those in the local newspaper when describing immigrants and Italians. This contribution offers novel insights into how linguistic intergroup discrimination is conveyed in newspapers of a country where immigration is increasingly becoming a debated topic.

Keywords

linguistic intergroup discrimination immigrants newspapers Construal-Level Theory physical distance

Introduction

Immigration has become an increasingly debated topic in the Western world, where it is considered one of the most divisive issues in contemporary public debates (Conzo et al., 2021; Gabrielatos & Baker, 2008). Mass media, such as newspapers, fuel this heated discussion by offering negative and stereotyped portrayals of immigrant people (Blinder & Allen, 2016; Chouliaraki & Zaborowski, 2017; Eberl et al., 2018; Eberl & Galyga, 2021; Fernández-Romero et al., 2025; Jacobs, 2017; Kakavand & Trilling, 2022; Olier & Spadavecchia, 2022; Sarah Liu, 2021). Such representations can ultimately strengthen prejudice and hinder intergroup relations in today's multicultural societies (Erhard et al., 2022; Fuochi et al., 2020; Prati et al., 2025). This phenomenon is even more pronounced in countries serving as destinations for immigrants, where concerns about the topic are rising. A particularly emblematic case is Italy, which since 2022 has been governed by a right-wing coalition holding explicitly critical positions toward immigration (Francavilla et al., 2025). Here, polarization on the issue is growing, and newspaper coverage is increasingly representing ethnic diversity as a threat to societal cohesion (Binotto et al., 2016; Iannelli et al., 2021; Materassi & Pezzoli, 2021; Montali et al., 2013; Osservatorio Europeo sulla Sicurezza, 2023).

Media stereotyped representations of immigrants are shaped not only by the content and framing of news, but also by subtle variations in linguistic abstraction and valence of the interpersonal terms used (Rubini et al., 2014; Rubini & Kruglanski, 1997). Communicators are typically unaware of both adjusting linguistic abstraction differently for positive and negative descriptions depending on group membership and of the cognitive inferences such variations elicit in recipients (Douglas & Sutton, 2003; Franco & Maass, 1999; Rakić & Maass, 2018). Because such implicit linguistic patterns operate outside conscious awareness, they can play a crucial yet overlooked role in perpetuating discriminatory representations of immigrants.

So far, research on linguistic abstraction has mainly examined comparative portrayals of majority group members vs. undocumented immigrants (Dragojevic et al., 2017), of majority vs. foreign crime perpetrators (D’Andrea et al., 2015), or assessed this comparison in specific immigration-related topics (Mastro et al., 2014). Therefore, studies examining these linguistic representations in news on the broader issue of immigration in countries where concerns are rising (e.g., Italy) are needed. Furthermore, specific newspaper features are expected to affect such depictions. One such aspect is the political orientation of the outlet, since less liberal newspapers have been found to use terms at different levels of linguistic abstraction to provide negative portrayals of subgroups of immigrants (D’Andrea et al., 2015; Dragojevic et al., 2017). Additionally, another key aspect is the width of the newspaper's area of coverage, considering that physical distance from an event affects how abstractly the latter is represented (Bhatia & Walasek, 2016; Trope & Liberman, 2010), and since outlets covering wider (e.g., national newspapers) and narrower (e.g., local outlets) areas also hold different reporting styles with respect to immigration (Eberl et al., 2018; Gabrielatos & Baker, 2008; Mertens et al., 2021). However, to date, little is known about how such linguistic variations in news on the broad topic of immigration are affected by the political orientation and area of coverage of the most highly circulated newspapers, nor how these two features may interact in shaping immigrant portrayals.

To fill these gaps, the present study addresses the following three research questions: Do portrayals of immigrants and majority members (Italians) differ, with respect to the linguistic abstraction and semantic valence of the terms used, in the most highly read Italian newspapers (RQ1)? Do portrayals of immigrants and Italians differ between the two most widely read Italian national newspapers that hold moderately different political orientations (RQ2)? Do portrayals of immigrants and Italians differ between these national outlets and the most widespread local newspaper in an ethnically diverse Italian region (RQ3)?

Language Abstraction as a Strategic Tool to Represent Social Reality

The Linguistic Category Model (Semin, 2012; Semin & Fiedler, 1988) can be conceived as a theoretical framework and a methodological tool that considers linguistic interpersonal terms ordered along a continuum of concreteness-abstraction. At the most concrete level, Descriptive Action Verbs (e.g., “A talks to B”) refer to directly observable actions with a clear beginning and end and imply a physically invariant feature. Interpretative Action Verbs (e.g., “A helps B”) refer to a class of actions and behaviors, have a clear beginning and end, provide interpretation beyond mere description, and usually carry an evaluative tone. State Verbs (e.g., “A likes B”) indicate enduring cognitive and affective states that do not have a clear beginning and end. The most abstract category is represented by Adjectives, which refer to the qualities and properties of a person (e.g., “A is generous”). While concrete terms provide detailed information about the context of an action and less about individuals, abstract language shifts attention to the actor and implies that the trait will likely manifest itself again in the future (Rubini et al., 2014; Semin, 2000; Semin & Fiedler, 1988).

The Linguistic Category Model has been employed to understand how language serves the transmission and maintenance of social stereotypes. In this vein, the existence of a Linguistic Intergroup Bias (Franco & Maass, 1999; Maass, 1999; Maass et al., 1989) based on the evidence that group members systematically vary language abstraction according to the valence of ingroup vs. outgroup behaviors, has been detected. In particular, ingroup socially desirable behaviors and outgroup undesirable behaviors are usually encoded at a higher level of abstraction than ingroup undesirable and outgroup desirable behaviors. By portraying ingroup behaviors as enduring and generalizable when positive, while contextualizing negative behaviors, and by emphasizing the endurability of outgroup members’ negative behaviors, language abstraction perpetuates and reinforces stereotypical expectations about social groups (Beukeboom, 2014; Beukeboom & Burgers, 2019; Maass, 1999). Moreover, the Linguistic Intergroup Bias is widely regarded as an implicit form of intergroup discrimination (Franco & Maass, 1999; Wigboldus et al., 2000) since it is encoded by individuals at an uncontrolled level.

While the Linguistic Intergroup Bias has primarily been studied in controlled experimental settings by manipulating the social desirability/undesirability of the stimulus behavior (Rubini et al., 2014), analyses of freely generated sentences revealed that these systematic differences persist in group members’ spontaneous language. In natural language, the differential use of linguistic abstraction based on the valence of terms can be used to create more favorable representations of ingroup members (i.e., ingroup favoritism) as well as to provide unfavorable representations of outgroup members (i.e., outgroup derogation). This highlights the double-faceted nature of linguistic intergroup discrimination, reflected in “ingroup love” and “outgroup hate” (Brewer, 1999).

Linguistic intergroup discrimination has been confirmed in minimal group contexts (Moscatelli et al., 2008, 2014; Rubini et al., 2007), where participants have to describe ingroup and outgroup minimal behaviors, such as intergroup allocation of resources. In the context of academic personnel selection, there is evidence of a linguistic selection bias, according to which applicants belonging to the same institution as examining committee members are portrayed with positive terms at a higher level of abstraction and negative terms at a lower level of abstraction than other applicants (Rubini & Menegatti, 2008). Moreover, discarded applicants are generally described with positive terms at a lower level of abstraction and negative terms at a higher level of abstraction than selected ones, particularly when the decision is formulated by a group of selectors (Menegatti & Rubini, 2012). Furthermore, female applicants usually receive judgments formulated using negative terms at a higher level and positive terms at a lower level of abstraction than those of male applicants, especially when judged by male recruiters (Rubini & Menegatti, 2014). In the school context, teachers generally use positive terms at a higher level of abstraction when providing evaluations of high-achieving students, females, and nonimmigrant pupils (Menegatti et al., 2017). This tendency confirms the pervasiveness of linguistic intergroup discrimination even in institutional settings like schools.

Linguistic Abstraction and Valence of Terms in the Media Context

Mass media represent a context of paramount importance to understand the extent to which linguistic intergroup discrimination is transmitted depending on the group membership of the source of communication as well as that of the object of communication (Dragojevic et al., 2017). In a pioneering study, Maass et al. (1994) analyzed the language employed by TV news provided by the three channels of Italian television during the Gulf War in 1999. They were able to show that Iraqi forces and leaders were portrayed with more negative abstract statements, especially by the pro-American channel (the First Channel). Concerning immigration, Dragojevic et al. (2017) conducted a content analysis on all the articles on irregular immigration appearing in local newspapers from four states bordering Mexico. Results confirmed the tendency of using terms at a higher level of abstraction in positive statements referring to U.S citizens and negative statements referring to undocumented immigrants, and terms at a lower level of abstraction when reporting negative and positive statements referring to U.S citizens and immigrants, respectively. On the same line, newspaper articles covering a U.S. anti-immigration militia portrayed undocumented immigrants using abstract and unfavorable language to a greater extent than American immigration opponents (Mastro et al., 2014). Concerning newspaper coverage of criminal events, immigrant sexual assaulters were found to be portrayed using terms at a higher level of abstraction than Italian ones in articles describing rape episodes (D’Andrea et al., 2015). However, this tendency was found only in the most right-wing newspaper.

How news is presented can have consequential effects on the audience, too. By manipulating the ethnicity of a suspect in a TV news crime story, it was possible to assess that participants described Black suspected perpetrators with terms at a higher level of abstraction than White suspects (Gorham, 2006). Additionally, this tendency was stronger among frequent television users. Moreover, reading news framing immigration under a threatening light (instead of news discussing the economic opportunities related to the phenomenon) produced descriptions with terms at a higher level of abstraction, particularly when immigrants were described as coming to Spain from Morocco, in comparison to Latin America (Fernández et al., 2013). Furthermore, providing a set of articles on immigrant criminal behaviors worded more abstractly than concretely was associated with higher prejudice among the receivers (Geschke et al., 2010). Similarly, Mastro et al. (2014) exposed American White participants to one of the three experimental conditions, one including a fictional newspaper article discussing immigration from Mexico using concrete language, another proposing the same scenario worded with abstract terms, and the last one serving as a control. Results showed that the abstract condition led to more unfavorable evaluations of Latino immigrants than the concrete scenario (Mastro et al., 2014).

Given the impact of media language on public perception, the presence of linguistic intergroup discrimination in the most widely circulated national newspapers can be particularly influential, given their vast audience (Boomgaarden & Vliegenthart, 2009; Hichy & Marco, 2021). Furthermore, since the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015, newspaper coverage of immigration has dramatically increased in Western countries, particularly in those serving as destinations for immigrants like Italy (Bentivegna & Boccia Artieri, 2019; Iannelli et al., 2021). The growth in migratory flows and the resulting alarmism and political debate amplified the polarization of mainstream narratives and of public opinion's attitudes, driving even moderate positions toward more radical ones (Agovino et al., 2022; Schneider-Strawczynski & Valette, 2025). Despite this rising polarization, the investigation of how the use of linguistic abstraction and valence of terms in news on the broad theme of immigration (rather than focusing on specific subgroups of immigrants) varies across newspapers with moderately different political leanings received only negligible attention (see D’Andrea et al., 2015; Dragojevic et al., 2017).

Newspaper Area of Coverage and Physical Distance from Events

National and local newspapers tend to adopt different reporting styles. First, national newspapers usually report a wide range of news occurring both nationally and internationally, while local newspapers generally provide less variety and focus on small-scale current events (Masini et al., 2018). The same tendency has been observed with respect to their coverage of immigration. In a study analyzing how newspapers from six European countries (including Italy) reported the issue, national outlets were found to discuss a higher number of immigration-related themes in the news (e.g., the integration of immigrants, racism, the inclusion of immigrants in the labor market, etc.) than the local ones, which focused mainly on crime news and associated immigration with security concerns (Mertens et al., 2021). These findings are in line with other studies showing that the popular press (into which local newspapers are often classified, e.g., Mertens et al., 2021) generally describes the topic as a threat to the host society (Blinder, 2015; Cheregi, 2015; Eberl et al., 2018). In the same vein, outlets primarily reporting current event news have been shown to rely more heavily on biased and negative terms when covering immigration compared to newspapers reporting on several different topics, like national ones (Gabrielatos & Baker, 2008).

Another important aspect concerning the newspaper's area of coverage is related to the physical distance from events. According to the Construal-Level Theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010), the more people are physically distant from an event, the more abstractly this event will be mentally represented. Along this line, Bhatia and Walasek (2016) have shown that when physical distance increases, the psychological distance from that event increases too. The greater the psychological distance, the more the event will be decontextualized, thus leading to a more abstract representation (Grolleau et al., 2023; Li et al., 2022). Conversely, greater psychological closeness will lead to more detailed, concrete representations of the situation, reflected in contextual information. Holding a concrete or abstract mental representation of an event is expected to be reflected in language, too (Eyal et al., 2008; Menegatti & Rubini, 2013), since the latter is inherently intertwined with social cognition (Semin, 2000).

Despite evidence showing that local outlets, compared to national ones, focus on a smaller variety of immigration-related topics (Masini et al., 2018; Mertens et al., 2021) and mainly describe immigration in negative terms (Blinder, 2015; Cheregi, 2015; Eberl et al., 2018; Gabrielatos & Baker, 2008), to date no research investigated how these differences may be reflected in the use of linguistic abstraction and valence of terms in immigrants’ portrayals. Furthermore, despite the presence of studies analyzing how temporal distance from events affects linguistic abstraction (Prati et al., 2020; Soderberg et al., 2015), the role of physical distance has been overlooked. Therefore, specificities in the reporting style and physical distance from events are expected to affect linguistic abstraction and valence of the terms employed in immigration-related news. Additionally, the political orientation of the national and local outlets is also expected to influence these linguistic features, considering the increased polarization around the topic in destination countries (Agovino et al., 2022; Schneider-Strawczynski & Valette, 2025).

Overview of the Study

The present research is part of the wider ERC-Consolidator project IDENTITIES “Managing Identities in Diverse Societies: A Developmental Intergroup Perspective with Adolescents”, funded by the European Research Council, conducted in Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. This context was selected to provide a comprehensive understanding of the environment in which young people grow up (see Bobba et al., 2024 for a description of the project). Currently, the Italian country is hosting over 5 million immigrants (Istat, 2025), with minors comprising one-fifth of this population. This demographic composition is also reflected in the education system, where ethnic minority students now represent 10.3% of the overall student body (Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, 2022). Furthermore, 12.9% of the population of Emilia-Romagna is immigrants (Regione Emilia-Romagna—Ufficio di Statistica, 2025), and the region also has the highest percentage of students without Italian citizenship across all educational levels (18.4%; Ministero dell'Interno, 2023). For these reasons, Emilia-Romagna is considered the most ethnically and culturally diverse region in the Italian context.

In light of the three Research Questions posed and given the context in which the research took place, the present study aims to investigate how linguistic abstraction and valence of the terms used in composing articles describing immigrants and Italians varied in the two most widespread national Italian newspapers, “Il Corriere della Sera” and “La Repubblica,” and between these outlets and a highly read local newspaper in the Emilia-Romagna region, “Il Resto del Carlino.” The selected newspapers represent the most widely circulated outlets at the national and local level in both print and digital editions (ASD, 2022). Moreover, the national editions of “La Repubblica” and “Il Corriere della Sera” cover current and political events of nationwide relevance, and while the former is clearly left-leaning, the latter is center/center-left aligned and attracts a readership quite diverse in political orientation (D’Andrea et al., 2015; Mertens et al., 2021; The London School of Economics and Political Science, & Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 2023). Conversely, “Il Resto del Carlino” is part of a broader network called “QN Quotidiano Nazionale,” which includes center/center-right newspapers (Giglietto et al., 2019), and its local edition mainly reports crime-related current news involving immigrants within its specific county of coverage (Mertens et al., 2021). Detailed information on the newspaper screening procedure, article inclusion criteria, as well as timeframes and collection sources, can be found in Supplementary Material, S1.

Since subtle linguistic variations often operate outside the speaker's awareness, journalists may not exert full control over the level of linguistic abstraction or the valence of the terms they use (see Rubini et al., 2014; Rubini & Kruglanski, 1997), allowing implicit biases to persist in journalistic narratives. In light of these considerations and based on predictions from the Linguistic Category Model and linguistic intergroup discrimination framework (Rubini et al., 2014; Semin & Fiedler, 1988), immigrants are expected to be described with positive terms at a lower level and negative terms at a higher level of abstraction than Italians (Hypothesis 1). Previous research has also shown that linguistic differences in descriptions of majority members and specific subgroups of immigrants only become evident when comparing newspapers with more strongly opposing political positions (D’Andrea et al., 2015). Yet, it is plausible that nowadays even a smaller difference in political orientation may shape portrayals in immigration-related articles. This may be because, since 2015, the broad topic of immigration has become a highly divisive issue in countries like Italy (Iannelli et al., 2021), with the intensification of public debate further exacerbating previously moderately divergent positions (Schneider-Strawczynski & Valette, 2025). Given this mixed evidence preventing the formulation of a clear-cut hypothesis, the investigation of the use of linguistic abstraction and valence of terms in portrayals of immigrants and Italians between “La Repubblica” and “Il Corriere della Sera” took an exploratory stance.

Turning to the comparison of the two national outlets, covering events with a broader geographic scope, with the local version of “Il Resto del Carlino,” focusing on geographically limited events, the newspapers’ area of coverage becomes salient. According to the Construal-Level Theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010), it is expected that the difference in area of coverage will affect the level of abstraction of the overall portrayals of immigrants and Italians. Specifically, since increased distance from events tends to foster more abstract mental representations, and greater proximity encourages more detailed and situation-specific descriptions (Bhatia & Walasek, 2016; Li et al., 2022; Trope & Liberman, 2010), national newspapers are expected to use terms at a higher level of abstraction when describing immigrant and Italian social actors than the local outlet (Hypothesis 2).

Furthermore, since local newspapers tend to use biased terms in immigration-related news to a greater extent than the national counterparts (Blinder, 2015; Cheregi, 2015; Eberl et al., 2018; Gabrielatos & Baker, 2008) and considering the less liberal stance of the network in which “Il Resto del Carlino” is included (Giglietto et al., 2019), this is expected to be reflected in positive and negative descriptions of immigrants and Italians. Specifically, articles from this local outlet are hypothesized to describe immigrant people with positive terms at a lower level of abstraction and negative terms at a higher level of abstraction compared to Italians to a greater extent than the national editions of “La Repubblica” and “Il Corriere della Sera” (Hypothesis 3). Despite the expectation of the use of more concrete language overall in the local newspaper (Trope & Liberman, 2010), the hypothesis is that this trend will not persist in valenced descriptions of socially relevant actors like immigrants and Italians.

Method

Units of Analysis

The units of analysis for the present study were 218 articles (37 articles from the national newspaper “La Repubblica,” 66 from the national edition of “Il Corriere della Sera,” and 115 articles from the local newspaper “Il Resto del Carlino”).

Dependent Variables

Language Abstraction

All verbs and adjectives referring to immigrants and Italians were coded for linguistic abstraction according to the Linguistic Category Model coding scheme (Coenen et al., 2006; Semin & Fiedler, 1988). They were also coded for semantic valence (i.e., positive—when conveying positive views about the social actors vs. negative—when providing negative representations, qualities, or traits vs. neutral—when the interpersonal term was not loaded with either positive or negative value). The specific criteria used to correctly identify immigrants and Italians in the text are reported in Supplementary Material, S1. Examples of the coded terms can be found in Table 1. Article titles were excluded from the coding, since they often do not contain verbs.

Table 1.

Examples of Positive, Negative, and Neutral Terms Associated with Immigrants and Italians According to the Linguistic Category Model.

Valence	Linguistic category	Target	Examples
Positive	Descriptive action verb	Immigrant	From the boat, it was possible to hear people singing together
		Italian	The officer smiled at her
	Interpretative action verb	Immigrant	The Senegalese men tried to help the poor woman
		Italian	He worked hard to support his family
	State verb	Immigrant	It was just a boy dreaming of a better future
		Italian	“I hope that justice will be served soon” said the mayor
	Adjective	Immigrant	The heroic bricklayer managed to save the elderly couple
		Italian	The stolen goods were returned by the two alert finance officers
Negative	Descriptive action verb	Immigrant	He hit and kicked his rival until the latter lost consciousness.
		Italian	She yelled at the woman to scare her.
	Interpretative action verb	Immigrant	The boy reported that he had been attacked by the immigrant while walking home
		Italian	Five police officers have been accused of torturing a Tunisian prisoner.
	State verb	Immigrant	At that point, he became angry and threatened the teenager with a knife
		Italian	He had sworn revenge and, since then, had never stopped hating him
	Adjective	Immigrant	The abusive husband was arrested after his wife reported him
		Italian	The Italian government has proven itself to be inhumane by introducing the new law
Neutral	Descriptive action verb	Immigrant	The video camera spotted the suspect walking down the street
		Italian	The group of policemen arrested the drug dealer after a long chase
	Interpretative action verb	Immigrant	The immigrants complied with the conditions set out by the human traffickers
		Italian	The woman reported the episode to the police
	State verb	Immigrant	The survivors were found trembling and terrified
		Italian	The policemen suspected they were drug dealers
	Adjective	Immigrant	He was described to be quite an introverted reader
		Italian	Giorgia Meloni is quite direct in answering journalists about this topic

Note. Coded terms are highlighted in bold.

The first author coded the full article sample. Reliability was assessed on a randomly selected subsample of 80 articles, each independently coded by the first author and a second trained coder (36.70% of the material). This subsample size reflects standard practice in language abstraction studies (e.g., Menegatti et al., 2017; Rubini & Menegatti, 2014) and was therefore considered appropriate. The overall reliability for linguistic categories (Cohen's κ = .74), valence (Cohen's κ = .71), and target of reference (immigrants vs. Italians; Cohen's κ = .82) was satisfactory. Disagreement was solved by discussion between the coders and a third party. Further details on reliability are provided in the Supplementary Material, S2.

Separate positive, negative, and neutral abstraction scores for immigrant and Italian targets were computed by employing a single monotonic weighting scheme. (see Prati et al., 2024 as an example). Weights of 1, 2, 3, and 4 were assigned to Descriptive Action Verbs, Interpretative Action Verbs, State Verbs, and Adjectives, respectively. The summed weights were then divided by the total number of positive, negative, and neutral terms used. Thus, the obtained language abstraction scores ranged from 1 to 4 (the higher the score, the higher the language abstraction). Additionally, a value of zero was attributed to immigrant and Italian positive and negative abstraction scores whenever the article lacked positive or negative descriptions.¹ Means and standard deviations of positive, negative, and neutral abstraction scores for both immigrants and Italians for “La Repubblica,” “Il Corriere della Sera,” and “Il Resto del Carlino,” as well as overall abstraction scores, are shown in Table 2.

Table 2.

Means, Standard Deviations (in Parentheses), and Ranges for Abstraction Scores.

	Repubblica	Corriere della Sera	Il Resto del Carlino
Immigrant positive	1.43 (1.68), 0.00–4.00	0.87 (1.41), 0.00–4.00	0.55 (1.20), 0.00–4.00
Immigrant negative	1.83 (1.32), 0.00–4.00	1.65 (1.19), 0.00–4.00	1.56 (1.20), 0.00–4.00
Immigrant neutral	2.73 (0.65), 1.50–4.00	2.53 (0.64), 1.00–4.00	2.80 (0.81), 0.00–4.00
Italian positive	1.59 (1.58), 0.00–4.00	1.06 (1.50), 0.00–4.00	0.96 (1.37), 0.00–4.00
Italian negative	1.88 (1.58), 0.00–4.00	0.79 (1.28), 0.00–4.00	0.69 (1.28), 0.00–4.00
Italian neutral	2.14 (0.37), 1.25–4.00	2.03 (0.39), 1.00–3.04	1.96 (0.40), 1.00–3.00
Immigrant total	2.64 (0.53), 1.77–4.00	2.49 (0.54), 1.66–4.00	2.69 (0.61), 1.62–4.00
Italian total	2.27 (0.41), 1.25–3.23	2.09 (0.40), 1.00–3.12	2.01(0.45), 1.00–3.61
Positive total	2.36 (1.41), 0.00–4.00	1.49 (1.56), 0.00–4.00	1.16 (1.44), 0.00–4.00
Negative total	2.51 (0.91), 0.00–4.00	1.95 (1.07), 0.00–4.00	1.93 (1.07), 0.00–4.00
Neutral total	2.36 (0.30), 1.76–3.02	2.27 (0.36), 1.57–3.43	2.31(0.37), 1.25–3.33
Total	2.42 (0.30), 1.94–3.09	2.31 (0.31), 1.72–3.25	2.34 (0.34), 1.60–3.68

Results

Positive, negative, and neutral abstraction scores of immigrants and Italians were submitted to a 3 (newspaper type, “La Repubblica” vs. “Il Corriere della Sera” vs. “Il Resto del Carlino”) × 2 (target, immigrant vs. Italian) × 3 (valence, positive vs. negative vs. neutral) mixed-design ANOVA with repeated measures on the second and third factor. The ANOVA test was deemed appropriate, as it has been extensively used in previous research on linguistic abstraction in natural language (e.g., D’Andrea et al., 2015; Dragojevic et al., 2017; Menegatti et al., 2017; Prati et al., 2020; Prati et al., 2024; Rubini et al., 2007; Rubini & Menegatti, 2008). Furthermore, planned contrasts were employed to allow for the specific comparison between the two national newspapers [“La Repubblica = −1, “Il Corriere della Sera = 1, and “Il Resto del Carlino = 0] and between those outlets and the local edition of “Il Resto del Carlino” [“La Repubblica = 0.5, “Il Corriere della Sera = 0.5, and Il Resto del Carlino” = −1]. Mauchly's test of sphericity revealed that the assumption of sphericity was violated for valence (p < .001) and the valence × target interaction (p < .001). Consequently, Greenhouse-Geisser corrections were applied to the within-participant effects for these variables. However, as the corrected results were consistent with the uncorrected ANOVA results, the original ANOVA values were reported for simplicity. Levene's test for homogeneity of variances indicated that the assumption was violated for immigrant positive abstraction scores (p < .001) and Italian negative abstraction scores (p = .012), while it was met for all other dependent variables (.071 ≥ p ≤ .703). Therefore, to ensure robustness of results, non-parametric bootstrapping with 5,000 repeated sampling was employed following the guidelines provided by Cheung et al. (2023).

Main and interaction effects of the mixed-design ANOVA are displayed in Table 3, together with the 95% bootstrap confidence intervals. The two-way valence×target interaction (Hypothesis 1) was found to be significant. As reported in Figure 1, pairwise comparisons using Bonferroni showed that immigrants were described with negative terms (M = 1.63, SD = 1.22) and neutral terms (M = 2.71, SD = 0.74) at a higher level of abstraction than Italians (M_neg = 0.92, SD_neg = 1.40, p_neg < .001; M_neu = 2.01, SD_neu = 0.39, p_neu = < .001). There was no significant difference between immigrant positive (M = 0.79, SD = 1.39) and Italian positive terms (M = 1.10, SD = 1.46, p = .062). Furthermore, immigrants were described with positive terms (M = 0.79, SD = 1.39) at a lower level of abstraction than negative (M = 1.63, SD = 1.22, p < .001) and neutral (M = 2.71, SD = 0.74, p < .001) terms, and with negative terms at a lower level of abstraction than neutral terms (p < .001). Italians, conversely, were described with positive (M = 1.10, SD = 1.46, p < .001) and negative (M = 0.92, SD = 1.40, p < .001) terms at a lower level of abstraction than neutral terms (M = 2.01, SD = 0.39), while no significant difference in abstraction was found between positive and negative terms (p = 1.000).

Table 3.

Results of the Mixed-Design ANOVA on Abstraction Scores and 95% Bootstrap Confidence Interval [in Parentheses].

Effect	F	d1,d2	p	η²
Newspaper type	15.01 [5.55-31.84]	2,215	< .001 [.000–.004]	0.12 [0.05–0.23]
Target	19.39 [5.04–45.41]	1,215	< .001 [.000–.026]	0.08 [0.02–0.17]
Valence	120.12 [84.42–168.20]	2,430	< .001 [.000–.000]	0.36 [0.28–0.44]
Newspaper type×target	1.39 [0.06–8.75]	2,215	.252 [.000–.941]	0.01 [0.00–0.08]
Newspaper type×valence	3.59 [1.79–9.01]	4,430	.007 [.000–.130]	0.03 [0.02–0.08]
Target×valence	18.68 [7.31–37.72]	2,430	< .001 [.000–.001]	0.08 [0.03–0.15]
Newspaper type×target×valence	2.76 [0.93–9.19]	4,430	.027 [.000–.446]	0.03 [0.01–0.08]

Note. F = Fisher's F ratio, df = degree of freedom, η² = partial eta squared; N = 218; Robust results are highlighted in bold.

Figure 1.

Positive, negative, and neutral abstraction scores of immigrants and Italians in newspaper articles (N = 218).

The main effect of newspaper type was significant, too. When taking into consideration the two national newspapers vs. the local version of “Il Resto del Carlino” (Hypothesis 2), articles in the national outlets were found to be worded with terms at a higher level of abstraction than the latter (M_local = 2.34. SD = 0.34; M_national = 2.35, SD = 0.31, p < .001). When focusing on national newspapers only, “La Repubblica” (M = 2.42, SD = 0.31) used terms at a higher level of abstraction than “Il Corriere della Sera” (M = 2.31, SD = 0.30, p < .001) when describing immigrants and Italians.

Additionally, a main effect of target showed that immigrants were described with terms at a higher level of abstraction (M = 2.62, SD = 0.58) than Italians (M = 2.08, SD = 0.43). Finally, the main effect of valence was significant. Pairwise comparisons using Bonferroni specifically showed that newspapers used neutral terms at a higher level of abstraction (M = 2.30, SD = 0.36) than positive terms (M = 1.46, SD = 1.53, p < .001) and negative terms (M = 2.03, SD = 1.06, p < .001). Moreover, negative terms were significantly more abstract than positive ones (p = .007). No other significant effect was found (see Table 3). Robustness check for significant pairwise comparisons is shown in Supplementary Material, Table S3.²

Discussion

The present research aimed to investigate how the most read Italian newspapers with different political leanings, namely “La Repubblica” and “Il Corriere della Sera” at the national level, and “Il Resto del Carlino” at the local level of the Emilia Romagna region, portray immigration. At a time when immigration-related debates are increasing, existing studies have mostly examined linguistic abstraction and valence of terms in news about specific subgroups of immigrants (D’Andrea et al., 2015; Dragojevic et al., 2017; Mastro et al., 2014), leaving the broader topic of immigration understudied. Moreover, the joint influence of political orientation and the newspaper's coverage area on these linguistic features has been largely neglected. Coherently with the first research question (RQ1), this study tackled how linguistic abstraction and valence of terms, as subtle, implicit structural properties of language, are varied to convey a more favorable representation of the majority group (namely, Italian people and institutions) at the expense of immigrants, whose descriptions highlight stable negative traits and context-dependent positive characteristics (see Rubini et al., 2014 for a review). In a historical period of escalating polarization (Agovino et al., 2022), the study also aimed to assess whether linguistic intergroup discrimination toward immigrants differed between these two national newspapers with moderately divergent political stances (RQ2) and between those national outlets and the third, local one, to unravel the unique contribution of the newspaper's political orientation and area of coverage in shaping immigrants’ portrayals (RQ3). Furthermore, the present research also offered a new perspective by examining differences in linguistic abstraction between national and local newspapers. Overall, this study provides an innovative contribution by highlighting how stereotypes toward immigrants can be subtly yet pervasively conveyed in newspapers through linguistic features that are difficult to control.

The Role of Linguistic Abstraction in the Portrayal of Immigrants

The current study provided new evidence that language abstraction and valence of terms play a crucial role in the transmission and reinforcement of stereotypes. While Italians were described with positive and negative terms at the same level of abstraction, immigrants’ descriptions were characterized by negative terms at a higher level of abstraction than positive ones. In the same vein, immigrants were described with negative terms at a higher level of abstraction than Italians. However, this last result should be considered with more caution, as the 95% bootstrap confidence interval of the p-value for this pairwise comparison also included values slightly above the significance threshold. These findings reflect previous research on media portrayals of immigrants (e.g., Eberl et al., 2018; Sarah Liu, 2021), which has consistently documented the habit of associating immigration with negative information. Although these studies did not specifically focus on implicit linguistic features, the current results provide complementary evidence that this tendency appears to be mirrored in how descriptions are formulated beyond individuals’ awareness (Douglas & Sutton, 2003; Rubini et al., 2014). These subtle linguistic variations may be particularly detrimental because, in a period characterized by attempts to promote political correctness (Dekker & Duyvendak, 2024), language in highly circulated newspapers may nevertheless continue to reflect communicators’ (even implicit) negative stereotypes and influence recipients’ beliefs below the threshold of awareness.

In addition to the main results, immigrants’ descriptions were found to use terms at a higher level of abstraction than those of Italians, both overall and with respect to neutral terms. One possible explanation for this evidence is that immigrants may be perceived as less familiar and therefore more “distant” than people belonging to the same national group (Eyal et al., 2008; Trope & Liberman, 2010). This perceived distance, in turn, may encourage the use of terms at a higher level of abstraction. Even when not taking into consideration systematic variation in linguistic abstraction between positive and negative descriptions, higher levels of abstraction can make reported information seem more generalizable across different times and contexts (Beukeboom, 2025; Beukeboom & Burgers, 2019; Rubini et al., 2014). Consequently, this tendency may also contribute to the construction and reinforcement of less nuanced representations of immigrants.

Linguistic Abstraction in Different Types of Newspapers

These results confirmed that articles on immigration from the local newspaper are composed of terms at a lower level of abstraction. The current findings are in line with the expectation that reporting news from a narrower and closer context results in more detailed and concrete descriptions (Bhatia & Walasek, 2016; Trope & Liberman, 2010). Additionally, these results complement research on the use of linguistic terms varying in abstraction as a function of temporal distance (e.g., Prati et al., 2020; Soderberg et al., 2015), adding evidence on the relevant and yet neglected role of physical distance from events in affecting the abstraction of the terms used to describe them.

Furthermore, “Il Corriere della Sera” was found to use terms at a lower level of abstraction than “La Repubblica.” Reasons may be traced back to its more centrist, moderate alignment, attracting a diverse audience across the political spectrum (D’Andrea et al., 2015; The London School of Economics and Political Science, & Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 2023). Results seem, therefore, to support the evidence that language abstraction can be employed to persuade similar or dissimilar audiences (Menegatti & Rubini, 2013; Rubini & Sigall, 2002). More in detail, people at an uncontrolled level tend to use more abstract terms when addressing an audience with a similar view and more concrete terms when the latter is perceived as less aligned and heterogeneous or mixed, as is the case with “Il Corriere della Sera.” Concrete language, by offering more contextual and specific information, enhances the perception of the speaker's credibility and accountability, and it offers to those who need to be convinced more handling of evidence (Harmon & Mariani, 2024).

When taking into consideration linguistic abstraction and valence of terms in newspapers with different political orientations, the use of these linguistic features in immigrants’ portrayals did not appear to change between “La Repubblica” and “Il Corriere della Sera.” These findings could be considered similar to those of D’Andrea et al. (2015), who observed no difference in linguistic abstraction across moderately divergent Italian newspapers. However, unlike the present approach, their study focused on a specific criminal behavior (rape) and was conducted before the 2015 refugee crisis. Although this contribution addresses the broader issue of immigration at a time when public debate on the subject has significantly increased, the strategies of linguistic portrayal appear similar between the two outlets. On the same line, no differences were found in the linguistic portrayals of immigrants and Italians across the two national outlets and the local edition of “Il Resto del Carlino.” Despite the different areas of coverage and political alignments, it is plausible that newspaper-level characteristics are not sufficiently divergent to produce clear differences in linguistic intergroup discrimination, and that other factors (e.g., intergroup attitudes of journalists; von Hippel et al., 1997), exert a stronger influence.

Cognitive Implications of Biased Portrayal of Immigrants

The systematic variation of linguistic abstraction and valence of terms in newspapers can have profound effects on readers, influencing their attitudes about individuals with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. On the one hand, language abstraction can shape the way people perceive and construct social reality (Menegatti & Rubini, 2013; Semin, 2000; Wigboldus et al., 2000), by suggesting that some traits and behaviors, different from others, are more enduring and easily generalized across different contexts. On the other hand, the choice of more or less abstract terms is largely beyond cognitive control, with neither communicators nor receivers being fully aware of the consequences of describing different social groups at varying levels of abstraction (Douglas & Sutton, 2003; Franco & Maass, 1999).

Thus, negative linguistic portrayals could have detrimental effects in intergroup contexts, leading to insidious consequences that harm cohesion, particularly in ethnically diverse societies such as the Italian one. Abstract, unfavorable descriptions of immigrant people can lead to stronger attributions of individual behaviors to the whole group, much more than concrete language (Assilaméhou et al., 2013). On the same line, reading news describing ethnic minorities using abstract, negative terms may increase social prejudice among the readers (Geschke et al., 2010), particularly those who place greater value on their ethnic affiliation (Mastro et al., 2014). Despite the decline in overt forms of discrimination over recent decades, implicit linguistic biases remain one of the subtle strategies maintaining inequalities among different groups.

To prevent these negative outcomes, multilevel solutions are required (Bronfenbrenner, 1992; 2005). At the individual level, journalists should be made aware of the impact that their choice of words at varying levels of abstraction can have on their audience. Specifically, they should be cautious when selecting words to describe crimes committed by individuals with an immigrant background, avoiding highly abstract terms that imply stability of the depicted behaviors and their generalizability to the target's social group. Although no systematic research has yet explored whether individuals can be trained to control their use of concrete or abstract terms, it has been shown that they can inhibit linguistic bias when explicitly instructed to do so (Douglas & Sutton, 2003).

However, strategies at the individual level may not be sufficient, as they are likely to be effective exclusively for those who are motivated to avoid biased language (Dekker & Duyvendak, 2024). Moreover, such strategies may only yield meaningful results if publishers are also made aware of the dangers associated with systematic differences in the use of language abstraction (Geschke et al., 2010). Consequently, the adoption of organizational-level strategies—such as integrating natural language processing tools capable of detecting such variations during editorial review—appears warranted.

Importantly, linguistic biases in newspapers (and in media in general) may also have consequences at the macrosystemic level. Artificial intelligence tools, which are increasingly used and often trained on large datasets including journalistic content, may replicate and reinforce the implicit biases embedded in such language (Li, 2021). This, in turn, can contribute to the perpetuation of stereotypes and the deterioration of intergroup attitudes. Therefore, it is crucial to raise awareness of the risk that these technologies are not bias-free but rather reflect existing social prejudices (Schmeisser-Nieto et al., 2024). Developing unbiased systems may also benefit from the promotion of more inclusive language practices in the media.

Strengths, Limitations, and Suggestions for Future Research

The present research provides valuable and innovative insights into how immigrants are portrayed in the most mainstream newspapers in a country that has become emblematic of the impact immigration is having at present on political and public debate (Eberl et al., 2018; Iannelli et al., 2021). Its main strength lies in the analysis of the most widely read outlets—those most likely to shape public opinion—thus ensuring strong ecological validity and providing a representative snapshot of the Italian newspaper landscape. However, this focus did not consider the inclusion of newspapers with markedly different political orientations. Future research would benefit from expanding the sample to include a broader range of outlets, as well as both local and national editions for each newspaper. This would allow for a more extensive investigation of how newspapers’ political orientation and area of coverage shape linguistic intergroup discrimination.

Moreover, in the present study, it was not possible to directly assess the distance between the journalists and the events reported in the articles. For this reason, the scope of the coverage area (i.e., local vs. national) was chosen as a proxy for physical distance. Despite this limitation, the results provide a promising starting point for investigating how the latter may influence linguistic abstraction (Bhatia & Walasek, 2016).

Another important consideration is that this study focuses exclusively on Italian newspapers. This choice is justified by the fact that Italy represents a highly polarized context with respect to immigration, where the topic has long dominated both political and public debate (Binotto et al., 2016). Despite this contextual specificity, results are consistent with previous research on mass media use of linguistic abstraction conducted in other settings where immigration is equally salient and divisive, such as U.S. states bordering Mexico (Dragojevic et al., 2017; Mastro et al., 2014). These similarities suggest that these findings may serve to enlarge reflections on the risks associated with mass media's biased language use in strongly polarized environments. Future research should build on this work by employing larger corpora encompassing newspapers from different countries and extending the temporal scope beyond the current study's limited timeframe (January and February 2022 and 2024, as defined by the project's development timeline).

Finally, this research focuses on structural properties of language use in newspaper articles but does not examine their impact on readers. Therefore, studies addressing the recipient side are warranted. Future experimental research should investigate how portrayals of immigrants and majority members—varying in linguistic abstraction and valence—affect the audience's intergroup attitudes.

Conclusion

These findings advance past research on linguistic intergroup discrimination and mass media communication by offering a novel and ecologically valid perspective of the most read Italian newspapers with different political stances. For the first time, this research also examined how language abstraction varies depending on whether newspapers have broader (national) or narrower (local) coverage. It was found that national newspaper articles used overall terms at a higher level of abstraction than the local one. Additionally, while different newspapers did not show variations in language use, immigrants were systematically described using negative terms at a higher level of abstraction than Italians, as well as using negative terms at a higher level of abstraction than positive terms, while the same did not occur for Italians. Furthermore, they were also described using overall terms at a higher level of abstraction than Italians. These results, therefore, offer the opportunity to start reflecting on effective strategies to transform newspapers into instruments of inclusion and drivers of social cohesion.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-jls-10.1177_0261927X251413717 - Supplemental material for Portrayal of Immigrants in Italian Newspapers: The Role of Linguistic Abstraction and Valence of Terms

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jls-10.1177_0261927X251413717 for Portrayal of Immigrants in Italian Newspapers: The Role of Linguistic Abstraction and Valence of Terms by Chiara Bonechi, Elisabetta Crocetti and Monica Rubini in Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Shamina Kuddus and Stefano Mosetti for their precious collaboration and support during the coding and agreement procedure.

Ethical Approval and Informed Consent Statements

There were no human participants in this article and therefore informed consent was not required.

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (ERC-CoG IDENTITIES Grant agreement No. [101002163]; Principal investigator: Elisabetta Crocetti).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statements

Dataset, analysis scripts, data, to reproduce the results, and supplementary materials can be retrieved from .

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

ORCID iDs

Chiara Bonechi

Elisabetta Crocetti

Monica Rubini

Notes

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