What the Press Reveals about "the Unemployed": A Lexicometric Analysis of 12,996 Articles from French Written Newspapers from 2005 to 2022

Unemployed people face a negative stigma leading to adverse outcomes. However, its origins, content, evolution, and transmission remain understudied. Integrating social psychology and communication studies, we use lexicometric methods to analyze 12,996 articles on “the unemployed” published in the French press between 2005 and 2022. We show that unemployed people are largely invisible in the media, are mostly portrayed as dehumanized economic, political, or welfare issues requiring control and sanction procedures rather than individuals, and that unemployment is mostly individualized. When they are visible, which is rare, unemployed individuals are portrayed as persevering and willing poor men in need of guidance and support, who adhere to a strong social norm to work and take personal responsibility for their situation. Different discourses about unemployed people emerge both from political leaders in a top-down approach, and from liberal-left and local newspapers in a bottom-up perspective.