The limits of the graphic narrative of migration in the public media discourse and the human rights approach

The intensification of violence and the violation of human rights in migratory crises is currently a central theme in the experimentation of graphic narratives, which have given rise to the hybrid and critical genre represented by the graphic chronicle and the graphic novel of migration. The verbo-visual treatment is analyzed in the series of twelve graphic chronicles of migration "My life as an immigrant in Chile" (2018) of Sabado Magazine, in the newspaper El Mercurio, an agent of public discourse that has consolidated stereotypes and prejudices about the migrant population. Through qualitative content analysis of the image -text articulation, the verb -visual strategies of the graphic chronicle of journalistic and literary tone are examined. The elements that confer authenticity, reliability and veracity to the chronicle were established according to the use of testimony, portraits of the protagonists and contextual data. Likewise, literary elements were determined such as the staging of vulnerability, enhancement of the cultural fabric, multiple narrative voices and the recreation of resilient resistance, which together allude to the human rights perspective. The graphic chronicle intensifies the use of the testimonial voice and omits the author (witness), but the latter appears in the verb -visual articulation in biases and introduction of the ambiguity of migration experiences, and in the relationship with the "distant near". The graphic chronicle of migration can be significantly modulated by the mediatized public discourse, weakening its critical reading of reality.