Ebbs & Flows of Immigration Opinion: Contextual & Individual Factors

• In Event: Unpacking Immigration and Anti-Immigrant Attitudes

Abstract

This paper assesses the impact of potential sources of opinion change on the issue of immigration over the span of over two decades, analyzing the impact of individual receptivity, the content of news media messages, and social context. Trend data indicate that opposition to immigration increased sharply between 1992 and 1994 in the U.S., despite economic growth and expanded employment during the period, and again from late 2001-02 after the 9/11 attacks. This increased opposition diminished soon after these brief periods of intense opposition, and was low even in the politicized environment of the presidential election years of 2000, 2008, 2012, and 2016, remaining relatively stable even in the current heated public discourse on immigration and refugees. These trends indicate that mass opinion appears to respond both to some objective conditions and major events (such as 9/11) and some political discourse (e.g., elite criticism of immigration in 1992-94) but that mass opinion is not consistently responsive to influence.

To develop a theoretical and empirical account of these trends, in this paper I merge contextual data measuring 1) the content (positive-negative valence) and volume of local and national news media coverage of immigration, 2) local economic conditions and 3) local immigration flows, with individual-level data on 4) political attitudes and 5) media exposure from the ANES time-series studies. The analysis includes cross-sectional data but focuses on ANES panel data from the 1992-94, 2000-02-04, and 2008-09-10 panels. The analysis will assess the impact of both individual-level and contextual variables and their interaction effects on individuals’ opinions.

These data permit testing of the separate and joint impact of these contextual and individual factors on mass attitudes toward immigration, informed by theories of media exposure during periods of opinion formation and crystallization, and theories about how response to changes in individuals’ social and political context are mediated by information and political leadership. The empirical approach utilizes multi-level modeling and graphical representation to evaluate the theoretical models of the impact of the individual, informational, and demographic factors that may contribute to both rapid and massive attitude change and to relatively stable attitudes during different periods, and will provide an assessment of whether the various influences on individual opinion are consistent across time, or vary during periods characterized by differing political events and informational environments.

Author

• Christopher Muste, University of Montana