Identifying Political Coalitions in Immigration News Media

• In Event: 20467 - Social Movements and Institutions in US Politics

Abstract

The selective policy frames in American immigration laws possess a certain influence that maintains the nation’s core position in the global system, as well as its economic and cultural interests, by adopting rhetorics that favor certain countries and immigrant groups with traits deemed high-status or high-preference. Over time, the de jure screening processes that determine a potential migrant’s “fit” in the United States become normative in society, shaping national sentiments on immigration. This paper seeks to interrogate the extent to which this process of selection is institutionalized not only in the law but also in news media, maintaining a system whereby certain social attitudes and cultural resources are legitimized across various societal arenas. The co-optation and reproduction of selective or preferential policy frames found in U.S. immigration law by news outlets may result in the formation of hegemonic political coalitions across institutions that are central to American society. Thus, this research asks: How closely are the selective and preferential rhetorics in U.S. immigration laws linked to that in national and local news media? Further, to what extent do political actors (news media) in the U.S. build coalitions around selective immigrant frames to communicate ideas about immigration? I use discourse network analysis, a technique that combines content analysis methods with network analysis, to (a) identify ideational congruence in selective immigration policy frames and rhetorics used in news media and (b) illustrate how news media discourses on immigration are network phenomena that form hegemonic political coalitions, thereby reproducing and maintaining the racial capitalist project on the country.

Author

• Temi Alao, Emory University