“Dreamers” or threat: Bilingual frame building of DACA immigrants

Abstract

This research analyzes Spanish- and English-language news discourses in the United States following the announcement of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. It identifies how sources quoted by journalists affected framing of stories in five ethnic and general market newspapers. Coverage of Dreamers and DACA was generally positive, especially compared to common representations of undocumented immigrants as criminals and as a threat to the United States. Certain sources were a strong predictor for some frames about DACA, and undocumented people who arrived in the United States when they were children could be analyzed in communication research as a different category of immigrants than other adults.

News Media Representations: Audience Perceptions of News Frames About Latinxs and Hispanics

“…While Latinxs and Hispanics noticed most of the negative news frames about them, the analysis showed that the representation “Latinxs and Hispanics are employed in minimum-wage jobs” yielded no significant differences due to non-Latinxs/Hispanics also perceiving higher prevalence of that narrative in the news industry. The latter further expands the literature on the differentiated news-making process in relation to Latinxs and Hispanics (Guzmán, 2006; Rendon et al, 2019) and that Latino-related media content with a stereotypical approach can negatively impact this group’s own perception (Martins et al, 2022; Tukachinsky et al, 2017; Vaquera et al, 2022; Zaman & Das, 2021).…”

“…From a wider social perspective, this might be a signal that these sort of stereotypical constructs about Latinxs/Hispanics have taken deep roots in the collective imaginary (Taylor, 2004). As other studies have found, stereotypes tied to news frames have a significant impact on ethnic populations (Brown et al, 2018; Ramasubramanian, 2015; Rendon et al, 2019) and, as a possible solution, the inclusion of opposing frames (counterstereotypes) in media content has been suggested as a practice to support audiences in recognizing prejudices and biases that have been normalized by society (Ramasubramanian, 2007).…”

“…Later on, participants were asked how frequently they were exposed to news frames that were explicitly presented with a positive or negative valence in relation to the entire U.S.-born population before asking them the same questions but phrased in relation to Latinxs and Hispanics—with the understanding that the majority of Latinx/Hispanic individuals are also part of the entire U.S.-born population. News frames were selected using previous studies that have explored positive and negative news coverage of Latinxs/Hispanics (e.g., Abrajano & Singh, 2009; Díaz McConnell, 2019; Rendon et al, 2019; Reny & Manzano, 2016). While the employed frames are not inherently positive or negative, previous literature has found that specific narratives about Latinxs and Hispanics tend to be connected to representations with a positive, neutral, or negative valence.…”

Migration Coverage in Europe, Russia and the United States

“…However, the tone changes in coverage of young immigrants who benefit from the DACA program (known as "Dreamers"): Pro-immigrant quotes appeared over four times more frequently than anti-immigrant quotes (Patler & Gonzales, 2015). Rendon et al (2019) found that both English and Spanish-language newspapers present DACA as a sound public policy. A study of three media networks (CBS, Fox, NBC) found that reporting on Muslim refugees was predominantly negative, with terrorist activities and conflict accounting for 75 % of the coverage (Stone, 2017).…”

Teaching and Learning During A Pandemic: How one Graduate Community Psychology Class Quickly Incorporated Healing Justice Into Our Practices

“…One suggestion was changing the dominant narratives (Rappaport, 1995 ) surrounding undocumented groups, such as DACA recipients. An example of one such narrative is the bifurcation of immigrants into “good or deserving” (e.g., DACA recipients who are innocent because they were children when they came to the U.S.), or “bad or undeserving” (e.g., most immigrants without authorization to be in the U.S.; Rendon et al, 2019 ). We developed this project with the aim of DACA recipients being able to tell complex stories about them and their families.…”