The cowboy and the goddess: Television news mythmaking about immigrants

Abstract

This is an empirical examination of contemporary US network television news stories about immigrants that is informed by myth and film genre scholarship. A review of a full year (2004) of network news programs determined that two age-old story-types constituted the base narrative of all the news reports regarding immigrant voyages and apprehensions. One ancient story-type, currently manifest as the American Western, occurs when the news story protagonist border patrol agent portrays the American cowboy archetype. A US foundational myth is based on this story-type. The second story-type derives from a journey myth of Inanna, a Sumerian goddess. These two millennia-old story-types accounted for all the network evening news stories immigrant reports. Western news stories rearticulate nationalism, while the Inanna news story contests the nation’s foundational myth. Thus, on this topic, journalists write about immigration to entertain and indoctrinate, as much as to edify.

Nerds, Maids, and Criminals: An Analysis of Immigrants on US Television

“…Popular culture is not just entertainment; it holds political power, for it shapes our understanding of what is “normal” and who is a “real” man, woman, and American. In Immigration and American Popular Culture , Rachel Rubin and Jeffrey Melnick analyze depictions of immigrants in films starting in the 1930s, claiming that “immigrants were at the heart of popular culture imagery and production … and popular culture helped produce and define various moments of immigration history” (3). They argue that “‘immigrants’ and ‘American popular culture’ have created each other” (3).…”

“…Similarly, Tormund Giantsbane, a respected warrior, speaks his mind and risks his life to protect the wall, which earns him Snow’s trust and makes him a stable element of the storyline. Such positive personifications of migrants are important, especially in a show that emphasizes the courage and valor of the people in charge of controlling the border, considering that Otta Santa Ana’s analysis of news stories about immigration reveals that a focus on border agents disproportionately portrays them as virtuous cowboys and immigrants as a “criminal menace” (97–98). When the Wildlings finally cross the border, they look worn‐out, hungry, and terrified.…”

People on the move: how museums de-marginalize migration

“…Understanding how museums mediate migration can throw into relief "wider political dynamics and policies on immigration in contemporary Europe" (Krzyżanowski, Triandafyllidou, and Wodak 2018, 4). Set against a borderline public discourse that normalizes refugee migration and its actors as (undeserving) fortune seekers, passive victims, and politically undesirable if not threatening (KhosraviNik 2009;Santa Ana 2015;Krzyżanowski and Ledin 2017), this paper shows how heritage museums portray migration as a lived and (re)liveable reality, generating a post-normalized, anti-borderline discourse if you will that de-marginalizes mass migration in an attempt to offer pleasurable and memorable visitor experiences.…”