Who drove the discourse? News coverage and policy framing of immigrants and refugees in the 2016 U.S. presidential election

Abstract

Migration was one of the most important issues in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. While Hillary Clinton promised an immigration reform that would create a path to citizenship, Donald Trump said he would deport illegal aliens, build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and suspend immigration from countries with a history of terrorism, capitalizing on some of the public’s fears through his rhetoric. We examine the ways mainstream national and regional press covered this issue from the Republican National Convention through Election Day. This content analysis of 12 news outlets finds that political themes drove the coverage more than anything else, with Donald Trump or a member of his team most often serving as theme sponsor. Though about half of the stories were neutral or balanced in tone, negative stories were sponsored either by the Trump team or other actors.

Social Distance toward Syrian Refugees: The Role of Intergroup Anxiety in Facilitating Positive Relations

“…Although there are differences in acculturation preferences of immigrants and refugees across countries and our data come from the United States, it is important to bear in mind that integration is the key word for immigration and refugee policies for most governments in Europe and in Canada (UNHCR, ). In addition, most of the controversial debate about refugees promotes the idea that that they would not fit into their new receiving cultures (Ogan et al., ). However, our findings brought some evidence that it is not only the desire to fit in (which is represented by both integration and assimilation), but also giving up one's own culture that affects attitudes toward refugees.…”

“…On the other hand, in a study where Pakistani minority members indicated their cultural preferences, British participants favored integration more when it was in line with the minority preference; however, this was also moderated by the level of prejudice such that participants preferred integration when prejudice was low (Zagefka, Tip, Gonzalez, Brown, & Cinnirella, ). Accordingly, we conceptualized this relation from the opposite direction and tested whether learning about Syrian refugees’ preferred acculturation type would affect American's attitudes toward them, because much political and media discourse around refugees promotes the idea that refugees cannot fit into American society, and their cultural heritage corrupts American culture and values (Ogan, Pennington, Venger, & Metz, ). Therefore, it could be expected that Americans would be less prejudiced when they know Syrian prefer to leave their cultural heritage behind and fully adopt American culture.…”

Xenophobia towards asylum seekers: A survey of social theories

“…This has been documented at the level of political and media discourse (McKay et al 2011;Klocker and Dunn 2003;Ogan et al 2018;Pedersen and Hartley 2005;Briskman 2015), and frequently revealed in surveys of public opinion (Carson et al 2016;Markus 2013;Crawley 2005). Across the Western world, liberal democracies have implemented punitive 'deterrence' policies (Peterie 2019a;Mainwaring and Silverman 2017;Robjant et al 2009).…”

Trump’s US-Mexico Border Agenda: An Agenda-Building Examination of Candidate-Generated Messages

“…their difference and thus their capacity to contaminate, to cross over" (Richardson, 2017: 748). In a separate study, Ogan, Pennington, Venger and Metz (2018) examined the issue of immigration during the 2016 U.S. presidential election focusing on news coverage and policy framing. They content-analyzed several news media outlets across the nation: five national (two newspapers, two television stations, and one online site), two regional (newspapers only), and four covering communities with a large immigrant populations, from the opening of the Republican National Convention (July 18, 2016) to election day (November 8, 2016).…”