Colloquium Series: Kim Ebert, NC State University

“Apathy and Antipathy: Media Coverage of Restrictive Immigration Policy and the Maintenance of Inequality”

Although the government is no longer explicit in defending the boundaries of whiteness, it continues to play a central role in shaping symbolic boundaries between immigrants and nonimmigrants through immigration lawmaking. The salience of these boundaries, however, may depend on how they are disseminated to the public by means of the media. In this study, we investigate media framing of immigration policies using an original data set of news coverage of six of the most widely-recognized exclusionary immigration policies at different levels of government. Two patterns emerged from an iterative frame analysis. First, contrary to what one might expect, frames critical of restrictive policies devoted more attention to the effects for nonimmigrants, which demonstrated indifference to the plight of immigrants. Second, frames that were supportive of the restrictive legislation associated immigrants with criminality. Regardless of their ostensibly neutral stance toward restrictive policy, our findings indicate that outlets reinforce boundaries between immigrants and nonimmigrants through their disparate coverage of restrictive legislation, which has repercussions for the maintenance of inequality.