How Do You Portray Me? Media Coverage of Immigration

Immigration has once again become a highly charged issue in American politics. Primarily using experimental data, many scholars have attributed the intensity and nature of public opinion on immigration to the framing and priming power of the media. Yet, in order to estimate the extent of these and other potential effects, we must first understand the nature and complexities of this media coverage. Thus, in this paper which will be an opening chapter in my dissertation on immigrant specific information and its effect on immigration policy preferences, I take a step back and address the question: How has the national media covered immigrants? I employ a content analysis on articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today from January 1 2009 to August 31, 2010 to address this question. The descriptive account of immigration coverage in the media will not only build upon previous studies of immigration and race coverage in the news, but will also identify future areas of inquiry for media effects