Communications
Volume 43, Issue 3, 2018, Pages 357-378

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

Ogan C.* , Pennington R. , Venger O. , Metz D.
  • a Media School, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States
  • b Department of Media, Journalism and Film, Miami University, India
  • c Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, United States
  • d Boǧaziçi Translation Bureau, Muradiye Mahallesi, Istanbul, Turkey

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. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.

Author Keywords

Election news media Immigration Hillary Clinton Donald Trump

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85050734913&doi=10.1515%2fcommun-2018-0014&partnerID=40&md5=80d764bf3d295d31a17cf0c285f62f11
DOI: 10.1515/commun-2018-0014
ISSN: 03412059
Cited by: 4
Original Language: English