Portrayal of Immigrants in Newsmagazines
Portrayal of Immigrants in Newsmagazines

Summary/Abstract: This article analyzes how United States newsmagazines represented immigrants in the aftermath of September 11th terrorist attacks. Methodologically, the paper uses the frame analysis from a social constructivist standpoint, identifying the four functions of frame, as defined by Entman. Three months prior to the attacks, newsmagazines framed immigrants as “needed” and, in most cases, they portrayed them positively. In the period after the attacks, the frame shifted and newsmagazines started representing immigrants as “feared”, potential harborers of terrorists, and so on. Before the attacks, illegal immigrants were represented as the greatest immigration problem. After the attacks, the attention of newsmagazines shifted to legal immigrants with terrorist intentions. The results suggest that the issue of immigrants and immigration policy in the media collided with the threat of terrorism as a foreign policy issue. Thus, it became a security issue that influenced the representation of immigrants. In newsmagazines’ portrayal of immigrants, political features became more prominent than economic ones.

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