Group Identity, Ideology, and Mass Media: Content Analysis of the 2018 Media Spectacles Family Separation and Migrant Caravan

Media content analysis prompts an examination of the process through which meaning making and identity is reflected in and simultaneously shaped by a commercialized mass media industry. Immigration coverage in mass media especially drives ideological identity work as national identity ideology becomes a debate between two politically distinct sides. This content analysis examines print and cable news coverage of two media spectacles involving immigration in 2018: family separation at the border and migrant caravans. This thesis examines the themes that emerge across politically diverse news outlets and categorizes them in terms of how the phenomena is represented among distinct group identities utilizing Ethnographic Content Analysis methodology (Altheide 1987). Findings show that as media outlets are both bound by and champions for their political ideologies, convincing the audience to feel one way in contrast to another way becomes a battle between the political left and right. During the 2018 border media spectacles, evidence employed by the media in this battle consistently included these themes: 1) lamenting childhood trauma and condemning those who caused it, 2) fact checking the enemy and delivering reality to the audience, 3) framing in political terms, 4) assigning a guilty party for the Latino Immigrant Issue at hand, and 5) asking who is responsible to then step up and address the Latino Immigrant Issue and at what cost to Americans?

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Grantor

Texas State University

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Smith, Marianne

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Pino, Nathan W.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Dietrich, David R.
• Agwuele, Augustine

• media
• group identity
• ideology
• immigration

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10877/8975

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digital.library.txst.edu:10877/8975