Reporting immigration

Analyze how concerns related to immigration are reported by major news agencies, and how these might reinforce or challenge the dominant discourse on immigration.

First, pick a specific news issue related to immigration concerns or the border that you can connect to class themes and key concepts from the last week on uneven development, borders, and geopolitics. Now find at least 2-3 different news sources that are reporting on the same news issue but come at it from divergent political stances (e.g. Fox vs. Guardian vs. CNN).

Your sources must be at least the equivalent of a 1-page word document in length, and even more importantly, they should provide a base from which to analyze the discourses around immigration using class concepts. It is also important that your news source has a clear opinion being stated, rather than merely reporting the news. For instance, an editorial piece where you can identify who is writing and what they are trying to communicate.

For the definition of discourse, return to Sparke’s definition (Pg. 29) and the entry on ‘discourse’ in the Dictionary of Human Geography (Under Week 11 module). There is no need to read the entire definition instead start with the last paragraph on Pg. 166, “Within human geography, the use of the concept of discourse..”.should include a brief (3-4 lines) summary of each of these articles and then explicitly state at the start which class concepts/themes from the last content week you plan on tying these news articles to.

A few questions to think through for your analysis: What is the dominant discourse on immigration when it comes to US government policy today? In the news reports, whose fears are being privileged? Are immigrants being humanized or dehumanized through this news reporting? How are these articles challenging or confirming the dominant discourse? If these articles rely on statistics or external reports: find out where they come from if you can (i.e, if they are provided by a particular think-tank or research institution: what is their political leaning, who funds and works in them?). What information is left out? Why might that be significant?