Subject Area
Politics
Description
Why do immigrant communities often express anti-immigrant sentiment? This study will focus on examining what political discourse about immigration dominates the news ecosystem of the Southcoast of Massachusetts, and what effect that discourse has. Immigration in the U.S. has become an increasingly politicized issue, dominating political discourse, motivating voter behavior, and shaping regional political identities. This study will use content analysis of Southcoast newspapers to examine how the local news frames immigration and discourse analysis to examine the opinions of everyday citizens revealed as by their social media comments on posts about immigration by the same local news sources. The findings show that the framing of immigration in local news on the Southcoast of Massachusetts negatively fuses the supposed criminality of illegal immigrants with the supposed burden they place upon the state and its residents. Furthermore, this discourse has encouraged an anti-immigrant sentiment even among historically immigrant dominated communities on the Southcoast, as evidenced by social media comments. These findings contribute to understanding the role of local media and political discourse in shaping attitudes toward immigration in diverse regions of the U.S., particularly in the under-researched Southern New England.
Publisher
Providence College
Publication Date
Winter 12-17-2025
Type
Thesis
Format
Text
.pdf (text under image)
Language
English
