College - Author 1
College of Liberal Arts
Department - Author 1
Communication Studies Department
Degree Name - Author 1
BA in Communication Studies
Date
6-2026
Primary Advisor
Bethany Conway, College of Liberal Arts, Communication Studies Department
Abstract/Summary
Immigration has been a particularly controversial issue since the 2nd Trump Administration. There has been an increase in Immigration Customs Enforcement activity, including deportations and detainments of immigrants across the United States (Craft & Witherspoon, 2026). Given the uptick in media coverage regarding these events, it is essential to understand how this information is being presented to the public. The framing of news media impacts how the public perceives issues, determining the acceptable treatment of immigrants in our society. In this study, a content analysis was performed to determine the prevalence of generic immigration news frames following the start of the 2nd Trump administration. Articles were selected from three of the most prominent newspapers in the United States. The results indicated that the conflict frame, responsibility frame, and explanatory frame were the most prevalent, being found in almost all articles. The human interest frame was also found to be statistically likely to appear.
URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/comssp/287
Included in
Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Mass Communication Commons, Social Influence and Political Communication Commons