SUMMARY

      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.

KEY WORDS: immigrants, U.S. newsmagazines, frame analysis, September 11th, terrorism, social constructivism

      The initial interest in this topic arose from my personal experience of entry in the United States after September 11th 2001. Immigration procedures are even stricter now. The time to obtain the necessary documents to live and work in the United States legally – like a visa, or working permit – has almost doubled when compared to the period before that tragic event. The immigration issue has always been a topic of heated public debate, especially after the war on terrorism was declared, and when the criticisms of Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) were already stated.

      The United States developed under the strong influence of waves of immigration since the late 18th century. The impact of immigrants on American everyday life is well known. One needs only to examine the cultural, ethnic, racial, religious, or, say, culinary diversity of the New York City, for example, to understand it. For many immigrants, America seems like a promised land where they are welcome and helped to overcome the difficulties of their entry.

      But when it comes to actual acceptance and treatment of immigrants, or media coverage of this issue in the United States, we obtain a different perception. There are a lot of diverse responses: from the positive, which praised their contribution to the United States, to the highly negative, even racist, which were also shaping immigration policy. That is why some writers label this response as “the ambivalent welcome” (Simon and Alexander, 1993), or “the paradox” (Dinnerstein and Reimers, 1999). In their excellent book Ethnic Americans: A History of Immigration, Dinnerstein and Reimers summarise this paradox as follows: “Whereas on the one hand we have welcomed strangers to work and live among us, on the other hand we have scorned and abused immigrants or minority groups who have deviated from the dominant culture” (Dinnerstein and Reimers, 1999: 2).

      The media role in this debate should be considered because media form an important part of this process of representation of immigrants in public discourse by framing the issue for further discussion, and interpretation for the audience. Also, September 11th attacks – the event that was chosen as a determining point of this study – can be seen as the “key event” that “not only lead to an enormous amount of coverage, but also shape subsequent coverage” (Brosius and Eps, 1995: 393). A lot of media coverage has been devoted to different issues and policies analysed through the prism of the terrorist threat since September 11th attacks. This is important because it can tell us how immigrants are covered and if there was a shift in their portrayal after September 11th.

      Immigrants have been arriving to the United States continually since it was established. A few distinctive characteristics differentiate the incoming groups based on the time of their arrival and the region they came from. There have actually been three waves of immigration to this country.

      According to the historical study of Dinnerstein and Reimers (1999) the first wave – old immigrants from Northern and Western Europe fleeing poverty, religious intolerance, social gradations, and political upheavals – occurred between 1789 and 1890s. Concurrently, there was a physical and economic growth of the United States in the 19th century and a need for cheap labor that would exploit its resources by building infrastructure.

      As they explain (Dinnerstien and Reimers, 1999), the next wave consisted of “new” immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, and from Japan – influenced by economic hardships and despair – that occurred between 1880 and 1920. The industrial sectors of the United States, at that time, were in need of cheap labor in coalmines, textile mills and agriculture (Dinnerstien and Reimers, 1999).

      The third wave of immigrants, according to these authors, is largely a twentiethcentury phenomenon and consists of Hispanic migrants from Mexico and the Caribbean, refugees from World War II and communist regimes, and Asians and Latin Americans. Those immigrants fled from the emerging Nazi regime, the horrors of World War II, and the later expansion of communist regimes, as well as economic hardships. During the war, the American and Mexican governments started the so-called bracero program, which involved importation of contract laborers to work in fields and on the railroads (Dinnerstein and Reimers, 1999). There was also a shift in new policies that showed a more liberal spirit in American thinking. They offered “a new preference system that favored family unification, occupational skills, and refugee status” (Dinnerstein and Reimers, 1999: 102).

       There are various factors that shape immigration. On the one hand, there was a context in their countries of origin and, on the other hand, there was a positive or negative context in the United States that influenced how newcomers were treated. And since these factors change over time, there has also been a change in the number, origin and characteristics of immigrants that enter this country. Other factors include the response of the native population and the creation of laws that shape the immigration policy. These waves of immigration were often followed by waves of native hostility and distrust (Frey, Abresch and Yeasting, 2001; Dinnerstein and Reimers, 1999; Blau, 1998). Some groups of immigrants had an easier transition while others had a harder time upon their arrival. The outcome depended on how they were perceived in comparison to the dominant culture that has its roots in the protestant ethic of the initial Anglo- Saxon settlers, as well as the economic and political conditions in the United States at the time of their arrival (Frey, Abresch and Yeasting, 2001; Dinnerstein and Reimers, 1999; Falk, 2001; Blau, 1998). The responses stated above are also connected with relevant legislation that set the pace of immigration.

      In 1790, the process of naturalization begins. Citizenship is granted to free white persons who have lived in the United States for two years or longer (Frey, Abresch and Yeasting, 2001). It was followed by “the restrictions era” from 1890 to the mid-1960s: the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was passed, which suspended Chinese immigration; literacy requirements were introduced to restrict immigration; the Johnson Act or Quota Act (1921) capped immigration at 3% of the population of country of origin according to the 1910 Census; the National Quota Act or Johnson-Reed Act (1924) set national quotas at 2% of the 1890 population (Simon and Alexander, 1993).

      Their intention was to limit Southern and Eastern European immigration because it was perceived as more troublesome than “old immigration” (Frey, Abresch and Yeasting, 2001). After the war, the McCarran-Walter Act eliminated race as a bar to immigration and reaffirmed national quotas. It limited immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere to 150,000, with no limit placed on the Western Hemisphere, and provided a more thorough screening of immigrants, establishing a preference for those with skills or relatives in America. It had discriminatory provisions that targeted Asians (Dinnerstein and Reimers, 1999) and made no provisions for refugees (Simon and Alexander, 1993). The Immigration Act or the Hart-Celler Act of 1965, eliminated the quota system and established an annual limit that allowed each country the same number of immigrants per year. It establishes a limit of 170,000 from the Eastern Hemisphere, while the Western Hemisphere has a ceiling of 120,000.

      The Acts that followed raised the numbers of legal immigrants. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986) provides amnesty for many illegal immigrants, and also tougher measures to reduce illegal immigration. The Immigration Act of 1990 increases immigration (excluding refugees) to 700,000, albeit reduced to 675,000 in 1995.

      It also created three legal grounds for admittance: family reunification, employment, to benefit U. S. economy, and diversity. In 1996 the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act was passed. It strengthens agencies like INS, tightens restrictions against illegal immigrants and procedures for asylum seekers, and strips public benefit rights from legal immigrants by introducing welfare cuts.

      The outcome of this immigration legislation with the numbers for the year 1998 is as follows: 660,477 legal immigrants entered the United States that year. The legal grounds for admittance were family unification (72%), employment (12%), diversity (7%), and other (9%). On top of that, 44,829 refugees, and an estimated 275,000 illegal immigrants entered during that year as well (Frey, Abresch and Yeasting, 2001).

      This section will deal with debate in public discourse about immigrants in the United States and its link with the current context of immigration. Simon and Alexander (1993) argued that the debate over immigration, in the context of the decreasing number of immigrants from western and northern European countries, has not substantially changed over time. They demonstrate how opinion shifted on a par with pro and anti-immi- gration attitude extremes, and how some debates have been present since the late 19th century: they take jobs from and lower wages of native workers; they increase the number of poor by competing for health, education, and other social services; and, to a lesser extent, they are “different” from the natives, especially the lastest arrivals (Simon and Alexander, 1993).

      The “new immigration debate” of the 1990’s, according to Dinnerstein and Reimers (1999), reflects changes in the United States. One such change is in the composition of the country’s population. Latino immigrants, with their high birth rates, will in the first half of the 21st century become the second largest ethnic group, in so doing pushing blacks into third, while whites will account for less than 60% of the United States population. The second is the “sluggish” economy of the late 1980s and early 1990s that raised economic, environmental, and bilingual education programs and bilingual ballot concerns. As they put it, “the new arguments for immigration restriction centered on environmental concerns, economics, faults of the present system, and assimilation issues” (Dinnerstein and Reimers, 1999: 202).

      This is also reflected in the press and the way immigrants feature disproportionately in “bad news” items (Miller, 1994). The three most influential broad topics of public discourse about immigration so far, then, reflected concerns about its impact on economy, culture and politics of the United States in a certain context. This research intends to examine how the recent change of context in the United States influenced the perception of immigrants in the media.

      The September 11th terrorist attack happened in the period after the restrictions in Immigration Legislation had been introduced and the heated debate over the inefficiency of INS had already taken shape. Although most Americans look at the INS as an inept bureaucracy, INS reform was not perceived to be an important political issue; this perception changed after the terrorist attack and many Americans now view the issue as a matter of national security (Immigration Services Reform, 2002). It shaped the govern- ment’s response: it declared war on terrorism, fought a war in Afghanistan, and started the war in Iraq. In the political arena, these events have had a significant impact on other political issues, immigration being one of them.

      According to Altheide, “any serious analysis of American life and culture – and increasingly, much of Western culture – must consider media materials” (Altheide, 1996: 45). The media not only produce and distribute information, but are also one of the “public forums” of public discourse that actively participates in the social process of the construction of meaning. The media’s content is informed about events that occur in other public forums, but it also influences what other public forums themselves have to say (Gamson, 1988). This paper will focus on a framing approach to investigate the content of “media materials”. According to Altheide, frame, discourse, and theme are “overlapping concepts that aim to capture emphasis and meaning” (1996: 28) as a key category in most qualitative studies.

      In his seminal work on framing, Goffman defines frames as “principles of organization which govern [social] events” (1974: 10). Newsgathering, as a type of social activity, and a part of the social construction of reality, is therefore inevitably subject to framing. In Making News, Tuchman (1978) applies the concept of framing to newsgathering, and since then many studies and theoretical debates in the field of mass communication research have revolved around this approach to media text.

      Entman (1993) defines framing as a fractured paradigm that needs to be reconstructed and synthesized in order to avoid casual definitions. He suggests the following definition of framing that includes the four functions of media frames:

To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular (1) problem definition, (2) causal interpretation, (3) moral evaluation, and/or (3) treatment recommendation for the item described (Entman, 1993: 52).

      Entman (1993) asserts that frames are only partially defined by the salience of certain information in the text, while the omission of information is equally important, yet often ignored. Similarly, Altheide notes, “Frames are the focus, a parameter or boundary, for discussing a particular event. Frames focus on what will be discussed, how it will be discussed, and above all, how it will not be discussed” (Altheide, 1996: 31).

      In his response to Entman, D’Angelo (2002) argues that there is no need for a unified, single paradigm of framing research. Although framing really does have a “scattered conceptualization”, the usage of the three different “paradigmatic perspectives”, or theoretical backgrounds, in framing analyses – cognitive, constructionist, and critical – has “led to a comprehensive view of the framing process, not fragmented findings in isolated research agendas” (D’Angelo, 2002: 871). For constructionist scholars, journalists are “information processors who create ‘interpretative packages’ of the positions of politically invested ‘sponsors’ (e.g. sources) in order to both reflect and add to the ‘issue culture’ of the topic” (D’Angelo, 2002: 877). Frame is for constructionists, as D’Angelo explains, a “tool kit” out of which the audience takes information in order to create their own reasoning about what was noted.

      Gamson and Modigliani (1989) argue that media discourse consists of sets of frames that cluster in interpretive packages. Although packages allow for a certain degree of disagreement among frames used to construct them, the overall message of a package is unmistakable and clear. Three broad ideas may determine the influence of packages: cultural resonances (packages that resonate with larger cultural themes are more powerful), sponsor activities (certain agents promote their agenda through public relations) and media practices (journalists tend to place trust in official sources). The authors distinguish the following five framing devices: (1) metaphors, (2) exemplars, (3) catchphrases, (4) depictions, and (5) visual images.

      In another attempt to define framing more precisely, Scheufele (1999) proposes a typology that takes into account two dimensions: (1) media versus individual frames and (2) independent versus dependent frames. Closest to the perspective of this research is the notion of media frames as dependent variables, which focuses on “extrinsic and intrinsic factors influencing the production and selection of news” (Scheufele, 1999: 109), such as professional routines of journalists, pressures of interest groups, social norms and values, and ideology. According to Scheufele (1999), social constructivism combines strong and limited media effects: on the one hand, media have strong effects in construction of social reality via frames; on the other hand, media effects are limited by interaction between media and its audiences pre-existing schemata.

      Several analyses of news coverage of immigration have been conducted (Migration World Magazine, 2001; Miller, 1994; Simon and Alexander, 1993; Short and Magana, 2002). Although frame analysis was not used, these analyses provide some insight into the study of news content on immigration that was conducted before the framing approach gained importance.

      In his study of immigrants and their contribution to “bad news”, Miller (1994) found press comment in the following fields: crime, culture clash, legal status, economic cost, welfare benefits, employment, and immigration policy. He went on to define the problems that are connected with this negative portrayal: (1) the drive to give the (concerned) audience what they want, (2) the lack of knowledge about immigration policy among reporters, and (3) the influence of interest groups with their agendas that have access to news. Finally, he proposed quality reporting as a response to these negative portrayals (Miller, 1994).

      In their study of immigration in the United States, Simon and Alexander covered the “new immigrant” period from 1880 to 1990, when “the movement to restrict immigration gained ascendancy and when the first major restrictive pieces of immigration legislation were enacted” (Simon and Alexander, 1993: vii). It was based on a statistical overview of immigration, public opinion, immigration legislation, and a survey of U.S. magazine coverage on immigration. Of special interest for this paper is the part that analyzed the following newsmagazines: Time, Life, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. The themes were stated chronologically: 1930s and 1940s dealt with how many refugees and displaced persons should be admitted and from which countries; 1950s theme was the McCarran-Walter Act; 1960s were all about the Hart-Celler Act that dealt with the errors of the McCarran-Walter Act; 1970s and 1980s themes were legal and illegal Mexican immigrants and the refugees (Simon and Alexander, 1993: 241–242).

      Migration World Magazine (2001) analyzed news items regarding immigration after the collapse of the World Trade Center. It covered a round-up of stories that appeared after that event: the affect it had on immigrant neighborhoods in New York (Little Italy and Chinatown); George W. Bush’s statement against attacks on Muslims or Arabs; the increase of examples of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab reactions, as well as some positive reactions; the civil liberties vs. security debate among Americans that put a burden on those who didn’t look “suitably American”; and the effect on legislative changes. That led to the establishment of military tribunals, new anti-terrorism laws and a system for tracking admitted individuals that will most likely target the student visa (Migration World Magazine, 2001).

      Several studies that focused on immigration, on the other hand, used frame and discourse analysis as an approach to studying the content of the news (Brosius and Eps, 1995; Domke, McCoy and Torres, 1999; Hufker and Cavender, 1990; Triandafyllidou, 1999).

      In her study, Triandafyllidou (1999) investigated how Italian press-discourse of immigrants as “other/foreign” shaped Italian national identity by drawing symbolic boundaries. She used national identity dimensions, which included ethnicity, culture, territory, language, religion, civic traditions and national character. Triandafyllidou concluded that presenting the immigrants in such a way re-defined Italian national identity by highlighting the differences between immigrants as outsiders and Italians as insiders (1999).

      Domke, McCoy and Torres (1999) conducted an experiment in which they altered the news frame of immigration to examine how media coverage of political issues affected the public in forming political judgments and associating it with racial cognitions. They gave their subjects the same articles on three issues (tax cuts, crime, and education), while the immigration issue was framed differently for various subjects – as either material or ethical in nature: material values stressed practicality, economics, or tangible resources; ethical values stressed human rights, personal responsibility, or morality (Domke, McCoy and Torres, 1999). They concluded that “a) news coverage influences the considerations that individuals draw on in thinking about political issues … and b) news coverage of issues also influences which racial cognitions are activated and how strongly those cognitions are linked to political judgments” (Domke, McCoy and Torres, 1999: 590). The example of welfare – publicly discussed in material terms – suggests that a crucial factor in this relationship is how it is framed by elites and the media, because “the linkage between citizens’ racial perceptions and the issue may be strengthened by an emphasis during discourse on material concerns, because of the central role of these features in the political conversation” (Domke, McCoy and Torres, 1999: 591). Ethical concerns, on the other hand, tend to weaken, not replace, the material concerns that the elites used to frame immigration in the 1990s (Domke, McCoy and Torres, 1999).

      In their study of news selection that triggered political debate on violence against aliens and asylum seekers in Germany, Brosius and Eps (1995) focused on “prototyping through key events.” The four covered events of hostility towards immigrants, which they identified, became prototypes for news coverage of similar events that then had a higher chance of being published. These four events became key events that “not only lead to an enormous amount of coverage, but also shape subsequent coverage” (Brosius and Eps, 1995: 393). In terms of framing approach, it was felt that key events influence what and how media select and report on the issue and “through priming or framing, events might also guide the positive or negative evaluation of issues or persons” (Brosius and Eps, 1995: 408).

      The study of Hufker and Cavender analyzed how the Cuban immigrants that left Mariel Harbor were depicted in the U.S. press by relying on the approach – important for their study – that news, as well as identity, are socially constructed realities (Hufker and Cavender, 1990). After examination of the articles, they summarized types of reference of immigrants: “refugees” were neutral; “political refugees” were positive; and “undesirables”, “mental cases”, “homosexuals” and “criminals” were negative (Hufker and Cavender, 1990). Following the news that Castro was getting rid of the disreputable elements of the Cuban population, the initial positive frame became negative, consisting of three themes: (1) anti-Cuba/Castro, (2) the undesirable elements, and (3) a stigmatized population (Hufker and Cavender, 1990). The factors that led Americans to “an overwhelmingly negative definition of the Mariel immigrants” (Hufker and Cavender, 1990), they concluded, consisted of their competition for scarce jobs, their race, media construction of the story, and the context.

       Immigrants can expect a variety of responses to their presence in the U.S. after fleeing their own country’s religious, economic or political difficulties, according to a review of the literature. The way they are perceived, or the status they have, is closely determined by the domestic context in the U.S. itself, and the foreign policy America leads towards the region from which they came (Frey, Abresch and Yeasting, 2001; Dinnerstein and Reimers, 1999; Falk, 2001; Blau, 1998). The related press involves, broadly speaking, issues of economy, history, culture and politics (Migration World Magazine, 2001; Miller, 1994; Simon and Alexander, 1993).

       Some authors suggest (Domke, McCoy and Torres, 1999; Miller, 1994) that public discourse about immigration in the United States has recently stressed the material impact of immigration and has a distinct racial subtext. The discourse of different public figures also puts forward social stereotypes (Short and Magana, 2002) and strengthens national identity by making distinctions between us and them, between insiders and outsiders (Triandafyllidou, 1999). On the other hand, the way immigrants are framed and portrayed in the media can also affect whether they are seen as a positive or negative force for the United States. Negative portrayal can lead to the stigmatization of different groups (Hufker and Cavender, 1990). Finally, portrayal of immigrants can be affected by a certain key event that can become a prototype of subsequent news coverage that exemplifies certain issues and neglects other (Brosius and Eps, 1995). It must be noticed, however, that among methods used in the analysis of immigrants in the press, content analysis is favored while frame analysis is infrequently used. The frames were primarily defined as positive or negative, or as economical or moral in nature. This paper intends to investigate frame construction of the issue of immigration beyond the simplistic approach that looks at a positive or negative assessment of the press.

      The social constructivism approach, as used in this paper, stresses a social construction of reality via frames. The perception of the situation and the actors involved is, therefore, subject to the process of constructing news and identity around the issue of immigration and immigrants. It is also subject to change through time and context. This social constructivism approach is combined with Entman’s frame analysis (Entman, 1993) that stresses 4 functions of the frame: (1) defining problems, (2) diagnosing causes, (3) making moral judgments, and (4) suggesting remedies. Common cultural values are first used by the media to label the problem. Then, actors (forces) that created the problem are identified. Next, the actors are morally evaluated by the media. Lastly, remedies that will resolve the problem are offered. This approach and the literature review suggested the following research questions for this paper:

1. How immigrants were portrayed in U.S. newsmagazines throughout the period under study?

2. Was there a change in their portrayal throughout the period under study, particularly after September 11th terrorist attacks?

      This framing study analyzes media coverage of immigrants in three bestselling American newsmagazines – Time, U.S. News & World Report and Newsweek – three months before and three months after September 11th attacks, from June 11th, 2001 until December 11th, 2001. This paper, then, will deal with newsmagazines in particular. In his study of the press, Gans concluded that:

The magazines come out after all the headlines are known, they review the major events of the week, summarizing and integrating the daily newspaper and television reports into a single whole, and speculating, when possible about the future. They also add details that their daily peers may have ignored or failed to notice… (Gans, 1979: 4).

      Newsmagazines, then, summon all the available news perspectives on the issue, which makes them a practical research target, especially when a researcher is constrained by space, time, and resources available. Moreover, Simon and Alexander concluded that the issues and topics among newsmagazines they studied were considerably related, although their amount of coverage was not equal (Simon and Alexander, 1993). That is why I decided to examine the U. S. newsmagazine framing of immigrants as a whole. The three newsmagazines¹ were chosen because of their mainstream position in the national market, and their influence both in the United States and around the world.

      The data for research on U.S. newsmagazines was gathered by using the Lexis- Nexis search engine for the keyword “immigrants”. The search produced 78 articles that mentioned immigrants – 37 from Newsweek, 31 from Time magazine, and 10 from U.S. News & World Report. Newsweek had 21 articles before Sept. 11th attacks and 16 after, Time printed 19 articles before and 12 articles after and U.S. News & World Report published 7 articles before and 3 after. Direct quotes from the journalistic articles were cited by the name of the newsmagazine.

      In the first phase of the research, all articles were carefully read. During the second reading of the text the framing devices defined by Gamson and Modigliani (1989) were noted on analytic sheets. Due to the nature of this research, special attention was also paid to the usage of stereotyped images as means of detecting frames suggested by Entman (1993). In the second phase of the research, the text noted on analytic sheets was revisited. The results were then grouped as the reoccurring themes of the frames emerged. As all of the text included in the research was not equally informative, the amount of articles examined was significantly reduced in the second phase of research. The analysis of articles was divided in two periods – before and after Sept. 11th – to examine whether there was a change in the immigrants’ portrayal.

      In the first phase of the analysis, the articles examined in Time, U.S. News & World Report and Newsweek produced 10 complementary themes, which confirmed that the U.S. newsmagazines should be interpreted as a whole. As the main frames emerged, further interpretation of data consisted of revisiting the original articles, reshuffling the data, and collapsing the themes. The analysis of the U.S. newsmagazines resulted in an elaborate frame that was interpreted in terms of the four functions of frames defined by Entman (1993), both before and after the attacks.

A) Needed: benefits of their labor

      Before Sept. 11th, the newsmagazines framed immigrants as “needed”. They framed high numbers of “northward-bound aliens” and their illegal immigrant status as problematic. They were portrayed as “audacious migrants,” as “hardworking immigrants,” who are a useful necessity for the economy. Benefits of immigrant labor were stressed: they revitalize areas where they live and work; they can solve the problem of labor shortage, they bring color to the neighborhood. The newsmagazines’ framing of immigrants before Sept. 11th as “needed” can be explained by Entman’s (1993) functions of the frame: (1) problem definition, (2) diagnosing causes, (3) moral evaluation, and (4) suggesting remedies.

      The first function of the frame is to label the problem. The newsmagazines defined the problem dually by framing, on the one hand, the high number of immigrants. In particular, the unresolved status of millions of illegal immigrants living in the United States – most of them from Mexico – was framed as problematic. Their problematic illegal status has a related meaning, not explicated, in terms of their working status as an illegal work force that needs to fill tax revenues.

• Between 6 million and 12 million illegal aliens live in the U.S., the majority are from Mexico and most move through Arizona (Time, June 11, The Coyote’s Game).
• From Los Angeles to Brooklyn, legions of the nation’s approximately 8.5 million illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Latin America, are working at construction sites, offices, and private homes on a day-to-day basis (U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 3, What’s In A Days Work).
• And that is due largely to an influx of new immigrants, mainly from Asia and Latin America; the number of Mexicans in the city, for instance, has grown 236 percent since 1990, and the number of Indians 118 percent (Newsweek, Aug. 6, The New New York).

      Also, immigrant deaths and troubles connected with their crossing the border were framed as a part of the problem of the high number of illegals, too. The presented examples of their difficulties showed that nothing will stop them, and that their determination to start a different life in the United States is greater than their fear of risks involved when crossing the border. Since it is so difficult to cross, people who enter the United States illegally stay there. Thus, the border only magnified the number of illegal immigrants and did not reduce it.

• Each night border-patrol agents round up 500 [illegal aliens] and next morning return them to Mexico, only to have them start all over again the following evening. It’s a never ending drill, often with life-and-death stakes (Time, Jun. 11, The Coyote’s Game).
• [The armed agents] capture and return thousands of illegal entrants every day. Precisely because the border has become more difficult to cross, illegals are staying longer than ever (Newsweek, Sept. 10, Why The Caged Bird Sings).
• About 400,000 Mexicans cross over every morning to shop or visit; yet they cannot work or stay more than a few days. Several thousand try to sneak across each night, but most are caught by the border patrol; those who make it disappear into the underground economy. A tiny number apply for visas to live and to work in America legally, but most are rejected (Time, July 30, Out Of The Shadows).

      On the other hand, the newsmagazines also framed the economic and political impact of these immigrants and the benefits of their presence. It was a device used to construct disbelief among readers about the worthiness of existing immigrants’ status. It showed how the relationship between illegal immigrants and the host country, the United States, had become interrelated and co-dependent. The immigrant offers labor and vitality, which are needed in the United States in times of recession.

• [The new immigrants] are heading not for Manhattan, but for the more remote outer boroughs… where housing is cheaper, job opportunities abound and there are plenty of derelict neighborhoods ripe for revitalization. … The numbers make it clear just how prominent certain immigrant groups have become… (Newsweek, Aug. 6, The New New York).
• … entire sectors of American business have become dependent on low-wage illegal laborers to wash dishes, pour foundations, plant impatiens and butcher cattle. … Bush will score points among Hispanics for staring down his party’s xenophobic wing (Time, July 30, Out Of The Shadows).
• The GOP hope is that Hispanics, who tend to be socially conservative, will follow the patterns of Italians, Irish and most other immigrants and vote more Republican as they prosper. … the big winner, naturally, is corporate America. … immigration is a big social plus, spurring entrepreneurship and restoring national vitality (Newsweek, Sept. 10, Crossing The Next Frontier).

      The second function of the frame is to diagnose causes. The newsmagazines identified actors, or forces, that created the problem. One is the problematic situation in their native countries. It is created by forces that make immigrants’ everyday life difficult or impossible – like natural disaster, war, economic despair – and which make them flee their native land in search of a secure life. For example, apart from giving examples of contemporary economic hardships in Mexico, the newspapers often used narration in a form of historical overview to show how those events shaped the immigrant flow even before this particular case.

• … millions of people have sought the shelter of Lady Liberty, flying poverty, famine, war and persecution overseas (Newsweek, Aug. 6, The New New York).
• Gonzales [the illegal alien] has a 40-acre farm in Durango, but half of it is covered with cactus, and the beans he grows earn him less than $ 5 a day (Time, June 11, The Coyote’s Game).
• … the economic imperatives that drives them [immigrants] (Time, July 30, Out Of The Shadows).

      Smugglers, who were portrayed as ruthless and earning vast amounts of cash on the back of human misery, were presented as the other cause of the problem. They enable illegal immigrants to cross the border and follow their routes and contacts in order to join family members living in the United States; some of them entered the United States illegally as well. Therefore, they facilitate and manufacture the chain of illegal immigration towards the United States. Under the current situation, the flow of people is highly regulated, and thus guidance of illegal immigrants is as profitable an enterprise as drug smuggling.

      

• … Ana is expecting a call from the smuggler, instructing her to send a $1,600 money order to Phoenix, Arizona. Ana has agreed to put up the money, as her sister did for her (Newsweek, Sept. 10, Why The Caged Bird Sings).
• … people smuggling is nearly as profitable as drug smuggling in some parts of Arizona, and there is some evidence that drug cartels are expanding into the human trade (Time, June 11, The Coyote’s Game).
• … the most regulated commodity on the border is people. Mexicans who want to move to the U.S. find a door that’s been dead-bolted – but cheesed with countless tiny holes (Time, July 30, Out Of The Shadows).

      The third function of the frame is to make moral judgments. The newsmagazines framed immigrants through their moral lenses as eager and determined to succeed in the land of opportunity, presenting examples of their wish to educate themselves, make sacrifices and climb the economic ladder of the host country. The United States has always seen itself as a country that accomplished its magnificent achievements based exactly on that kind of reasoning. Those who follow the rules and the prescribed working ethic are often rewarded and respected.

• While the debate goes ahead, Moreno waits: “Others are born here and quit, yet I wasn’t and I still want to keep going” (U.S. News & World Report, June 25, A Border To Cross). [The quote refers to this immigrant’s desire to study in the United States in spite of the possibility that the bill that would allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition won’t be signed.]
• “It is a dream to be here. But it can be very difficult.” It’s a refrain that echoes back generations. Starting over is never easy. But for now, it seems, the cycle of sacrifice, education and upward mobility that has defined America is alive and well again in the Bronx (Newsweek, Aug. 6, An Urban Revival).
• … the ethnic groups get along – often much better than they do at home. … Asians, and to some extent West Indians, he points out, are being deracialized because of their upward mobility. They’re following in the footsteps of Italians and Jews, who in the early 1900s were seen as inferior, “mongrel” races, but gained respect with their success (Newsweek, Aug. 6, Tea And Silk Slippers).

       The issue of other nations’ immigration policies was morally evaluated to show the supremacy of the United States as a leader in immigration policy. In those cases, problems with illegal immigrants in other countries were more salient than in the case of the United States. The stance of Europe and Mexico, for example, toward illegal immigrants was depicted as far worse than that of the United States. It was used as a summarizing device that constructed a broader moral understanding for the need to take action and to justify the position of a leader.

• … documented 2,406 deaths throughout Europe, most since 1996. By comparison, 1,013 Mexican immigrants, out of a much larger influx, have died crossing into the United States in the last four years… (Newsweek, Aug. 13, Storming Fortress Europe).
• Perhaps the best test of a society’s attitude towards immigrants is the way it treats those at the bottom: the illegals. They may have to swim the Rio Grande, but illegals are far more free to live and work without hassle in the United States than in Europe. … The life of an illegal is much more difficult in Europe (Newsweek, Aug. 13, Out Of The Shadows).
• … is turning on its own undocumented migrants. … Mexico has never been exactly gentle with illegal immigrants (Time, Aug. 13, A Bus Ride Across Mexico’s Other Border).

      The fourth function of frame is to suggest remedies. There was a dual remedy suggested by the newsmagazines. On the one hand, they offered legalization of the illegal immigrants’ status as a remedy to the problem of large numbers of illegal immigrants in the country. It was presented as a reward for their contribution to “the American way of life”. Their illegal status causes more problems than benefits. They live and work in the United States illegally; the United States benefits from their labor, but it does not offer them any security. There is a need to formalize and document their numbers – to keep the public aware that the immigrant issue is under control.

• … unchecked immigration doesn’t help this country, if for no other reason than it makes it seem out of control (Newsweek, Aug. 17, Between The Lines Online: Keep Bringing You Tired, Your Hungry?)
• Both sides envision a new system… Eventually, that would allow millions of people to stop living in the shadows (Time, July 30, Out Of The Shadows).
• … the most sweeping reform to U.S. immigration policy in two decades, a plan that could legalize several million undocumented workers. … such a law would simply formalize what already exists in the United States: a growing embrace of immigrants, legal and illegal (Newsweek, Sept. 10, Why The Caged Bird Sings).

      On the other hand, the newsmagazines also framed a concern that an amnesty plan – giving legal status to Mexican illegals currently working in the U.S., allowing them to apply to become guest workers or citizens – could cause a flood of new immigrants coming into the United States. President Bush needs to be cautious, especially in the case of illegal Mexican immigrants, who already contributed to the last flood of illegal immigration since the amnesty in 1986. Moreover, Vicente Fox, president of Mexico, has had a very impressive campaign in which he advocated even greater concessions for illegal Mexican immigrants.

• … President Bush has to consider the threat that a plan to legalize undocumented workers could create a flood of migrants drawn by success stories like Ana’s (Newsweek, Sept. 10, Why The Caged Bird Sings).
• Bush wants to expand guest-worker privileges… and help certain successful illegal aliens get green cards – without encouraging new waves of Mexicans (Newsweek, Sept. 10, Crossing The Next Frontier).
• The proposed changes would basically decriminalize migration from Mexico, so it is reasonable to ask whether the Fox-Bush plan would unleash a mighty tide of new immigration. That’s what has happened during the last amnesty, in 1986 (Time, July 30, Out Of The Shadows).

B) Feared or unwanted: terrorists among them

      After Sept. 11th, the newsmagazines started framing immigrants as feared, or unwanted. Immigrants that come to the United States were framed as “potential terrorists”, they were presented as possible harbors for terrorists. Since some of the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks had overstayed their visas, immigration policy was linked to security and tighter control. The issue of the inefficiency of the INS was posed again, but from a different angle this time.

      The newsmagazines defined the problem by framing the threat of potential terrorists among the many immigrants that enter the United States and the fear and worry connected with it. In their stories, the newsmagazines emphasized that a link had been recognized between migration flows and terrorists who strategically use them to their own ends. And, for the first time, doubt was cast on admitted legal immigrants and the motives behind their entry into the United States. Are they just ordinary immigrants who work and study or are they terrorists in disguise?

• “Now we are seeing illegal immigration as a terrorism concern,” says a foreign diplomat in Islamabad. “Even people who emigrate legitimately – doctors, lawyers, computer engineers – could have terrorist links. What about all those unknown people being smuggled in, who haven’t gone through [immigration] procedures?” (Newsweek, Nov. 5, The Great Escape).
• Of all the frightening lessons America has learned since Sept. 11, one of the scariest must be how absurdly easy it was for the bad guys to get into the country and stay. The hijackers didn’t slink across the border at midnight or flash expertly forged passports; 13 out of the 19 en tered this country legally… (Time, Oct. 29, Borderline Competent?)
• Sixteen of the 19 hijackers in the recent terrorist attacks came into this country legally, and many overstayed their visas (U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 8, A Welcome Mat For Terrorists).

      Additionally, the newsmagazines presented the problem more saliently by framing the responses that followed after the attack. The attack was unpredicted, sudden, and, above all, it targeted Western icons on the U. S. territory that aroused confusion by the lack of information on the number of people involved and the magnitude of the event. On the one hand, public responses showed fear and concern regarding foreigners in general, but specifically those presumed to be of Arab or Muslim origin. On the other hand, law enforcement responses raised doubts concerning violations of civil liberties in case of immigrant detention. These responses implicitly raised the question of differentiating between those who are suspected to be terrorists from ordinary immigrants.

• … many detainees have been charged with immigration violations or other crimes unrelated to terrorism. Yet some have been imprisoned for weeks in cramped conditions, often without access to telephones or Muslim meals, according to their lawyers (Time, Nov. 5, Hitting The Wall).
• [Suheira] has remained strong for her immigrant parents, who, after 10 years on Staten Island, were being shunned by neighbors because of their Arab ethnicity. … Ahmed’s family is concerned that he may be “racially” profiled within the military, just as other Arab-Americans in civilian life have been since Sept. 11 (Newsweek, Oct. 15, Muslim Warriors–For America).
• No reform can solve the central question bewildering the agency: how to separate the many who want to tour Disney World from the few who might blow it up (Time, Oct. 29, Borderline Competent?)

      The newsmagazines identified the forces that had created the problem, framing it as a legal issue. Lapses in immigration and law enforcement were stated and became narrowly connected with the unsatisfactory strategy of INS, thus developing into a security and border control topic. Namely, the INS was more concerned with the U.S. – Mexican border than with the screening of those who apply and get visas to enter the country legally and the ones who seek asylum. Those who overstay their visas were now a cause for alarm. Lapses in intelligence gathering and monitoring of immigrant infractions were identified as the main reasons the attacks had succeeded.

• The Immigration and Naturalization Service, the federal agency charged with screening those who would cross the borders, “has essentially evolved into a welcoming agency,” says Jim Dorcy… (Time, Oct. 29, Borderline Competent?)
• … perhaps no oversight was as glaring as the lapses in immigration enforcement that let terrorist obtain and overstay simple visas (U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 8, A Welcome Mat For Terrorists).
• How easy is it to make oneself over into a desperate Afghan refugee who deserves asylum in the West? Thousands of Pakistanis, Iranians, Central Asians and other Muslims have done it. Last week I did it, too (Newsweek, Nov. 5, All Papers In Order) [American investigative reporter, the author of these lines].

       The newsmagazines morally evaluated the situation by framing the righteousness and good intentions of the United States that were abused by those who differ from its values and norms. This evaluation was conducted in terms of differences between the Western civilization and Islam. It was used as a justification for the proposed remedies and for the evolving detainee crisis that raised concern among civil liberty activists and other immigrants with immigrant infractions. The following examples show how the frame functions. It only gave examples of the benefits that the United States brings to the world of the oppressed, while its problematic foreign policy in the Middle East and its effect on the region were completely omitted (except in the letters of a few magazine readers).

• Alone among the great civilizations, this country embodies the simple idea of making a better life. Other countries celebrate military conquests, religious devotion and ideological grandeur. … The mongrel mixture of the Trade Center offends Osama bin Laden and his band of puritans (Newsweek, Sept. 27, An Immigrant’s Faith).
• “This is not a battle against Islam,” says Uqdah, founder of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council. “Even the president has said that. It is a battle against tyranny, against individuals behind hideous crime” (Newsweek, Oct. 15, Muslim Warriors–For America).
• They exploit tolerance to preach intolerance. … They may preach jihad not just abroad but at home, inciting violence against the very state that shelters them. How did it come to this? Like the United States, Europe has fallen victim to its own good intentions (Newsweek, Nov. 5, Tolerating The Intolerable).

       The newsmagazines offered following remedies to resolve the problem. On the one hand, they suggested fighting the root of the problem that raised fears among Americans – the terrorists. On the other hand, as constituting part of the terrorist threat, immigrants and immigration policies were revisited – tighter security and a new INS were proposed as remedies. The newsmagazines presented it as a safeguard zone against immigrants with suspicious background or even terrorist intentions. The measures consist of splitting the INS bureaucratic apparatus into two more efficient parts, more thorough background checking, stricter law enforcement and enhanced cooperation between security agencies.

       Some newsmagazines described it as “the immigration crackdown” (Newsweek, Dec. 4, A Neighborhood Challenged).

• … a welter of ideas for change, including a mammoth electronic database to track the comings and goings of all foreign visitors. … A rotating team of up to 1,000 INS agents works with the FBI to spot – and detain – suspects with immigrant infractions (Time, Oct. 29, Borderline Competent?)
• More probable is a reorganization that would split the INS into two, with one division to enforce the law and the other to provide immigration services and benefits (U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 8, A Welcome Mat For Terrorists).
• Western governments are desperately trying to plug the leaks. They’re planning deportations, tightening political-asylum procedures and detaining immigration offenders (Newsweek, Nov. 5, The Great Escape).

       The aim of this study was to analyze how three U.S. newsmagazines – Time, U.S. News & World Report and Newsweek – portrayed immigrants in the three months before and after September 11th terrorist attacks. It was also intended to compare the two periods and observe whether there was a change in their portrayal, following that change in context.

       In the period before the terrorist attacks, newsmagazines framed immigrants as “needed” because the United States benefits from their work, articulated by the four functions of frame that Entman (1993) defined. First, the problem was defined dually: on the one hand, the high number of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico, and deaths and difficulties they encounter while crossing the border were stressed; on the other hand, it was highlighted that their presence benefits the country politically and economically. Second, the troubled situation in the immigrants’ native countries and smugglers who help them cross the border were identified as the cause of the problem. Third, in the moral evaluation of the situation, the newsmagazines portrayed the United States as a land of opportunity, and a leader in immigration policy among Western nations. In order to further enhance such an image of the United States, the immigrants were portrayed exclusively as eager to succeed in such a country. Forth, the newsmagazines suggested a remedy to this problem: legalizing illegal immigrants’ status, but without allowing new waves of immigrants.

       In the period after the terrorist attacks, the newsmagazines framed immigrants as “feared or unwanted”, because they were primarily portrayed as a population that harbors terrorists. First, the problem was defined as a threat from potential terrorists among immigrants, and the immigrant population was suddenly depicted as the main source of such a threat within the country. The media gave voice to many public responses that expressed fear, particularly towards those presumed to be of Arab or Muslim origin, which enforced such impressions. The question raised was how to differentiate between ordinary immigrants and those with terrorist intentions. Second, the cause of the problem was identified as a legal issue: lapses in immigration and law enforcement were emphasized, and it presumed that security/control should be fortified. Third, the situation was morally evaluated by framing the United States as a righteous country with good intentions, a country that had been abused by those who differ from its values and norms. Forth, the newsmagazines offered the fight against terrorism, tighter security/control and a “new INS” as a remedy to the situation.

       In the period before the terrorist attacks, the frame was more difficult to detect, primarily because it was broader in scope. Nonetheless, the main topic it elaborated was economic, while the targeted immigration group was Mexicans. This resonates with suggestions by other authors (Domke, McCoy and Torres, 1999; Hufker and Cavender, 1990; Miller, 1994), which argue that race and material concerns play a significant role in the representation of immigrants. When the immigrants’ race differs from the politically dominant whiteness, they are presented negatively in the public sphere. The immigrants’ image is also tarnished when they are described through a cost-benefit frame, in which they are presented as a burden to the welfare program, or a job-stealing population.

       In the case of Mexican immigrants, and, more generally Latinos, the newsmagazines reported mainly on their positive impact as a politically and economically growing force in the United States. Corporate America’s needs for cheap labor was emphasized, as was the need to legalize “illegals” without creating new waves of immigrants. Implicitly, the neo-liberal ethics of work and success were assumed by the media, along with the democratic tradition that favors human rights. Thus, right before the attacks, Mexican immigrants relinquished the role of a political scapegoat, which they had occupied until recently, mostly because they were economically problematic and politically weak (Domke, McCoy and Torres, 1999; Short and Magana, 2002). But then September 11th attacks happened, and the portrayal of immigrants and topics related to them completely changed in the newsmagazines.

       In the period after the terrorist attacks, the frame was much easier to detect and more simple. It can be explained by the event that caused a real alert in the U.S. foreign policy. An unexpected attack on American soil resulted in a strong answer from the press. The main issue became politics, and the targeted immigration groups became Arabs and Muslims. The attacks can be viewed as a key event, a concept that is often used in the theory of media portrayal of terrorism (Brosius and Eps, 1995). The “outstanding” nature of the key event can “confront journalists as well as recipients with a relatively unknown situation which is difficult to evaluate and classify” (Brosius and Eps, 1995: 394). The attacks received intense coverage at the beginning, and had a lasting impact on all the subsequent coverage: most stories evolved around the negative impact of the event; they targeted Arab and Muslim immigrants, and linked the problem of easy-going immigration procedures with terrorism in the United States and the rest of the world.

       Since the main actors of that event were identified as Muslim or Arab terrorists, this frame collided with the dominant Orientalist discourse in Western media (Said, 1978). The Orientalist discourse in the newsmagazines used stereotypes to present “unwanted elements” in the explanation of the causes of the attacks. Interestingly, the old question of border control was shifted to focus on immigration control at airports and to stories of detainees with immigrant infractions. In his study of the Mexican – U. S. border, Shome suggested that space and territory play an important part in the shaping of immigrant identity through its power “of containment and control that function to e/race the body ‘out of place’” (Shome, 2003: 45). The tighter immigration procedures – detaining suspects and a tighter airport control being leading examples – now function to erase possible terrorists out of the immigrant body, along with immigrants with immigrant infractions. Before the attacks, illegal immigrants were the most salient part of the immigrant body that the newsmagazines represented as problematic. After the attacks, for the first time, the part of the immigrant body that is represented by the newsmagazines as problematic are immigrants that entered the United States legally, but with terrorist intentions.

       As Entman reminds us, frames play “a major role in the exertion of political power and the frame in a news text is really the imprint of power” (Entman, 1993: 55). The newsmagazines stressed the need to fight terrorism globally. Also, more control and monitoring in the case of immigration procedures were advocated and the problem of civil freedoms in the emerging detainee situation was noted. The results suggest that the description of the social structure in the United States through the economy – politics – culture order of forms of power (Katunarić, 1994) have altered after the attacks. Political features became more important than economic ones, while cultural features became more elaborate than before the attacks. According to Katunarić, “economic crisis and disorganization in nonwestern countries necessarily put military-political power in the front stage, and economic stagnation and eventual deterioration in the West would probably manufacture the same result” (Katunarić, 1994: 63).

       The results suggest that the U.S. media underwent a similar shift in the face of the September 11 attacks. Immigrants are held hostage in a situation caused by foreign policies and terrorist responses to them: they are detained and racially profiled. The degree to which the analyzed pre- and post-September 11 notions on immigration compete with one another in immigration policies after September 11 is a suggested topic for further research. Moreover, there is the need to further investigate the link between immigrants, racial profiling and civil rights in the global context of war on terrorism.

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Goran Goldberger

PRIKAZIVANJE IMIGRANATA U POLITIČKIM TJEDNICIMA

SAŽETAK

       Ovaj članak analizira kako američki politički tjednici prikazuju imigrante nakon terorističkih napada 11. rujna 2001. Metodološki, u tekstu se koristi frame analiza iz perspektive socijalnih konstruktivista i identificiraju četiri funkcije framea koje je definirao Entman. Taj kvalitativni pristup analize teksta i značenja koje on stvara predstavlja školu ograničenog utjecaja medija; oni utječu na društvo putem frameova, ali javnost ima svoje vlastite sheme koje limitiraju frame. Tri mjeseca prije napada politički tjednici prikazivali su imigrante kao »potrebne« i u većini slučajeva portretirali su ih pozitivno. U razdoblju nakon napada, frame se pomaknuo i politički su tjednici počeli prikazivati imigrante kao one »kojih se ljudi boje«, kao moguće utočište terorista, predstavljajući ih više negativno. Prije napada, kao najveći imigracijski problem poimali su se ilegalni imigranti. Nakon napada, pažnja poli- tičkih tjednika bila je usmjerena na legalne imigrante s terorističkim pobudama. Ti rezultati sugeriraju nam da se pitanje imigranata i imigracijske politike u medijima sudarilo s prisutnom opasnošću od terorizma, kao pitanjem vanjske politike. Prema tome, ono je postalo sigurnosno pitanje koje je utjecalo na to kako su imigranti bili prezentirani. U političkim tjednicima, u prezentaciji imigranata, politički aspekti dobili su veću važnost od ekonomskih uslijed terorističkog napada na samom američkom tlu.

         

KLJUČNE RIJEČI: imigranti, politički tjednici, frame analiza, 11. rujan, terorizam, socijalni konstruktivizam Goran Goldberger