Migrant or Menace: Media Representations of the Pueblo Sin Fronteras Migrant Caravan

In March 2018, the Pueblo Sin Fronteras migrant caravan began making their way to the U.S. border, drawing political and media attention from the United States. News coverage of immigrants and migration events have historically been linked to negative topics, such as poverty, disease, crime, drugs, and threats to the American way of life. These negative themes emerged against the backdrop of the Trump administration and their use of inflammatory rhetoric, describing migrants as social, economic, and criminal threats to U.S. border security. To obtain a better understanding of the media’s construction of migrants fleeing to the U.S., we conducted a summative content analysis of online news articles from CNN and Fox News covering the 2018 Pueblo Sin Fronteras migrant caravan. This research found that while two sources can report on the same event, contrasting framing and contextualization can leave readers with extremely different messages. Implications regarding media influence on public understanding of and support for U.S. immigration policies are also discussed.