Media, Entertainment, and Its Effects on Immigrant Perception

Media images for a long time have been the subject of criticism as far as how it can

manufacture an image. This concept of “cultivation theory” as created a lot of stereotypes for a

lot of groups. The image of the immigrant that is often seen is that of the Hispanic asylum

seeker, a person from a poor country who are often depicted as helpless and faceless. Or for

entertainment, the gardener or maid that can struggle to speak English. Often media can push

false narratives and ideas about a group and foster negative perceptions wthin a community that

can be potentially damaging longterm.

When Googling the word “immigrants” and looking at the news section, you will see the

top results are usually negative keywords like “trafficking,’ “smugglers” and “illegal” used in

nearly every title on the first page. Or if you go to the immigration news sections of most

publications you will see a primary focus on Latino people. So it begs the question, does this sort

of coverage have effects on a typical American’s perception of these peopleand in an immigrant

hub like Arizona, what effects can that have?

According to CNN, this year alone, border authorities have encountered more than 2

million migrants attempting to make their way into the United States. This has been for a

multitude of reasons from climate change, to poverty rates, to even large crime rings that harass

the populace of both Latin American and Mexican countries for money they do not have. Poverty

has barely decreased in these Latin countries from an average of 30% to around 29%, and

employment is not much better, according to a World Bank study from 2022. The question

remains, however, if the mainstream media, both in entertainment and in the 24 hours news

cycle, is properly covering these nuances and portraying neutral images.

 Jessica Morales is an example of an immigrant who takes some issue with media

immigrant relations. Morales came to the US as a teen and currently resides in Goodyear,

Arizona. Her oldest daughter Jaelynn recently graduated college with a bachelor’s in psychology.

Morales feels like that the perception of people like her is wrong and that “the media usually has

it wrong.”

“People did everything possible to communicate, after learning English, some people

thought I didn’t know it, said Jessica Morales an immigrant to the United States. I also noticed

with time people think because you’re an immigrant you must be poor.”

However, these feeling are not anecdotal and the effects of negative media images have

precedent to be damaging and the media has shown to have a lot of influence in constructing

ideas for people who use the 24 hour news cycle to understand what is happening.

“Media can certainly construct reality for people, but it can also reflect what they believe

people’s reality already is,” said Elizabeth Harris, a sociology professor at Arizona State

University. Harris believes that media can have an effect on people’s perception of any group

and immigrants are no exception.

The wording of a story has been found to have a massive impact on the watcher’s and

reader's perceptions of the topic being covered. For immigration, a common and controversial

buzzword that has been used in reporting is “illegal.” Many Reporters are told not to use the

word “illegal” but many sources still do and the damage of its use may be done. A 2022 study

by Fl Perspectives cited recent research that showed that White people tend to see Latinos as

“illegal” as that is how they’re usually portrayed in mainstream media outlets. The study also

looked at the Arizona Republic’s coverage of immigrants over 16 years and found that there

were nearly 350 total articles covering immigration and crime and about 45% of them were
negatively coded. Considering that Arizona is a hub for migrants seeking asylum or a new home,

having inappropriate language could be damaging. And alongside the racial profiling of Latino

immigrants by large scale public figures such as Joe Arpaio, Arizona media has crafted a poor

image of immigrants. The concept of the “illegal” immigrant coming to cause crime and amongst

other things has lead to a lot of public fear and misconceptions.

“The fact that we refer to people as ‘illegal,’— if I jaywalk or drive when my driver’s

license has expired, you don’t refer to me as an ‘illegal woman,’” noted Harris, who spent many

years studying ways to integrate migrants ethically into the United States. “But this one

particular act of violation of immigration laws, is a basis for just grabbing humans as illegal?”

The word “illegal” may seem like a semantic issue, but a lot of immigrants take offense

and even argue that it affects their lives daily. Many activists have latched onto the term as a

prime example of poor coverage and understanding of Hispanic immigrants in the United States

with a lot of groups adopting the slogan “No One is Illegal” to push back against this conecpt of

illegal people.

Itzia Crespo, a recent Arizona State University graduate and a child of two Mexican

immigrants said she feels negative depictions of immigrants in the media affect her daily life

through little comments.

“I moved here when I was months old and I’ll still do job interviews where I mentioned I

was born in Mexico and raised here,” Crespo said. “And I’ve had people be like ‘wow, your

American accent is so good’”

Crespo has worked in media for her time in university as well as professionally and still

feels “some sort of stigma” around her family’s country of origin.

 Crespo’s experience of feeling judged and stereotyped as something else automatically is

not an anecdotal one but one that is common amongst the Latino community due to images that

are pushed through the media about Hispanic immigrants.

It doesn’t always have to be some heinous conscious act. It can be as simple as negative

media stereotypes. TV and films commonly paint immigrant Latinos as criminals or maids rather

than fully fleshed-out people. The National Hispanic Media Coalition's Study on stereotypes'

effects on the Latino population found that in TV and film they are seen as criminals 71% of the

time.

Latinos and especially immigrants do not have a voice in this media battle. Only about

7% of films released in 2019 have a Latino lead and again only about 7% of people in the

journalism field identify as Latino. So there is not a strong base to push back against possible

inhuman coverage of migrants.

How changes can be made to curve this issue has been a debate that raged on for many

years. The institution of media in the United States has been powerful and largely white for a

long period of time. How the issue can be resolved is uncertain but it seems that they are people

on the inside who want to change things in order to be more inclusive.

“I’m perceived automatically as someone with a bias, whereas cis-straight white men are

perceived as people who don’t have a bias, when, no, that is their bias, said Crespo about her

time in newsrooms. In America, they are just seen as the default. That is horrible and we are

hoping to dismantle that”

 Sources:
Human:
● Elizabeth Harris: echarri9@asu.edu

● Itzia Crespo: 623-340-4583

● Jessica Morales- 623-296-8160

Non-human:
● (The Language of Immigration Coverage: The Arizona Republic and Media’s Role
in the Production of Social Illegality: Daniel R Alvord and Cecilia Menjívar)-
https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/07311214211040
845

● (Perceived Threats and Latino Immigrant Attitudes: How White and African
American College Students Respond to News Coverage of Latino Immigrants: Yuki
Fujioka)- https://www-tandfonlhttps://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/
doi/pdf/10.1177/07311214211040845ine-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/pdf/
10.1080/10646175.2011.546743?needAccess=true

● The Impact of Media Stereotypes on Opinions and Attitudes Towards Latinos-

National Hispanic Media Coalition-
https://www.nhmc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/LD_NHMC_Poll_Results_Sept.
2012.pdf
● US border encounters top 2 million in fiscal year 202: Priscilla Alvarez-
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/22/politics/border-encounters-migrants-
2022#:~:text=SUS%20border%20authorities%20encountered%20more,more
%20than%201.7%20million%20encounters.\