Municipal Immigration Ordinances: An Analysis Of Newspaper Coverage Of A Controversial Issue

In 2006, the cities of Farmers Branch, Texas, and Hazleton, Pennsylvania, attempted to enact municipal immigration ordinances. The Farmers Branch ordinance would have banned apartment owners or managers from renting to undocumented immigrants, while the Hazelton ordinance would have targeted those who rent to undocumented immigrants and those who employ them. This study looked at the local immigration debate through attribute agenda-setting and framing approaches found in mass communication research. Using content analysis it identified how often the media mentioned attributes important to opponents and proponents of the ordinances, as well as how often reporters used proponents and opponents as sources. Results indicated that the Dallas Morning News mentioned opponent attributes more frequently than proponent attributes, while the Hazleton Standard-Speaker mentioned proponent attributes more frequently than opponent attributes. It also looked at the frequency of the illegal "alien" frame, finding that reporters at the Hazleton Standard-Speaker more frequently used this term than did reporters for the Dallas Morning News.