Docile, criminal, and upwardly mobile?: Visual news framing of Mexican migrants and the logics of neoliberal multiculturalism

This study examines visual and textual representations of Mexican migrants in English-language photojournalism over the course of a decade. We find three clusters of representations: (1) male laborers portrayed as outside the bounds of society but often unfairly victimized (2) migrants portrayed as...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Latino studies 2019-06, Vol.17 (2), p.225-256
Main Authors: Maher, Kristen Hill, Elias, Jesse
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Criminal law
Cultural and Media Studies
Cultural Studies
Demography
English language
Ethnicity Studies
Frame analysis
Labor market
Labor migration
Law enforcement
Literature
Migrants
Migration
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Neoliberalism
News
Original Article
Police
Postcolonial/World Literature
Regional and Cultural Studies
Rhetorical figures
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study examines visual and textual representations of Mexican migrants in English-language photojournalism over the course of a decade. We find three clusters of representations: (1) male laborers portrayed as outside the bounds of society but often unfairly victimized (2) migrants portrayed as criminal in encounters with law enforcement, and (3) all other migrants, often portrayed in ways that valorized those who had “made good” or fit in. These clusters initially appeared to employ entirely separate tropes about different demographics of migrants. However, we find that they instead often reflect the same migrant demographics in different geographies and at different moments of the migration trajectory. We argue that these tropes collectively reflect and promote the cultural and economic logic of neoliberal multiculturalism, serving the neoliberal state and legitimating the precarity of migrants in labor markets.
ISSN:1476-3435
1476-3443
DOI:10.1057/s41276-019-00181-3