The Impact of Ethnic and Mainstream News Media Collaboration on Immigrant News: A Content Analysis of the Sahan Journal/Star Tribune Partnership

Abstract

This thesis uses a quantitative content analysis of the Star Tribune’s coverage of immigrant communities and immigration between the year prior to its partnership with Sahan Journal and the year during it. With the goal of examining how patterns of coverage shifted with the partnership, this work considers the visibility of immigrants and immigration coverage across two years as well as the types of frames that were most often deployed in these types of news stories. Considering the complexities of race in this discourse, differences across European and non-European immigrant communities were also examined. Findings reveal that the partnership saw decreased coverage of immigrants and immigration but that it also resulted in the utilization of more positive frames in these stories, regardless of whether subjects were European immigrants or not. However, results also demonstrate that the criminalization of immigration remains a significant issue in mainstream coverage of immigrant communities. This research suggests that while ethnic/mainstream partnerships may be helpful for creating more positive coverage of immigrant communities, further efforts are necessary to address persisting news values and norms that misrepresent and neglect communities of color.