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Art on the Border: Political Dialogue and the Use of Visual Art in the U.S.-Mexico Border Debate

abstract: This thesis seeks to answer the question: "What do artistic representations add to the dialogue about the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration beyond political rhetoric and popular media portrayals?" Drawing on political communications (as put forth by Edelman and Altheide), socio-political construction (particularly the White Racial Frame put forth by Feagin), and collective memory theory (especially those of Halbwachs and Pollak), this thesis uses a dual-coding, content analysis to examine the linguistic and visual messages disseminated through news media. Then, interviews with and the work of six immigrant artists are examined for their contribution to the information put forth in the news media. This study finds that news reporting bias falls along a continuum from pro-immigration to extreme anti-immigration (labeled "fearful" reporting). The news media skew strongly toward anti-immigration to fearful in bias, and there is no opposite pro-immigration bias. Through observations of artists' work, the study concludes that artistic representations of the border can fill this strongly pro-immigration void on this bias continuum. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Interdisciplinary Studies 2011

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:asu.edu/item:9089
Date January 2011
ContributorsMccarty, Kelly E. (Author), Tellez, Michelle (Advisor), Stancliff, Michael (Committee member), Segura, Joseph (Committee member), Arizona State University (Publisher)
Source SetsArizona State University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeMasters Thesis
Format134 pages
Rightshttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/, All Rights Reserved

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