Spatial Proximity to the U.S.—Mexico Border and Newspaper Coverage of Immigration Issues

• DOI: 10.1177/1065912908319252
• Author: Johanna Dunaway,Regina P. Branton
• Date: 01 June 2009
• Published date: 01 June 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

Volume 62 Number 2

June 2009 289-302

© 2009 University of Utah

10.1177/1065912908319252

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289

Spatial Proximity to the U.S.–Mexico

Border and Newspaper Coverage of

Immigration Issues

Regina P. Branton

Rice University

Johanna Dunaway

Louisiana State University

This article examines how geographic proximity to the U.S.–Mexico border influences newspaper coverage of immigration

issues. The authors investigate two questions: Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent

coverage of Latino immigration than media organizations farther removed from the border? Do media organizations spa-

tially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of the negative aspects of immigration than media organizations

farther removed from the border? We find that news organizations closer to the border generate a higher volume of articles

about Latino immigration, articles featuring the negative aspects of immigration, and articles regarding illegal immigration.

Keywords: immigration; news; media coverage; institutional structure; spatial context

On August 12, 2005, New Mexico Governor Bill

Richardson declared a state of emergency in four

counties along the U.S.–Mexico border, claiming that

the region “has been devastated by the ravages of terror

and human smuggling, drug smuggling, kidnapping,

murder, the destruction of property, and the death of

livestock.”1The following Monday, Arizona Governor

Janet Napolitano followed suit. Both governors

described the declaration of a state of emergency as a

desperate attempt to get the attention of the federal gov-

ernment, and to place immigration at the top of the

national policy agenda. In June of 2006, California

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger publicly demanded

Congressional action on the issue of illegal immigra-

tion. While immigration and other border-related issues

have been of major concern to border communities

for some time, until recently, they had yet to gain the

amount of national attention needed to stimulate action

on the part of the federal government (Dunaway,

Abrajano, and Branton 2007).2We suggest that this is

due, at least in part, to the fact that local media outlets

close to the U.S.–Mexico border provide more regular

coverage of immigration and other border issues than

their geographically distant counterparts. Furthermore,

we speculate that the increased salience of these mat-

ters close to the border creates a heightened sensitivity

to border concerns among citizens, who in turn put

pressure on local and state officials to take action. As a

result, the geographic concentration in media coverage

exacerbates the disconnection between local and

national policy agendas with regard to these issues.

In this article, we attempt to address the lack of

attention scholars have given to the relationship

between geographic context and media coverage of

political issues. We focus specifically on the policy

area of immigration, and examine how geographic

proximity to the U.S.–Mexico border influences

media attention to these issues. Building on a spatial-

economic explanation of news, we investigate two

questions: (1) Do media organizations spatially prox-

imate to the border offer more frequent coverage of

the Latino immigration than media organizations far-

ther removed from the border? (2) Do media organi-

zations spatially proximate to the border offer more

frequent coverage of the negative aspects of immi-

gration than media organizations farther removed

from the border? To address these questions, we

examine the volume and nature of media coverage of

immigration as a function of geographic spatial proxi-

mity to the U.S.–Mexico border.

Regina P. Branton, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rice

University; e-mail: branton@rice.edu.

Johanna Dunaway, Assistant Professor of Political Science,

Lousiana State University; e-mail: jdunaway@lsu.edu.

Authors’ Note: We would like to thank Martin Johnson, Bob

Stein, and the anonymous reviewers for comments on various

versions of this article.