Examples Of Immigration Issues In Political Communication

Register to read the introduction… The purpose of focusing on one population wasn’t to deport the Mexicans, but to create a fear produced by the media. The goal was to scare many of the illegal immigrants out of the district. The media gave a lot of attention to the issue, which resulted in thousands of Mexicans moving. Many of the newspapers, even local Spanish newspapers, focused on the issue providing information on transportation and Mexican government assistance. The rhetorical forces of the newspapers helped the government achieve their goal of reducing the illegal Mexican population without police force. “Rhetoric shifts borders, changing what they mean publicly, influencing public policy, altering the ways borders affect people, and circumscribing political responses”. The public understands immigration through the medias rhetorical force. “Mediated representations, then, can be powerful rhetorical forces. Regardless of whether a particular account offers a positive, negative, or neutral interpretation of immigration, it often rests, at least in a latent sense, on underlying racial assumptions”. From 1790 to 1952 race and immigration have gone hand in hand to gain U.S. citizenship. In this time period immigrates were required to be white. These laws were designed to compliment racial fitness for the country. This factor plays into the Mexican immigration …show more content…
The best way to get a message through to people is to use everyday language. For example, the words “illegal aliens” makes people think of immigrants who don’t speak English, break the law, don’t pay taxes, live off government benefits, etc. The words “undocumented person” makes people think of immigrants who want a better life, hard working, American dream, opportunity, etc. Associations with these words are important in politics because they create an imagine in peoples’ heads and can influence the way voters hear a message. “Although the concept of networks is relatively new to politics, the political right in the United States has long understood that voters respond less to facts, figures, policy positions, and rational arguments than to the emotions associations create”. When debating over immigration, politicians use words and images to evoke an emotional reaction from the viewers. When politicians are giving a speech about immigration they should use the three parts of rhetoric, ethos, pathos, and logos. These three characteristics should be incorporated in a speech because it is reaching out to all types of listeners. Emotional words trick many people, others need to see statistics, and some need to know who is saying the