To the question of studying the American mass media discourse on immigration

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the analysis of discourse of the modern American mass media communication space dedicated to the subject field of immigration. The work describes the existing attitudes of mass media and population to the problem of immigration and immigrants, characterized by contradiction and polarization, as well as demonstrates various processes of stereotypization of perceptions on the migration discourse. The subject of this research is the current American mass media discourse on the topic of immigration. The main goal lies in determination of attitudes developed by the American mass media and society on the immigrants, which concepts are used for their description, and how it affects the social perception of such complex phenomenon as immigration. The article is structures on the basis of text interpretation of factual material, with application of two methods of discursive analysis: analysis of lexical means for determining explicit representations; and analysis of grammar structures for determining implicit meanings. The research displays that mass media accommodate different points of view, and at the present moment, the public space of American mass media indicates different types of discourse revealing polar understanding of immigration, The President of the country is one of those, who vividly expresses negative attitude to the problem of immigration and immigrants. On the other hand, the neoliberal discourse seems more neutral and even compassionate. Therefore, the trend of describing immigrants in negative connotations is reducing. Despite the attempts of country’s leadership to create a negative image of an immigrant, the analysis of contradictory attitude to them proves that the role of mass media in formation of public opinion is not as significant.