Cnn results final report

CNN coverage of Migration and Latino Issues of the U.S. Presidential Elections 2012

Alina Muñoz

Bielefeld University Faculty of Linguistic and Literature Migration and Latino issues in Media Coverage of the 2012 Presidential Elections (United States/Mexico) Dr. José Carlos Lozano and Dr. Sebastian Thies 13th of August, 2012

Content Analysis Study on: CNN’s coverage of Migration andLatino Issues Of the U.S. Presidential Elections 2012 Cable News Network(CNN) was founded in 1980 by American Ted Turner. This news channel was the first to provide 24-hour television news, as well as the first all-news television channel in the United States. As of August 2010, CNN became available in over 100 million U.S. households. Broadcast coverage extends to over 890,000 American hotel roomsand the U.S broadcast is also shown in Canada. Globally, CNN programming airs through CNN International, which can be seen by viewers in over 212 countries and territories. On March 17, 1997, CNN launched CNN en Español, a 24-hour Spanish-language news network for the Hispanic American and United States marketplace. CNN en Español is available throughout Latin America and the United States. Some ofthe network shows are shown in Canada too. Graph 1 Political Party Affiliation of CNN viewers 2011

As shown on Graph 1, CNN attracts the most attention from Independents and those not affiliated with a particular political party. This may be due to the fact that they are

allegedly a center and unbiased media. On the contrary of FoxNews, whose majority of pages are read by Republicans andMSNBC, which is popular with the Democrats.

Methodology This study is based on a detailed content analysis of 30 news stories broadcast by CNN and 20 news stories broadcast by CNN en Español1 from the 1st of November, 2011 till the 6th of June, 2012.

The study used the online CNN stories archive (http://edition.cnn.com/) and the online CNN en Español stories archive(http://cnnespanol.cnn.com/) to retrieve the news stories of the newscasts on CNN, which mentioned any kind of Latino/Hispanic issue or persons in relation to the 2012 U.S. presidential election.

Results Overall, CNN and CNN en Español had similar patterns in their campaign coverage of topics and issues pertinent to the Latino community. As shown on Graph 2, 64 percent of the news were about the Latino vote, whichreferred mostly to the competition for the Hispanic vote. The campaign activities, for example the debates, appeals to Latino voters as well as endorsements of candidates, took the majority of news time, along with the speculation about the possible candidates for the Vice-presidency of the Republican Party. 16 percent of the messages talked about immigration, mainly focusing on the Republican postureson immigration as well as on the Dream Act. This was the only issue discussed with a certain degree of depth.

Most of the news reportage on the Latino vote was made in a positive regard towards the Hispanic community, since it mainly expressed how the interest in getting the Latino vote has grown, and how this population has increased its political power, designated as the swing vote by someexperts. On the other hand the issue of Immigration

1

CNN en español had to be included in the study, due to the lack of news stories related to Latino Issues in the Presidential Campaign coverage by CNN.

is still portrayed in a negative way by the media. On the analyzed news, there were constant attacks to illegal immigration and rarely a solution that would benefit the Latinos.

Just asmall amount of news devoted time to debate Latino issues like education, employment, discrimination, economic development opportunities, and housing: only a 2 percent of the messages dealt with the health issues and another 2 percent with discrimination of Latinos. The rest of the issues were not address at all by CNN or CNN en Español in these seven months. Graph 2 Topics of the Latino...