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Viewing report
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BELIEVE THE HYPE:. Edition No. 1
VDM Publishing House, Aug 2008, Pages: 68
In 2006, massive protests drew well over 1 million
undocumented immigrants and their supporters to the
streets of major U.S. cities. But a year later,
there was still no comprehensive immigration reform,
only a public opinion backlash and an unfunded bill
to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Were
protesters adopting the wrong strategy by hyping up
their cause?
In an attempt to answer this question, more than
2,000 immigration bills introduced in the U.S. House
and Senate from 1980 to 2005 were gauged against the
level of media attention paid to immigration topics
in the given years. Three hypotheses were tested –
that immigration bills were more symbolic during
years of high hype, that they were more anti-
immigrant in years of high hype and that legislators
from districts along the U.S.-Mexico border were
generally less likely to draft symbolic, anti-
immigrant bills than their non-border counterparts,
regardless of hype.
In results represented visually by graphics, highly
symbolic bills such as resolutions followed the
highs and lows of hype. Anti-immigrant bills,
such as those focusing on alien criminals and
terrorists, followed even closer.
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