Framing in news about migrants in Chilean media

Abstract

Migration is one of the most discussed issues in recent years in Chile and the way it is treated in the media could impact public opinion, so it is of special interest to analyze how the media direct the public’s interest towards issues and frames. The present research seeks to describe the dominant frames in the content of news about migrants in the newspapers La Tercera and El Mostrador, during October 2018 and November 2019. The information analyzed showed the presence of a mostly negative assessment of migrants by hegemonic publishers, and neutral in counter-hegemonic ones, where each media would be exposing different topics according to its editorial line, prevailing frames of conflict and morality in the press releases. Our findings demonstrate the need to approach qualitatively to the perceptions of readers for a greater understanding of the influence of hegemonic a d counter-hegemonic media on public opinion.