Borders, Politics, and Bounded Sympathy: How U.S. Television News Constructs Refugees, 1980–2016

This article problematizes a particular category in immigration politics: refugee. Drawing on a content analysis of 356 television news segments that aired on five major news networks between 1980 and 2016, we examine how the category “refugee” has been used in public discourse, to whom it has been applied, and the factors that shape characterizations of those who receive the label. While existing research finds that the media disproportionately associate the term “immigrant” with economic, criminal, and national security threats, we find that U.S. television news coverage associates the term “refugee” with sympathy. We find that these sympathetic portrayals are contingent upon and most common in stories about migrants in distant locales. When the news media cover individuals likely to settle or who are already settled in the United States, coverage takes a more negative tone. We also find evidence that U.S. border politics and foreign political interests affect which migrants receive the refugee label and how they are portrayed. We conclude with implications for the sociological study of classification and for immigration politics more generally.