Monday, April 1, 2019

Truth in the Age of Partisan Polarization: A New Look at the Migrant Caravan

Depending on your political party affiliation, you probably believe a certain set of facts about the migrant caravan or, for that matter, any issue covered by news media. Partly due to the increasing political polarization in America, the type of news one reads is probably dependent upon their political inclination because the way we receive news has become increasingly filtered through algorithms that show us what we want to see (Forbes.com). Conversely, people are often completely unaware of how ‘the other side’ thinks and why they believe what they do. The example of the divergent views on the migrant caravan illustrate this separation perfectly. If you go looking for “migrant caravan news”, you will get a very different story depending on which link you choose to click.





For example, one of the first images that emerges with a search of “migrant caravan news” is this one from the website Zero Hedge, a popular right wing blog, superimposing a conspiratorial analysis of an iconic photo of the caravan at the US southern border. This photo follows in a long tradition of conservative media sources reporting on current news as conspiracy; from the faking of the moon landing, to the Sandy Hook shooting being a fake tragedy populated with crisis actors orchestrated by anti-gun globalists, to the migrant caravan being a procession of criminals and gang members misrepresented as families by the liberal media (This American Life). One of the main differences between different news agencies’ reports about the migrant caravan is the evidence each chooses to highlight. Zero Hedge contributor Tyler Durden accuses the liberal media of “hiding” key evidence that that caravan consists of 65% males, while liberal politicians like Gavin Newsom tweet “There children are barefoot. In diapers. Choking on tear gas. Women and children who left their lives behind-- seeking peace and asylum-- were met with violence and fear” (Zerohedge). In the same news cycle, President Trump tweeted “many gang members and some very bad people are mixed into the migrant caravan headed to our southern border… our military is waiting for you” (Zerohedge). The double significance of these tweets is in the fact that these are both viewpoints held by politicians during a midterm election race hoping to say what their constituents want to hear. These same republican messages of being “tough on crime” and promoting “law and order” from the Nixon era have evolved into a modern xenophobic view of immigrants bringing crime, drugs, and being rapists. Unfortunately, the migrant caravan provided fodder to that fire.

Ever since Trump representative Kellyanne Conway used the term “alternative facts” to defend the president’s false statement about attendance numbers at his inauguration, the phrase has come to represent our collective suspicion of truth, especially when evidence is presented by the other side. Our human inclination toward confirmation bias leads us to accept as true evidence that aligns with what we already believe, and reject as false that which contradicts it. Furthermore, as our political values become more intrinsically tied to our perception and presentation of self, we have seen an intensely partisan group polarization occur. This polarization has been crystallized by changes in the way the public receives news from nightly broadcasts to constantly curated streams on social media that know to only show us what we probably already agree with in order to keep us coming back. The unfortunate result of this is that the voices of vulnerable people like those traveling in the migrant caravan are lost and replaced with politicized analysis of how their issue fits into our policy war. We must see past the politicized rhetoric that there are thousands of criminals in the caravan to see that the only crime many of those people have committed is attempting to enter the US illegally, which is not even illegal if one is seeking asylum. A Honduran woman told a BBC reporter that “No, esto no se trata de polĂ­ticas se trata de encontrar una vida mejor” (No, this is not about politics, this is about finding a better life) (BBC). We must listen to the voices of those directly implicated, and place at least equal importance on those voices as we do on a political analysis of their stories.


Works Cited


Agrawal, AJ. What Do Social Media Algorithms Mean For You?. Forbes 20 April. 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2016/04/20/what-do-social-media-algorithms-mean-for-you/#e47507ca5152 Accessed 25 March 2019.


Glass, Ira, narrator. “Beware the Jabberwock”. This American Life, episode 670, NPR, 2019, https://www.thisamericanlife.org/670/beware-the-jabberwock.


Durden, Tyler. NBC Admits Migrant Caravan Predominantly Men. Zero Hedge 27 November 2018, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-27/nbc-news-admits-migrant-caravan-65-men. Accessed 28 March 2019.

Migrant Caravan: What is it and Why Does it Matter? . BBC 26 November 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45951782. Accessed 27 March 2019.

2 comments:

  1. I found the photo you used for this article quite shocking because if it did not have the writing and the arrows pointing out its apparent "falseness," I would have seen it in a completely different way. I am guilty of reading news sources that I agree with, and I find this problematic. If I was willing to put time into it, I would look at all of the different perspectives so that I could have a more well-rounded view of news. I agree with you that partisan polarization, especially in the news, is a problem because news agencies are too focused on their economic goals as an agency than on their goals as a source of news for the public. Instead of aspiring to relay the news in an honest and objective way, news agencies tend to fall on either side of the partisan line and every sentence they say has a liberal or conservative ring to it. In a way, this can be compared to the issue of NGOs' managerialism in Keshavjee's Blind Spot. Keshavjee argues that NGOs tend to answer too often to their donors' ideologies, and they neglect their initial humanitarian goals as they answer to the donors that they so desperately depend on. News agencies are like NGOs in this way, and we are their donors.

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  2. When thinking about borders, I find it interesting to conceptualize them as symbolic spaces. They are living in the in-between, half set in one country or state with one set of laws dictating their boundaries, and half in another country or state with a different set of rules. However, instead of the laws and morals of countries or states being doubly applied or enforced in these regions, it is almost as if they morph into something else entirely. Everyone caught in the middle finds themselves bridging two worlds distinct in culture and policy. Borders become a place where law is both overly enforced and violated at the same time. It is at borders where people become statistics, and humanitarian issues become politicized. In your article, you mentioned the backlash (from right leaning new sources) against the depiction of women and children on these caravans, as the majority of people crossing the border were young men. It has also been argued (by pro-immigration politicians) that immigrants have helped build this country by doing work no-one else is willing to do. Due to the fear of being deported, I have also heard the argument that immigrants commit less crime and less frequently use health services. Though these arguments may be true, it warrants the question of why we need to use this rhetoric in the first place. The stories of people displaced by war (often that America and other developed countries have initiated or funded), or threatened by gang violence is no longer enough to evoke compassion. Instead, immigration must be botched and marketed into something beneficial for our country, or villainized as something that will destroy it. People in this country are becoming so desensitized that they seemingly lose their humanity altogether on an issue that should not have to be politicized in the first place.

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