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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

News Media Shift Language On Immigration


Even with several major news organizations deciding to reduce or ban its use, the term “illegal immigrant” is still the phrase newspapers most often use to describe foreigners living in the United States without proper documentation. But over time, according to the Pew Research Center, there have been some shifts in the language applied to those at the heart of the immigration debate, as words like “undocumented” or “unauthorized” have begun showing up more frequently.

With Congress now considering a major immigration bill, we compared newspaper language in the period from April 15-29 in 2013 with three other two-week periods—in 1996, 2002 and 2007—when immigration-related legislation was also in the news.

During all four time periods, the term used most frequently in newspapers was “illegal immigrant,” although there was some ebb and flow, according to Pew Research’s LexisNexis search of 19 related terms in almost 9,000 articles.

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