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Threats from Immigrants: A Uses and Gratifications Approach in Understanding Media’s Impact on Attitudes toward Immigration

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2019, PHD, Kent State University, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies.
In my dissertation, I sought to assess media’s impact on U.S. citizens’ attitudes toward immigration. Specifically, I am interested in how personal differences, media-use motives, and news exposure work together to influence the American’s perception of realistic, symbolic, and ethnic threats posed by immigrants. Using uses and gratifications theory as the theoretical framework, I aimed to understand relationships such as what direct and indirect paths exist when seeking to predict attitudes toward immigration from audience characteristics (i.e., universalism, security, conformity, ethnocentrism, nationalism, political ideology, party identification, and personal contact), motives for news exposure, and news consumption. Employing correlation analysis, factor analysis, and path analysis, I analyzed data collected online from U.S. citizens who were over the age of 18. Evidence presented in the current study showed that (a) individual characteristics (e.g., personal values, political ideologies, and personal contact with immigrants), (b) motives for using news media (e.g., for surveillance or social interaction), and (c) exposure to specific news sources (e.g., liberal or conservative news media, CNN or Fox News) influenced attitudes toward immigration. Individual characteristics explained the majority of the variance in perception of threats posed by immigrants. News exposure motives and news consumption played a lesser, albeit significant, role in explaining immigration attitudes. These findings are theoretically important in that they demonstrated U&G as a suitable perspective for investigating media effects on immigration attitudes. Findings of this dissertation also aided in our understanding of the comparative impacts of media use and personal characteristics on people's opinions on critical social and political issues.
Paul Haridakis (Advisor)
188 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Xing, B. (2019). Threats from Immigrants: A Uses and Gratifications Approach in Understanding Media’s Impact on Attitudes toward Immigration [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1563889713179939

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Xing, Bin. Threats from Immigrants: A Uses and Gratifications Approach in Understanding Media’s Impact on Attitudes toward Immigration. 2019. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1563889713179939.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Xing, Bin. "Threats from Immigrants: A Uses and Gratifications Approach in Understanding Media’s Impact on Attitudes toward Immigration." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1563889713179939

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)