PUBLICATIONS
COVID success? For whom? Examining the political representation of migrants in Taiwan
(with Tsung-Lun Alan Wan)
Critical conversations: being Yellow women in the time of COVID-19
(with Nini Fang)
Gendering immigration: media framings of the economic and cultural consequences of immigration
Gender, Migration, and News
Framing immigration: a content analysis of newspapers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States
Chinese migrant wives in Taiwan: claiming entitlements, resisting inequality, and rejecting citizenship
WORKS IN PROGRESS
Gendering Immigration: A Comparative Study of the Impact of Media on Public Opinion on the Huddled Masses
Although international migration is not a new phenomenon, little systematic evidence exists to verify the causal connections between the media discourse surrounding immigration and public attitudes toward immigrants. Utilizing survey experiments in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the U.K., and the U.S. this project empirically tests several hypotheses derived from the theory that media frames and public opinion are gendered. I find that native citizens are more likely to reject male immigrants when learning about the economic impacts of immigration and more likely to reject female immigrants when exposed to the cultural consequences of immigration. This research contributes to the understanding of the causal connections between the media and public opinion. It also offers implications for how states may respond to increasingly biased public opinion regarding and right-wing movements against immigrants. My cross-regional data and analyses allow for contextualizing the media effects and conceptualizing national identities that may be developed vis-à-vis citizens’ acceptance of or opposition to immigrants in becoming members of their countries.
Gendered Media Discourse Surrounding Immigration: Evidence from Hong Kong, Taiwan, the U.K., and the U.S.
Journalists’ portrayals of immigration issues and immigrants are found to be biased; however, little is known about how the media gender their framings of immigration. This research characterizes how the media frame immigration through content analysis of a representative sample of approximately 1,500 newspaper articles published in 2014 in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This research suggests that the media overwhelmingly incorporate implicit gender stereotypes when reporting on immigration. It also finds that the media coverage on the economic consequences of immigration is likely to lead to an emphasis on the masculine occupations that migrant men are likely to hold while the media are likely to associate the cultural consequences of immigration with migrant women. this research offers an integrated theory of the role of gender, when interacted with the economic and cultural aspects of immigration, in the construction and impact of media framings. This study offers implications for how states may respond to gendered immigration, particularly in light of recent global events, such as the media’s portrayal of male refugees in Cologne, Germany, as rapists.
Civic Education’s Impact on Opinion towards Immigrant Rights: A Comparative Study of Youths’ Attitudes
Current literature on opinion regarding immigration focuses on adults to understand how national-level factors, such as population of asylum seekers, affect attitudes toward immigrants. Individuals’ attitudes are often shaped in childhood, so we employ a survey of youth—those not yet in the work force—to examine how education, influences attitudes toward immigrants. We hypothesize that adolescents’ attitudes toward immigrants are likely to be developed and shaped by civic education’s coverage on immigration and cultural differences. Utilizing the 2009 IEA Civic Education Study of 15-year-old students in 26 democracies in a multilevel models, we test the effect of including immigration and cultural diversity in civic education classes on individual youth’s opinion. Our preliminary analysis suggests that the instructors’ incorporation of these topics increases support for immigrant rights. Our findings show that states play a role in citizens’ acceptance of immigrants’ rights and that educational institutions can enhance the understanding of immigration in light of the globalized world.