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Our critical framing analysis employs a coding method. Articles for each city are selected using a keyword search in one of three databases: Eureka, Factiva and Proquest.

The keywords used for the selection are: immigr*, alien*, reasonable accommodation, undocumented, poverty, homeless, pauvreté, itinerance, sans-abris, + city name, whenever they occur in the same paragraph.

We then code the ways in which the articles are framed on both procedural and substantive levels:

  1. how the article frames judgements on a positive or conditional opening toward, or outright rejection of, key issues that connect with the subjects of poverty or immigration
  2. the external or internal sources that are cited to establish authority for the stories
  3. the rational, moral or emotional tones used in the address.

The levels of hospitality or openness to issues, the types of citation that lend authority to claims, and the emotional-volitional tones are taken as ways to pinpoint the distances between the subjects of the reports and the implied audiences. These are the indicators we use to understand where and how to rewrite reports and how to cover news stories from these communities in a dialogic fashion.

Internal research data

External research data

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