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While the 2010 earthquake disaster generated academic interests in the plight of Haitian people, scholarship on Haitian immigrants is relatively small when compared to studies of other ethnic groups residing in the United States. Studies on the Haitians Diaspora are nevertheless quite broad, covering anthropological research, language studies, public health, international law studies, and sociological as well as historical data (foreign and domestic scholarship) on the scale, and scope of the Haitian immigrant experience. However, there is little research on the role that media plays in the Haitian experiences of exclusion in the U.S. host society.

The few studies on the stereotyped media images of Haitian people have largely focused on how they have been portrayed during a major crisis. These studies show that the American mainstream and Black media have largely depicted Haitians in ways that fulfill the media’s organizational agendas. Even as American coverage of Haitians has crossed over from newspaper to the cable TV platform, images of Haitians continue to exhibit a racist logic, depicting them as largely inferior. However, there is evidence of less-stereotyped images when news stories focus on Haitians as agents of change rather than victims of tragedy, such as stories about first-generation Haitians hoping to return home or second generation Haitians identifying as Americans for social and economic advancement.

What is not known from prior studies is the sociological implications of the differing controlling nature of images that are found in American media targeting mainstream and black audiences, how these exists in the regional media where many in the Haitian Diaspora reside, if these are condoned or resisted, and how these images have changed over time. To investigate this, I examine the portrayals of Haitians across three major events in three different newspapers.

My dissertation contributes to the study of the Haitian Diaspora by specifically examining the consequences of Haitian immigration. I ask how Haitian immigrants are situated in media ideologies of the hostland, and investigate if, and how, this group is portrayed as strangers to the community; victims of American racism; and/or political pawns to illustrate the extent of Haiti state repression. However, unlike previous studies, I show how these media ideologies can and have been modified and disrupted by historical developments and the emergence of social media.

My project is significant since stereotyped images have negatively impacted Haitians’ job prospects, immigration resettlement, and healthcare delivery in the U.S. Haitians view their negative portrayal in the American media as the largest contributor to their discrimination and isolation in the hostland. Negative media perceptions of this group, furthermore, make assimilation, a melting away of their ethnic identity, necessary for social mobility in the United States.

Research indicates that less assimilated immigrants who take pride in their ethnic identity move up the social ladder in the U.S. because of the relative distance it provides them from African-Americans—generally among the most stigmatized of minorities (Waters 1999, Doucet and Suarez-Orozco 2006). However, Haitian immigrants generally don’t achieve this level of ethnic pride. Instead, prejudice and stereotypes that are mass-produced in the media and stigmatize Haitians as impoverished and disease-stricken immigrants often lead them to downward mobility and social exclusion. This dissertation is an attempt to address the process by which Haitians arrive at such an outcome.

In the next chapter, I review the literature on the American media. I discuss instances when Haitians have garnered positive and negative images in American media. I explore the parallel discourses of mainstream and African-American media in the history of Haitians. I also discuss

research findings on Haitians self-perceptions in the United States and Haiti, in contrast to American perceptions. This literature review offers the empirical background to this study.

In chapter Three, I outline my method of data collection and sampling of Miami newspapers. I also describe a small-scale pretest of New York newspapers, which preceded the Miami study. I discuss the different demographics and migration patterns between the Haitian Diasporas in New York and South Florida. I also discuss the process of coding and analyzing the data through a qualitative data analysis program, as well as consultation with Creole and French translators and community activists. This chapter also covers the method of assessing data reliability and validity.

In Chapter Four, I discuss the key empirical findings of the dissertation. I describe how the newspapers are framed and analyze those frames in order to explore the depictions of Haitians in the American news media. I examine the different patterns of frames and their amalgamation, which broadly produced a modified controlling image of Haitian people as distressed victims.

In Chapter Five, I discuss the emergence of a modified controlling image of Haitian immigrants in three newspapers. I show that this image is an iteration of old stereotypical controlling images, and that some of them are now presented in a more positive light. I conclude with a conjecture that the negative images of Haitians in American media have changed over time and varied by newspaper due to editorial policies and an evolution in American journalism.

In Chapter Six, I discuss the journalistic practices of constructing controlling images. I explain the transformation of the old stereotypical controlling images in relation to the changing journalistic practices of American media. I explain how the modified images in the mainstream and black newspapers resulted from a broadening in journalism that was influenced by social media. Furthermore, I explain how the broadening of journalism, especially after the earthquake,

was part of a series of events, including the politics of aid relief, racial issues and comparison to Hurricane Katrina victims, and mobile fundraising. Together these factors, induced by social media, led to efforts to broaden American journalism’s depictions of Haiti compared to the previous way it had been covered in newspapers.

In Chapter Seven, I discuss my conclusions. I discuss the sociological process of modifying images of the Other in the mainstream, black, and Haitian newspapers. I explain how the democratization of sources led to the weakening of the dominant ideology in each newspaper. I also discuss the result of more positive images in the American media. Finally, I discuss the controlling images thesis and its application during the three crises. I explain the advantages and disadvantages of using controlling images as an interpretive framework in light of the findings.