Research Presentation

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Here are the application materials I referenced during our meetings.

 

 

 

 

Research Presentation

COVID-19 & Transnational Misinformation: Comparing Pandemic-Related Media Practices Across the U.S.-Mexico Border

My presentation links, references, and audio-visual resources are available below.

Pandemic-Related Misinformation
  • Misinformation in General.
  • Pandemic-Related Misinformation.
  • Bilingual, Transnational Pandemic
  • Misinformation.
    The video clip is from October 11, 2021, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” See 00:53 to 03:49 for a brief summary of the issue.

COVID-19 Mortality – U.S. “Hispanics”

The Mortality Rate represents the number of deaths per 100 confirmed cases of COVID-19, also known as the “observed case-fatality ratio.”

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Regional Data 2022.

Global COVID-19 Mortality Rates, Jan. 1 – Feb. 28, 2021

The Mortality Rate represents the number of deaths per 100 confirmed cases of COVID-19, also known as the “observed case-fatality ratio.”

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Regional Data 2022.

COVID-19 Mortality – Leading Causes of Death

The Mortality Rate represents the number of deaths per 100 confirmed cases of COVID-19, also known as the “observed case-fatality ratio.”

  • Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Regional Data 2022.
  • CDC FastStats, 2022
Three Lines of Critical Inquiry & Comparison:
  • Pandemic Misinformation.
  • Transnational Media Practices.
  • COVID-19 Mortality Rates in Mexico & the U.S.

What is the Relationship Between These?

A Sociocultural Treatment of Misinformation:
  • Not rooted in journalistic professionalism, truthfulness, or our “post-truth” condition. Not a technical problem for content moderation, the role of algorithms, or media literacy.
  • A question of political culture and media practices – think of “fake news” as a quasi-oppositional/quasi-critical classification.
  • Misinformation content is primarily a quantitative category.
  • A symptom of the mediatization of politics.
Methods for Exploring the Relationship Between These Lines of Inquiry.
  • Comparative, empirical mediatization research.
  • Accommodates international-transnational comparative studies:                       – COVID-19 Misinformation in San Diego/Tijuana.
  • This is not a media effects analysis, nor do I suggest a direct, causal relationship between any of these lines of inquiry.
  • This project is both quantitative and qualitative, interdisciplinary, and it draws from well-established communication/media studies methods.
Bilingual-Transnational Media Practices
Linguistic Patterns & Digital Media Use, U.S. Population of Latin American Heritage.
  • Neilson, 2016; Cobas et al., 2022
  • Morse, 2018; Perrin & Atske, 2021
  • Social Media Fact Sheet, 2022
No Walls For Donald: The Vilification of Latin America in U.S. Political Culture

No Walls For Donald: The Vilification of Latin America in U.S. Political Culture examines the marginalization of Latina/o/x communities, Latin American geographies of political-economic power, and the strategic excoriation of Latin American people within U.S. political culture. The book builds on the premise that the vilification of Latin America in contemporary U.S. political discourse is not simply a bigoted tactic for short-term political gain, but as the title suggests, it also represents a long-held bipartisan state of affairs rooted in legacies of U.S. interventionism. No Walls For Donald is a timely contribution to research into digital media practices & disinformation, political communication, Chicana/o/x & Latina/o/x Studies, and Latin American Studies. It will interest students and scholars in the social sciences and humanities, and the general public interested in ethnic studies, U.S. history of race relations, and social justice.

Read the synopsis.

References:

CDC FastStats (2022). Homepage. Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/default.htm

Cobas, J., Urciuoli, B., Feagin, J., & Delgado, D. (2022). The Spanish Language in the United States. Routledge.

Cybenko, G., Giani, A., & Thompson, P. (2002). Cognitive hacking: a battle for the mind. Computer, 35(8), 50–56. https://doi.org/10.1109/mc.2002.1023788

Flores, A. (2020, July 29). How the U.S. Hispanic population is changing. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/18/how-the-u-s-hispanic-population-is-changing/

Fourney, A., Racz, M. Z., Ranade, G., Mobius, M., & Horvitz, E. (2017). Geographic and Temporal Trends in Fake News Consumption During the 2016 US Presidential Election. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management. https://doi.org/10.1145/3132847.3133147

Krogstad, J. M., & Noe-Bustamante, L. (2022, February 16). Key facts about U.S. Latinos for National Hispanic Heritage Month. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/09/key-facts-about-u-s-latinos-for-national-hispanic-heritage-month/

Morse, P. (2018, January 9). Six Facts About The Hispanic Market That May Surprise You. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/01/09/six-facts-about-the-hispanic-market-that-may-surprise-you/?sh=dc9dc8b5f307

Mortality Analyses. (2021, March). Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

NBC News. (2022, February 9). Misinformation In Spanish Intensifying Ahead Of Midterms Say Democrats And Experts. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3vnH168BWs&feature=youtu.be

Nielsen: Media Habits of U.S. Hispanics Vary by Age, Language Dominance. (2016, August 25). Cablefax. https://www.cablefax.com/distribution/nielsen-media-habits-of-u-s-hispanics-vary-by-age-language-dominance

Perrin, A., & Atske, S. (2021, June 5). About three-in-ten U.S. adults say they are ‘almost constantly’ online. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/26/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-say-they-are-almost-constantly-online/

Passel, J. S., Lopez, M. H., & Cohn, D. (2022, February 3). U.S. Hispanic population continued its geographic spread in the 2010s. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/u-s-hispanic-population-continued-its-geographic-spread-in-the-2010s/

Sanchez, G. R. (2022, March 26). What are the consequences of the Latino undercount in the 2020 U.S. Census? Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2022/03/24/what-are-the-consequences-of-the-latino-undercount-in-the-2020-u-s-census/

Sinclair, J. (1999). Latin American Television: A Global View. Oxford University Press.

Social Media Fact Sheet. (2022, January 11). Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/?menuItem=4abfc543-4bd1-4b1f-bd4a-e7c67728ab76

Times, T. N. Y. (2022, June 3). Covid in the U.S.: Latest Maps, Case and Death Counts. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

World Bank Open Data | Data. (2022). World Bank Open Data. https://data.worldbank.org/
https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/hhsa/programs/phs/community_epidemiology/dc/2019-nCoV/status/COVID19_Cases_Hospitalizations_Deaths_by_Demographics.html

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