Dos periodicos y un valle: Newspaper media and its impact on Latino voter participation in the Rio Grande Valley

This thesis provides an answer to the question of whether the newspaper media impacts Latino voter participation for the presidential 2004 and 2008 elections in the Rio Grande Valley, an area located in the southernmost tip of Texas. I take both a quantitative and qualitative approach in examining the context of the media's influence on Latino voting behavior in this region of Texas. I exam two dominate Rio Grande Valley newspapers, The Monitor and The Brownsville Herald. I select ten articles from each newspaper two weeks prior and two weeks after the election. The findings reveal that despite the politically laden framing in favor of the Republican Party for the presidential election of 2004, Latino voters were not influenced and continued to show support for the Democratic Party. However, in the 2008 presidential election the contextual analysis of the print media revealed that the media framing was neutral and that the Latino voters continued their support for the Democratic Party.