Countering Xenophobic Frames and Contextualizing Coverage Through North-South Cooperation: Collaborative Investigative Journalism Across the U.S.-Mexico Border

Abstract

This article focuses on collaborative investigative journalism across the U.S.-Mexico (Global North-South) border. The frame theoretical study examines how virtual and in-person cross-border collaboration counters xenophobic frames and contextualizes coverage of Central America and Mexico and forced migration from the region between 2016 and 2022. The study found that cross-border collaborative journalism effectively exposed wrongdoing by the Central American, Mexican, and U.S. governments while countering misinformation about Central American and Mexican migrants. The coverage also expanded humanitarian frames, providing nuanced descriptions of the suffering of Central American and Mexican citizens. However, a deep historical context concerning U.S. hegemony in Central America and its impact on the cycle of violence and forced migration was missing from the coverage produced in virtual collaboration. The most critical and contextual coverage was produced in in-person collaborations, where journalists from both sides of the North-South border worked side by side in Central America. The findings raise concerns about what kinds of context, dialogue, and awareness fail to emerge in North-South collaborations limited to virtual spaces.