I started my graduate studies in the master’s program of Mass Communication at California State University of Northridge in August 2017.
As part of my Thesis’s research I analyzed the urban and social changes in Santiago, Chile, after the increase in Haitian immigration from 2014 to 2017. Based on critical analysis of news reports of the newspaper El Mercurio and semi-structured interviews with Haitian citizens, leaders of civil society organizations, and members of the public administration, the study sought how Chilean media portray Haitian immigration and what role it plays in the construction of public discourse.
I analyzed Santiago as a communicative space and a site of production where different discourses, communities, and social practices live together, considering how the media reinforced the city’s perceptions.
“I did not know that people in Chile were racist. I didn’t know that.” (Kesnel, Haitian immigrant, August 2018).
The study explored concepts such as media representations, transnationalism, global city, racism, cultural citizenship, colonialism, and public space’s theory.
Diasporas are constituted within a geographic dispersion connected by similar projects and shared histories in their societies of origin, by their ethnic conscience, by their conflicted relationship with the receiving societies, and by their trans-local dimension (Cohen, 2008). These interactions transform urban spaces into sites of conflict and negotiation. Then, the media play a crucial role in producing meaning and articulating public discourse (Georgiou, 2013).
Carolina Alzamora 