Abstract
Much peace journalism research to date has critiqued problems with mainstream media reporting-what some call "war journalism''-through analysis of news coverage of international conflict. This study seeks to determine whether news coverage of putative allies and friends (here the United States and Mexico) during periods of non-violent interactions discursively positions the bilateral relationship as one of conflict or cooperation. We examine The New York Times' coverage of the May 2006, immigration debates. Employing textual analysis, we find that news stories privilege the perspectives of political elites, reinforce polarized notions of national identity, and set the stage for future, armed violence. News reports construct the border as a site of conflict and contestation, use stereotyped imagery and coded language to dichotomize US and Mexican identities, and portray the bilateral relationship in distinctly hierarchical terms.