Doctoral Student
University of Maryland
USA
Jeannette Viens is pursuing her Ph.D. in Public Relations in the Department of Communication. Her research focuses on extending global public relations with an emphasis on immigration discourse. Her scholarship revolves around questions of how governments, media, and organizations represent refugees, immigrants, and immigration policy, especially transnationally. By depicting the interpretations of these representations on the milieu of migrants, her research aims to understand how to strategize better intercultural intergroup dynamics.
“Negotiating crises interpretations: The global rhetorical arena of the 2018 migrant caravan “crisis”
In October 2018, a migrant caravan formed in northern Honduras and grew to approximately 7,000 individuals along its journey towards Mexico and the United States, capturing media attention and the label of a global migration ‘crisis’. This paper challenges the perception of globalized humanitarian issues as inherent crises by critically considering the recursive negotiation of an event as a crisis by multiple publics in a global rhetorical arena. Uncovering intricacies of a Mexican and U.S. national rhetorical arena alongside a counterpublic rhetorical arena, dynamics of power and complexities of blame are illuminated as important components in the negotiation of an event as a crisis.