Border Tunnels: A Media Theory of the U.S.-Mexico Underground
(Paperback)
Available Formats
Publishing Details
Border Tunnels: A Media Theory of the U.S.-Mexico Underground
By (Author) Juan Llamas-Rodriguez
University of Minnesota Press
University of Minnesota Press
14th March 2024
United States
Classifications
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
Social discrimination and social justice
Ethnic groups and multicultural studies
Warfare and defence
972.1
Physical Properties
Paperback
272
Width 140mm, Height 216mm, Spine 13mm
340g
Description
A comparative media analysis of the representation of the U.S.Mexico border
Border tunnels at the U.S.Mexico border are ubiquitous in news, movies, and television, yet, because they remain hidden and inaccessible, the public can only encounter them through media. Analyzing the technologies, institutional politics, narrative tropes, and aesthetic decisions that go into showing border tunnels across multiple forms of media, Juan Llamas-Rodriguez argues that we cannot properly address border issues without attending toand fully understandingthe fraught relationship between their representation and reality.
Llamas-Rodriguez reveals that every media text about border tunnels, whether meant for entertainment, cable news, video games, or speculative design, implicitly takes a position on the politics of the border. The examples laid out in Border Tunnels will teach readers how to look differently at the border as it is commonly presented in various forms of media, from ABCs Nightline and CNNs Anderson Cooper 360 to reality TV, propaganda videos, and even digital effects in Hollywood action films. Llamas-Rodriguez examines how creative decisions in the production, promotion, and distribution of these media texts either emphasize or downplay issues such as border security, racial dynamics of migration, and sustainability of the borderlands.
Focusing on tunnels to show how media representations can influence all kinds of audienceseven those physically near the border itselfBorder Tunnels helps us make sense of this pressing social issue, ultimately advancing understanding of the U.S.Mexico border in all of its complexity and precariousness.
Author Bio
Juan Llamas-Rodriguez is assistant professor of global media in the Annenberg School for Communication and affiliated faculty with the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
