Decorah native is researching representation of immigrants in the media

Decorah native Emily Alcock this summer is researching the ways in which media outlets portray immigrants.

Alcock, the daughter Sherry and the late Dave Alcock of Decorah, is a 2013 graduate of Decorah High School. She is majoring in Spanish and international studies at Luther.

This summer she is working with Luther visiting assistant professor in Spanish Megan Strom on the research project "The representation of Latino children immigrants in English- and Spanish-language media in the United States."

They are investigating portrayals in mass media of young Latino immigrants by examining English- and Spanish-language newspapers, noting representations of young Latino immigrants and coding these representations for analysis.

"Our results will shed light on the ways in which media in two languages represent a highly at-risk population and, ultimately, ways in which we can take action to improve this representation," Alcock said.

An abstract summarizing the research and its findings will be submitted to the Linguistic Association of the Southwest's Fall 2016 conference and the full manuscript will be submitted to the academic journal "Spanish in Context."