Politicizing migration in the U.S. digital public sphere: discourse, power and legitimacy

This thesis explores how migration is politicized in the U.S. digital public debate through the social media discourse of Donald Trump and Elon Musk during the 2024 electoral period. Building on scholarship on politicization and crisis framing, it focuses on how migration is strategically mobilized by political and digital elites and used as a discursive resource to advance political goals. The study is based on a qualitative discourse analysis of social media posts published during the most active phase of the 2024 U.S. electoral campaign (January-November 2024). It shows that Trump and Musk rely on different ways of politicizing migration. Trump consistently frames migration through affective narratives that present it as an existential threat to the nation, while personalizing blame and delegitimizing Democratic political opponents. Musk, by contrast, uses migration as a mechanism that undermines electoral fairness in the case of Democrats’ victory, implying that it would lead to a de facto one-party state and, ultimately, to the erosion of American democracy. Taken together, these findings point to broader shifts in contemporary political power, where platform-mediated discourse has become capable of not only shaping perceptions of democratic legitimacy, but also structuring political debate and public opinion in ways that operate beyond formal governmental control and regulatory oversight.