The ‘other’ in the bowels of the hegemon: US media portrayals of Guam during the United States‐North Korea tension

Abstract

This article explores how America’s mainline institutional media portrayed Guam, an unincorporated US territory in the Pacific Ocean that is home to important American military bases, in a time of heightened tensions between the United States and North Korea. Guamanians represent marginal racial ‘others’ who are nonetheless ensconced in a consequential part of the US military architecture. Using a combination of topic modelling and network analysis, our study analysed 2480 articles from 44 different mainstream newspapers in the United States between April 2017 and June 2018 in order to examine the contradictory depiction of an ‘other’ that is simultaneously foreign and domestic. Our results present evidence of a hegemonic portrayal of Guam as an intrinsic part of the US as well as a depiction of the threat to Guam as an attack on the US without acknowledging the marginality of Guam and its inhabitants in US politics.