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The Media and Race in the Trump Era: An Analysis of Two Racially Different Newsrooms’ Coverage of BLM and DACA

2021; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 33; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10646175.2021.2012853

1096-4649

Chamian Y. Cruz, Lynette Holman,

Media Influence and Politics

Journalists play a part in the public’s perception of issues through priming, framing, and agenda setting media effects (McCombs, 2014 McCombs, M. (2014). Setting the agenda: Mass media and public opinion. John Wiley & Sons.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Power et al., 1996 Quinn, C. (2021, July 10). Ignoring false statements and stunts by politicians is working well so far: Letter from the Editor. The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/07/ignoring-false-statements-and-stunts-by-politicians-is-working-well-so-far-letter-from-the-editor.html [Google Scholar]; Quinsaat, 2014 Quinsaat, S. (2014). Competing news frames and hegemonic discourses in the construction of contemporary immigration and immigrants in the United States. Mass Communication and Society, 17(4), 573–596. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2013.816742[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), because they serve as a conduit of information. Professional norms dictate how journalists do their newswork; however, implicit biases and the media’s systematic structure can influence common journalistic practices, which can further stereotype marginalized populations (Entman & Rojecki, 2000 Entman, R. M., & Rojecki, A. (2000). The Black image in the white mind: media and race in America. University of Chicago Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). This study examines how two structurally different newsrooms covered the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). By sampling content from the Tampa Bay Times, a predominantly White newsroom, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a more diverse newsroom, a textual analysis of articles written nine months before Donald Trump was elected president to the end of his presidency ascertained differences in word choice, frames, sourcing, and other factors in coverage of BLM and DACA. This study found that the ethnicity of journalists likely influences coverage of Black people and Hispanic/Latino immigrants, that coverage of DACA was more sympathetic, ethical framing grew for BLM stories in the wake of extrajudicial killings of Black and brown individuals in 2020, and that specialized reporting leads to better representation of these two issues.