The Implications of Stereotypical News Primes on Evaluations of African American Political Candidates Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Kopacz, Maria Aleksandra Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 25/09/2021 12:01:36 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/193715 1 THE IMPLICATIONS OF STEREOTYPICAL NEWS PRIMES ON EVALUATIONS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN POLITICAL CANDIDATES by Maria Aleksandra Kopacz ____________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2007 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Maria Aleksandra Kopacz entitled The Implications of Stereotypical News Primes on Evaluations of African American Political Candidates and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 12/15/2006 Dana Mastro _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 12/15/2006 James Harwood _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 12/15/2006 Henry Kenski _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 12/15/2006 Steve Rains Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: 12/15/2006 Dissertation Director: Dana Mastro 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed used of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: Maria Aleksandra Kopacz 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to offer special words of gratitude to my advisor, Dana Mastro. Throughout my graduate career, your constant support, sage advice, unwavering enthusiasm about my work, and friendship, have helped me complete this journey. Without your guidance I would not be the competent scholar and teacher I am today. Thank you. I would also like to thank my outstanding committee members, Jake Harwood, Henry Kenski, and Steve Rains, for all the invaluable insight, moral support, and endless patience they extended as I worked on my project. The tremendous help you provided will continue to bear fruit as I work on advancing my program of research. I would never have completed my degree without the support of my dearest husband, Marcin Aleturowicz. You were there for me every step of the way, helping me make it through my bad days, celebrating my victories, and putting your life on hold to ensure my success. I feel honored, fortunate, and thrilled to be sharing my life with you. I am also blessed with wonderful colleagues and friends who supported me in so many ways throughout my journey, especially Lissa Behm-Morawitz, Carolyn Donnerstein-Karmikel, Michael Dues, Peggy Flyntz, Ellen Kovac, Nancy Linafelter, Michelle Ortiz, Priya Raman, Chris Segrin, and Carey Willits. Special thanks go to Kanan Sawyer and Dennis Klinzing of West Chester University of Pennsylvania, Randi Kent of the University of Arizona, and Trina Felty of Pima Community College, for their invaluable help in data collection for this project. 5 DEDICATION To my Mom – my first Teacher 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………....9 I. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………….10 News Portrayals of African Americans………………………………………..14 Race-Related Implications of Media Priming…………………………………16 Priming ……………………………………………………………………...16 Media Primes and Responses to African American Individuals ...………….18 Media Primes and Political Decision-Making ………………...……………19 Leader Categorization Theory…………………………………………………27 Implicit Leadership Theories ……………………………………………….27 The Process of Leadership Categorization………..………………….……….. 28 Prototypicality Ratings and Leader Emergence……………………...………. 31 Leader Prototypicality and Political Outcomes…………………....…..…….. 36 Race and Leader Prototypicality in Mixed-Race Elections…………………. 38 Priming, Racial Ingroup Identification, and Electoral Decisions……………...45 Toward a Model of Racial Priming in Mixed-Race Elections…………………47 II. STUDY 1………………………………………………………………………52 Method…………………………………………………………………………52 Participants …………………………………………………………………52 Independent Variables ………………………………………………………52 Dependent Variables…………………………….….……………………………… 54 Control Variables……….………….………………………………………………. 56 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued Procedure………………..……………………………….………………………… 58 Results………………………………………………………………………….59 III. STUDY 2………………………………………………………………………67 Method…………………………………………………………………………67 Participants …………………………………………………………………67 Independent Variables ………………………………………………………68 Dependent Variables ………………………………………………………..69 Control Variables ……………………………………………………………71 Procedure …………………………..………………………………………71 Results ………………………………………………………………………….72 IV. DISCUSSION……………...…………………………………………………..81 Racial crime news, candidate race, reader racial identification, and leadership prototypicality ………..….………………………………….83 Prototypicality, expectations of policy performance, electoral support, and affect…………….……………………………………………………………....88 The mediated model of news effects………………… …………………………… 92 Direct effects of crime story and candidate race on the dependent variables…………………………………………………………………………….. 93 Theoretical and substantive implications of the study …………………….....97 Limitations and Recommendations For further Research……………………101 APPENDIX A: Stage 1 Instrument (Study 1)………………………………….……...107 APPENDIX B: Stage 2 Experimental Materials (Studies 1 & 2)….……………….....114 APPENDIX C: Stage 2 Instrument (Studies 1 & 2).……………….……………...….120 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued APPENDIX D: Tables and Figures…...……….….………………...……….………..137 REFERENCES…………………………………….....……………………………….207 9 ABSTRACT The present study aimed at advancing our understanding of the effects that racially stereotypical media discourse has on White voters’ responses to African American candidates in mixed-race elections. In particular, a causal model was proposed where the racial stereotypicality of news messages was predicted to interact with the race of political candidates and White news consumers’ racial identification in affecting perceptions of candidates’ leadership prototypicality. In turn, the prototypicality ratings were hypothesized to positively predict expectations of policy performance, candidate affect, and electoral support. In particular, it was predicted that White individuals exposed to racially stereotypical crime news would view African American candidates in unrelated stories as less leader-prototypical than White candidates and this effect was expected be stronger than among Whites exposed to non-stereotypical crime news or no crime news at all. This relationship was also predicted to increase as a function of White participants’ racial ingroup identification. The findings from two experimental investigations offered limited support for the mediated model. The independent variables had weak and qualified effects on the prototypicality ratings. In addition, most of these effects worked in favor of, rather than to the disadvantage of the African American candidate. However, as hypothesized, prototypicality was a consistent predictor of electoral support, candidate affect, and, less so, policy performance expectations. Overall, these findings suggest that race matters in mass mediated political processes, both as a contextual factor and as a characteristic of electoral contenders. 10 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The news media system in the United States has been referred to as a key facilitator of the country’s social and political processes (Graber, 1997; Patterson, 1993, 1998). Yet, researchers point to patterns in news coverage of public life suggesting that news continues to misrepresent the society’s major ethnic groups (Greenberg, Mastro, & Brand, 2002) in ways that may adversely influence intergroup relations and ultimately perpetuate social inequalities in the United States (Pan & Kosicki, 1996). Alongside the fact that news remains the most popular source of political information (Pew Research Center, 2004), news consumption in general is likely to expose its users to persistently stereotypical and negative portrayals of the largest