Recently we set out to examine in a novel way the connections between what people see in local newscasts and what they think about juvenile crime. We designed an experiment to assess the impact of the "superpredator news frame" in which the only difference between what groups of viewers saw in a...

It is hardly debatable that race and ethnicity play a critical role in American society and politics (Myrdal 1944; Dahl 1972). Even in the face of myriad civil rights laws at the state, local, and federal levels, racial and ethnic inequalities persist (Wilson 1987). This condition is compounded by...

Strategic frame analysis, the method advanced in this paper, allows a nuanced understanding of the role played by media and public opinion in impeding or advancing the goals of those who seek more public attention and resources allocated to youth. Strategic frame analysis relies on a series of...

In the midst of this evolving political landscape on which new debates about welfare ensued, the news media played and continues to play a critical role in the public's understanding of what "welfare" ought to be. Utilizing a novel experimental design, I wanted to examine the impact of media...

In this study, we integrate research findings on the impact of exposure to stereotype reinforcing local crime news with theories about the impact of residential context on attitudes about race and crime. To date, there has been no research investigating whether neighborhood context mitigates or...

Local television news is the public’s primary source of public affairs information. News stories about crime dominate local news programming because they maintain high audience demand. The prevalence of this type of reporting has led to a crime narrative or “script†that...