How are African American political attitudes influenced by the mass media? Cathy Cohen’s theory of marginalization suggests that media narratives about African Americans influence their public opinion about HIV/AIDS, behaviors associated with it, and populations associated with it. However, this has gone untested. Using an innovative experimental design involving four hundred African American participants, I find that episodic framing of HIV/AIDS not only activates negative attitudes toward behaviors associated with the disease and toward black men who engage in them; it also stimulates positive attitudes toward political mobilization and regressive policy solutions.
Acevedo-Garcia, Dolores.2001. Zip code-level risk factors for tuberculosis: Neighborhood environment and residential segregation in New Jersey, 1985-1992. American Journal of Public Health91 (5): 734-41.
2.
Adimora, A.A., and V.J. Schoenbach .2005. Social context, sexual networks, and racial disparities in rates of sexually transmitted infections . Journal of Infectious Diseases191: S115-S122.
3.
Bachrach, Peter, and Morton Baratz.1962. Two faces of power. American Political Science Review56 (4): 947-52.
4.
Baird, Vanessa A., and Amy Gangl.2006. Shattering the myth of legality: The impact of the media’s framing of Supreme Court procedures on perceptions of fairness. Political Psychology27 (4): 597-614.
5.
Bobo, Lawrence, and Devon Johnson.2004. A taste for punishment: Black and white Americans’ views on the death penalty and the war on drugs. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race1 (1): 151-80.
6.
Boykin, Keith.2005. Beyond the down low: Sex, lies, and denial in black America . New York: Carroll and Graf.
7.
Cappella, Joseph N., and Kathleen Hall Jamieson .1996. News frames, political cynicism, and media cynicism. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science546 (The Media and Politics): 71-84.
8.
Chong, Dennis, and James N. Druckman.2007. Framing theory. Annual Review of Political Science10 (1): 103-26.
9.
CNN.2008. CNN exit polls . Retrieved November 9, 2008, from http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1
10.
Cohen, Cathy J.1999. The boundaries of blackness: AIDS and the breakdown of black politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
11.
Cohn, D’Vera.2007. Optimism about black progress declines: Blacks see growing values gap between poor and middle class. Washington, DC : Pew Research Center.
12.
Cosby, William.2004. Dr. Bill Cosby speaks. Retrieved October 15, 2004, from http://www.eightcitiesmap.com/transcript_bc.htm
13.
Davis, Darren W.1995. Exploring black political intolerance. Political Behavior17 (1): 1-22.
14.
Davis, Darren W., and Brian D. Silver.2004. Civil liberties vs. security: Public opinion in the context of the terrorist attacks on America. American Journal of Political Science48 (1): 28-46.
15.
Davis, James Allan, Tom W. Smith, Peter V.Marsden, NORC, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, National Science Foundation, and National Data Program for the Social Sciences.2005. Norc-Gss Cumulative Data File 1972-2004. Storrs, CT: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research .
16.
Dawson, Michael C.1994. Behind the mule: Race and class in African-American politics . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
17.
---. 2001. Black visions: The roots of contemporary African-American political ideologies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
18.
Digeser, Peter.1992. The fourth face of power. Journal of Politics54 (4): 977-1007.
19.
Farrakhan, Louis.1995. Million Man March speech. Speech delivered October 15, 1995, Washington, DC.
20.
Ford, Chandra L. , Kathryn D. Whetten, Susan A. Hall, Jay S. Kaufman, and Angela D. Thrasher.2007. Black sexuality, social construction, and research targeting "the down low" ("the Dl"). Annals of Epidemiology17 (3): 209-16.
21.
Gay, Claudine.2004. Putting race in context: Identifying the environmental determinants of black racial attitudes. American Political Science Review98 (4): 547-62.
22.
Gay, Claudine, and Katherine Tate.1998. Doubly bound: The impact of gender and race on the politics of black women. Political Psychology19 (1): 169-84.
23.
Gilliam, Franklin D., Jr., and Shanto Iyengar.2000. Prime suspects: The influence of local television news on the viewing public. American Journal of Political Science44 (3): 560-73.
24.
Glaser, James M.1995. Black and white perceptions of party differences . Political Behavior17 (2): 155-77.
25.
Gurin, Patricia, Shirley Hatchett, and James S. Jackson.1989. Hope and independence: Blacks’ response to electoral and party politics. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
26.
Harris-Lacewell, Melissa.2004. Barbershops, bibles, and bet: Everyday talk and black political thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
27.
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research.2006. American National Election Study, 2004 . Ann Arbor, MI: Author.
28.
Iyengar, Shanto.1990. Framing responsibility for political issues: The case of poverty. Political Behavior12 (1): 19-40.
29.
---. 1991. Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
30.
Johnson, Rucker, and Steven Raphael.2006. The effects of male incarceration dynamics on AIDS infection rates among African-American women and men. Unpublished manuscript.
31.
Juhna, Young J., Jennifer St Sauver, Slavica Katusic, Delfino Vargas, Amy Weaver, and John Yunginger.2005. The influence of neighborhood environment on the incidence of childhood asthma: A multilevel approach. Social Science and Medicine60 (11): 2453-64.
32.
Kilgannon, Corey.2005. Just Off a Park's Playing Fields, Another Game Thrives . The New York Times, September 21, 2005, 1.
33.
Kinder, Donald R., and Lynn Sanders.1996. Divided by color: Racial politics and democratic ideals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
34.
Kinder, Donald R., and Nicholas Winter .2001. Exploring the racial divide: Blacks, whites, and opinion on national policy. American Journal of Political Science45 (2): 439-56.
35.
King, J.L.2004. On the down low: A journey into the lives of "straight" black men who sleep with men. New York: Broadway.
36.
King, J.L., and Courtney Carreras .2005. Coming up from the down low: Stop the lies, heal the pain, and get the love and sex you deserve. New York: Crown.
37.
Laveist, Thomas A.1993. Segregation, poverty, and empowerment: Health consequences for African Americans. Milbank Quarterly71 (1): 41-64.
38.
Lwebuga-Mukasa, Jamson, Tonny Oyana, and Caryn Johnson.2005. Local ecological factors, ultrafine particulate concentrations, and asthma prevalence rates in Buffalo, New York, neighborhoods. Journal of Asthma42 (5): 337-48.
39.
Mendelberg, Tali.2001. The race card: Campaign strategy, implicit messages, and the norm of equality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
40.
National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention.2004. HIV/ AIDS among African Americans, February 6, 2004. Retrieved October 12, 2004, from http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/aa/resources/factsheets/aa.htm
41.
Nelson, Thomas E., Rosalee A. Clawson, and Zoe M. Oxley.1997. Media framing of a civil liberties conflict and its effect on tolerance. American Political Science Review91 (3): 567-83.
42.
Obama, Barack.2008. Father’s Day speech. Sunday Service. Apostolic Church of God: Chicago. 15 June 2008. Address.
43.
Oyana, Tonny J., and Jamson S. Lwebuga-Mukasa.2004. Spatial relationships among asthma prevalence, health care utilization, and pollution sources in neighborhoods of Buffalo, New York. Journal of Environmental Health66 (8): 25-37.
44.
Page, Benjamin I., and Robert Y. Shapiro.1992. The rational public: Fifty years of trends in Americans’ policy preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
45.
Phillips, Layli.2005. Deconstructing down low discourse: The politics of sexuality, gender, race, aids, and anxiety. Journal of African American Studies9 (2): 3-15.
46.
Tate, Katherine.1994. From protest to politics: The new black voters in American elections. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
