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Media Framing of Color-Blind Racism: A Content Analysis of the Charlottesville Rally*

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Abstract

This study investigates how major media outlets, particularly CNN and Fox News, presented the “Unite the Right Rally” in Charlottesville Virginia. A computer-assisted content analysis was conducted on 1-week online news articles about the rally from the two networks. Evidence from Topic Modeling and Sentiment analysis suggests that CNN and Fox News share similarities in reporting the rally regardless of their target audiences. The findings demonstrate the efforts made by the media to uphold color-blindness ideology, underplay racial conflict, and subtly normalize white supremacy. The main contribution of this paper lies in (a) offering empirical evidence of media effect, (b) extending the examination of media effect from traditional forms to the online platform, (c) reexamining the political leaning the media posits, and (d) bridging media study and color-blind racism.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

Not applicable.

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Funding

This project was funded by the Howard Beers Summer Fellowship from the Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40503, USA

    Chenghui Zhang

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  1. Chenghui Zhang
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Contributions

The author would like to express appreciation for mentorship from Ana S. Q. Liberato and Janet P. Stamatel and financial support from Howard Beers Summer Fellowship from the Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky.

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Correspondence to Chenghui Zhang.

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*Data for this project is available here: https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/132681/version/V1/view or openicpsr-132681

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Zhang, C. Media Framing of Color-Blind Racism: A Content Analysis of the Charlottesville Rally*. Race Soc Probl 13, 330–341 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-021-09321-8

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