Race and Inequality in American Politics An Imperfect Union

This chapter covers the media, race, and politics. It begins by introducing the key concepts of priming, framing, and agenda-setting. It then offers a history of the use of race in electoral campaigns highlighting the difference between racially explicit and racially implicit frames on crime, welfare, and other policy areas. That history includes the progression from a Republican ‘Southern Strategy” focused primarily on race and African Americans to one increasingly focused on immigration and religion in recent years. The chapter then turns to different assessments of the impact of these campaigns. Excerpts cover media conglomeration and the debate over whether the media has a liberal bias and/or an anti-minority bias.