Trump, Newspapers, and the Role of Racial Messages in the 2016 Election

• In Event: The Rhetoric of Race

Abstract

Donald Trump has described himself as “the least racist person,” but others have observed his frequent deployment of racial language and messages. In this paper, we intend to catalogue Trump’s use of racial language during the 2016 presidential campaign and the representation of racial claims in national newspapers.

We hope to illuminate the relationship between political elites and mainstream media institutions. Some studies have noted the prominence of Trump campaign themes in new media institutions on the right (Faris et al 2018). Many have emphasized the negativity of media coverage generally (for example, Patterson 2016). We seek to determine whether Trump’s racial rhetoric dominated mainstream media institutions as well. The media do not always allow politicians’ claims to remain unchallenged. Therefore we will seek to explain such media passivity in this instance. And we will consider what the example means for the nature and role of the mass media. Some studies have shown that racial images in the mass media affect American racial attitudes, while failing to provide convincing explanations for substantial variations in racialized media coverage. Our study may find the explanation in the motivated racial messages of political elites and the deference the mass media show to them.

Existing literature demonstrates that the media persistently traffic in racial stereotypes of non-white groups specifically in the coverage of news stories related to crime (Gilliam and Iyengar 2000; Valentino 1999). Racial images in the media reduce support for social welfare programs (Gilens 1999). Media attention increases hostility to immigrants (Hopkins 2010). And the perpetuation of stereotypes affect whites’ racial attitudes as well as their evaluations of presidents’ performance while in office (Valentino 1999). Negative stereotypes portrayed by the media also affect attitudes and evaluations of African American members of the House of Representatives (Schaffner and Gordon 2004). However, others have shown that in the context of elections, specifically competitions between candidates of different races, although the media limits how race is used, they actively highlight the candidates’ racial differences (Terkildsen and Denmore (1999). Examinations of racial appeals made by white candidates versus their black opponents reveal that whites tend to attack their non-white opponents, while black candidates used their racial appeals to advocate (Erigha and Charles 2012; McIlwan and Caliendo 2009 and 2014).

We will count overt racial references, and we will seek to determine whether other themes contain more subtly coded messages as well. We will examine coverage of Trump’s campaign rhetoric in front page stories in three newspapers, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today. These newspapers are selected for their national scope, broad influence, and divergent audiences in terms of income and education. We will evaluate the degree to which the newspapers amplified Trump’s statements by repeating them without comment or challenged them by addressing the accuracy of his claims. And we will consider whether the newspapers differ in their approach, perhaps reflecting the characteristics of their audiences, or whether they present uniform and high racialized themes in their coverage.

At the same time we seek to understand the role of race in the 2016 presidential campaign and in American politics generally. We hope to measure the degree to which Donald Trump relied on racial messages in the 2016 campaign. And we hope that measures developed from this case will be useful for comparison to other elections. They may indicate whether the Trump campaign was unique in this regard or another example of a larger panel of racialized campaigning. Finally, the study may suggest the degree to which political actors and the mass media fuel racism in America.

Authors

• Natasha Altema McNeely, University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley

• Daniel Chomsky, University of Texas Rio Grande