Partisan Bias and Racial Events: An Examination of Online Racial Discourse

• In Event: 429 - Regular Session. Racialization and Racism in Public Discourse

Abstract

In recent years, partisans have become more polarized with regard to racial issues (Baldassarri and Gelman 2008, King and Smith 2008; Tesler and Sears 2010; King and Smith 2011; Edsall 2012). In short, the so-called Age of Obama has not led to a post-racial politics. Much of the attempt to track our distance from a post-racial dream surfaces during one of the many ephemeral racial controversies that dominate media attention. The myriad of racial controversies have, if anything, contributed to the increasing polarization and further entrenched the partisan divide on race.
In this paper, I focus on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and the brief racial controversy over Obama’s selection of the first Latina justice. I examined comments sections of partisan blogs during a racial controversy in order to ascertain how the interactions within partisan groups contribute to polarization. I argue that partisans do not exist in ideological bubbles unaware of a common set of facts. Instead, I show how, in this case, right and left were exposed and seemingly aware of the same set of facts but interpreted them very differently. In this paper, I detail how participants co-produce partisan interpretations of a set of agreed upon facts. These divergent interpretations allow the partisan divide to increase during a racial event even as partisans are exposed to the same information.

Author

• Jeffrey K. Dowd, State University of New Jersey-Rutgers