SAMPLE ABSTRACT

Abstracts must include a citation, a summary, definitions of key terms, a critical analysis of the article and a comparison of it to other articles we will discuss in class. Papers should be about two double-spaced typed pages. These must be posted on the Blackboard 24 hours before class.

  

SAMPLE ABSTRACT

CITATION

Domke, D., Garland, P., Billeaudeaux, A. & Hutcheson, J. (2003). Insights Into U.S. Racial Hierarchy: Racial Profiling, News Sources, and September II. Journal of Communication, Vol. 53 Issue 4, p. 606, 18 p.

ABSTRACT FROM ARTICLE

The events of September 11, 2001, seem likely to have reverberating implications for U.S. race relations, in particular the relative hierarchy of differing racial and ethnic groups. With this in mind, in this study the researchers focused on the manner in which “racial profiling” was talked about—by government and societal leaders, nongovernment opinion leaders, and average citizens—in several leading U.S. news outlets for the 5 months prior to September 11 and for the 5 months afterward. The findings indicate that (a) citizens increased markedly as sources in news coverage after September 11; (b) Arab Americans spoke from more favorable positions of status than African Americans; and (c) racial minorities may face a situation in which they de facto “compete” with other minorities for space in news coverage. The authors discuss implications for the role of news media in race relations.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• What kinds of social and political voices are present and have some of these been privileged in discussion of profiling in news media?
• Are racial and ethnic groups granted different opportunities to speak about racial profiling in the press?
• Did the perspectives in news about racial profiling advanced by differing sources and racial groups change after September 11.

THEORY

The article is grounded in the racial hierarchy theory. It specifically mentions theorists such as Gates, 1986, Hall, 1981, and Herman and Chomsky. The authors also refer to framing, (p. 608), but do not really apply it to their study.

METHOD

The authors gathered their content from the NEXIS electronic database five months before and after September 11, excluding September 11. Key words included “racial or ethnic” and “profiling” in the same story. The researchers included several large regional and national newspapers and looked at standard news only.

The “source” was the unit of analysis and researchers coded types of official sources and the race of citizens.

The authors also coded what was discussed in the article, specifically, if it focused on policing or on terrorism. They also looked at valence – the direction of a source’s viewpoint about racial profiling and whether they were for, against, neutral about the topic.

During the coding process, one person conducted the full analysis, and a second person coded about 20 percent of the articles. The researchers used cross tabs to compare the differences in sources and topics pre and post September 11.

RESULTS

The authors found that September 11 was a watershed moment for racial profiling. Prior to that date 82 percent of articles focused on police behavior, 2 percent on terrorism and 15 percent focused on neither. After September 11, terrorism became a substantial focus of articles.

The findings also indicated that citizens increased markedly as sources in news coverage after September 11. Further it found that Blacks as news sources were primarily limited to individual opinions or lower status sources. They did not tend to show up as governmental leaders. In contrast, Arab Americans as sources tended to speak as leaders of political organizations.

The article found a 50 percent decrease in African Americans as sources post September 11 and a 17-fold increase of Arabs as sources. Additionally, the authors found that support for racial profiling increased after September 11 for all groups. They believe this may be explained by the fact that journalists emphasized unexpected viewpoints.

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES

The article’s study of sources and racial profiling is excellent. It also provides an excellent definition of racial profiling and confirms my assertion that the only previous scholarly articles on racial profiling are from the fields of criminology and sociology.

However, one weakness was how it identified the race of sources. The authors looked at if his or her race was mentioned in the article or if they represented an organization that had specific race missions. If these two identifiers were missing, the source was placed in the unidentifiable category.

Another weakness was the lack of details about the specific topics discussed in articles. I felt the categories—policing and terrorism—were too broad. My study will provide a more detailed look at articles and the specific frames that they include.