Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Impact of Alternative Elite Discourse on the Formation of Public Opinion: A Study of the Racial Divide in American Opinion

政治学博士论文研究：另类精英话语对舆论形成的影响：美国舆论中的种族鸿沟研究

• 批准号: 0241412
• 负责人: Nicholas Valentino
• 金额: $ 1.19万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-01-15 至 2005-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0241412&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

One of the more interesting empirical regularities within the study of American public opinion has been the enormous disagreement between black Americans and white Americans on issues of public policy. From affirmative action, to AFDC, to the United States intervention in the Arab/Israeli conflict, blacks and whites appear to disagree with each other on the direction that government should take on a whole host of policy issues. While previous research has suggested why blacks and whites should differ in their opinions on race specific issues, we have yet to explain why blacks and whites differ in their opinions on ostensibly non-racial issues, such as social security or health care. In this Doctoral Dissertation Research project the student explores more closely the nature of the black and white disagreement on non-race specific policy issues. Moving beyond other scholars focus on relationships between political predispositions and black and white differences in opinion on non-race specific issues the student develops a theoretical framework that considers the effects that exposure to differing elite discourses has on widening the gap in black and white public opinion. The student shows that an attempt to advance their own interests, ideas, and ideologies among their respective racial constituencies, African-American elites (including black elected officials, reporters, religious and organizational leaders, etc) and mainstream elites (those elites who are able to dominate mainstream discourse) frame non-race specific political issues in substantively different ways. Given this difference, I will then show how African Americans exposure to their own indigenous elite discourse and white Americans. lack of exposure to this alternative discourse plays an important role in contributing to the differences researchers have observed in black and white opinion on non-race specific issues. To do this the student has formulated a research design that analyzes not only the content of black and mainstream elite discourse on non-race specific issues but which also, thorough a series of framing experiments, experimentally test the differential effects that the messages supplied by these distinct discursive communities have on African American and white opinion with regard to these issues. He begins with a content analysis where he examines the different ways in which both Black and mainstream media have framed three important non-race specific political issues: social security reform, the Arab/ Israeli conflict and 1993 Clinton health care reform act. Examining the content of national black media sources (national black news magazines and several black newspapers) and national mainstream media sources (national news magazines and mainstream newspapers) at various points over the last decade and a half, the student identifies differences in the way these issues have been framed by these respective media sources. Next to get an idea about how the black and mainstream media's framing of these issues might influence black and white public opinion, I designed a set of experiments that allow me sort out the differential effects of black and mainstream elite issue frames on black and white public opinion of non-racial issues. These experiments allow testing of whether the alternative framing of non-racial issues within the black community leads to different interpretations of non-racial issues and as a result may help explain differences in black and white Americans opinions on these issues.

在对美国公众舆论的研究中，一个比较有趣的实证研究是美国黑人和白色美国人在公共政策问题上的巨大分歧。从平权行动到AFDC，再到美国对阿拉伯/以色列冲突的干预，黑人和白人似乎在政府应该采取的一系列政策问题上意见不一。虽然以前的研究表明，为什么黑人和白人在种族问题上的观点应该不同，但我们还没有解释为什么黑人和白人在表面上非种族问题上的观点不同，如社会保障或医疗保健。 在这个博士论文研究项目中，学生将更深入地探讨黑人和白色在非种族特定政策问题上的分歧。超越其他学者专注于政治倾向和黑人和白色在非种族特定问题上的意见差异之间的关系，学生开发了一个理论框架，认为暴露于不同的精英话语对扩大黑人和白色公众舆论的差距的影响。学生表明，试图推进自己的利益，想法和意识形态在各自的种族选区，非洲裔美国人精英（包括黑人民选官员，记者，宗教和组织领袖等）和主流精英（那些精英谁能够主导主流话语）框架非种族具体的政治问题在实质上不同的方式。鉴于这种差异，我将展示非洲裔美国人如何接触到自己的土著精英话语和白色美国人。研究人员观察到，黑人和白色人对非种族问题的看法存在差异，而缺乏对这种另类话语的接触是造成这种差异的一个重要原因。 要做到这一点，学生制定了一个研究设计，不仅分析了黑人和主流精英话语的内容，对非种族的具体问题，但也通过一系列的框架实验，实验测试这些不同的话语社区提供的信息对非裔美国人和白色关于这些问题的意见的差异影响。他从内容分析开始，研究了黑人和主流媒体构建三个重要的非种族特定政治问题的不同方式：社会保障改革，阿拉伯/以色列冲突和1993年克林顿医疗保健改革法案。在过去的十年半中，学生在不同的时间点检查国家黑人媒体来源（国家黑人新闻杂志和几家黑人报纸）和国家主流媒体来源（国家新闻杂志和主流报纸）的内容，确定这些问题的差异。 接下来，为了了解黑人和主流媒体对这些问题的框架如何影响黑人和白色公众舆论，我设计了一组实验，让我整理出黑人和主流精英问题框架对黑人和白色非种族问题公众舆论的不同影响。这些实验允许测试是否在黑人社区的非种族问题的替代框架导致不同的解释非种族问题，因此可能有助于解释黑人和白色美国人对这些问题的意见的差异。