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Another Disaster: Racial Bias in Hurricane Katrina Coverage

Another Disaster: Racial Bias in Hurricane Katrina Coverage. Nan Yu Erin Whiteside Shannon Kahle. Introduction. Hurricane Katrina hit the South on August 29. The resulting coverage was shocking to many Americans.

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Another Disaster: Racial Bias in Hurricane Katrina Coverage

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  1. Another Disaster: Racial Bias in Hurricane Katrina Coverage Nan Yu Erin Whiteside Shannon Kahle

  2. Introduction • Hurricane Katrina hit the South on August 29. • The resulting coverage was shocking to many Americans. • Never before had Americans seen such poverty and desperation in its news coverage. Critics complained of racial bias.

  3. Background • Racial issues are still pervasive in the South. • These very similar photos included very different captions from the AP. • Top: This African American was described as a looter • Bottom: These Caucasians were described as looking for food

  4. Theoretical Framework • Exemplification theory • Definition: “Judging the Whole by Some of its Parts.” (Zillman, 1999) • Stereotyping • Definition: Cognitive structures that contain the perceiver’s knowledge, beliefs and expectancies about some human group (Hamilton & Troiler, 1986) • Previous studies have shown the power that media play in establishing and solidifying stereotypes

  5. Methods • A content-analysis study • Four major national newspapers in the U.S.: The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal • 1160 pictures about Katrina issues • August 25-September 23 (30 days) • Intercoder Reliability 92.83% • Unit of Observation: individual picture; Unit of Analysis: individual picture / individual person

  6. Methods • How Katrina was covered in the photos? • What is the relationship between the race of the person depicted and the valence of the photo?

  7. Methods • Examples of coding categories for activities and social identities.

  8. Results • The Wall Street Journal published the least pictures (5.1% among the total) about Katrina issues, among them 65% of the pictures did not include people. • The New York Times (250, 27.6%), The Washington Post (363, 40.1%), USA Today (247, 27.2%). • 14.1% of pictures in The New York Times were on the front page, in contrast to both USA Today (7.7%) and The Washington Post (7.1%).

  9. Results Percentage of pictures with different topics in Katrina coverage in the four newspapers (N=1160) • The most frequently covered topics were “damage,” “evacuation,” and “recovery.” “Preparedness” and “International response” were least covered.

  10. Results Percentage of people by race in Katrina pictures in the four newspapers (N=1165) Χ2 (3)=12.609, p<0.006 • The New York Times and USA Today included more Caucasians than African-Americans in their coverage, whereas The Wall Street Journal and TheWashington Post included more African-Americans. • The Washington Post accounted for nearly half of the African-American depicted in the pictures.

  11. Results Χ2 (1)=276.859 P<.0001 Percentage of persons by race shown in passive/active activities in Katrina pictures (N=1140) • When a person was engaged in a passive activity, the person was most likely to be an African-American. • When a person was engaged in an active activity, the person was most likely to be a Caucasian.

  12. Results Χ2 (1)=148.25 P<.0001 Percentage of persons by race shown in active vs. passive social identities in Katrina pictures (N=1140) • Caucasians were most likely depicted in active roles, such as soldiers, relief workers, whereas African-Americans were identified in active roles only slightly more than passive roles, such as evacuee and refugee.

  13. Results • Evacuation was the biggest topic. - being evacuated: 77% were African-Americans, - rescuing people: 66% were white. • Overwhelmingly, those in “victim” positions were African-American, whereas those in “helpers” positions were white. Photos depicting people of different races

  14. Results • When Katrina survivors’ activities were described as looting, African-Americans were most often shown (83.33% of the time). • In contrast, when survivors’ activities were described as or clearly shown guarding their personal property, Caucasians were most likely to be shown (66.67% of the time).

  15. Conclusions and Limitations • African-Americans and Caucasians were depicted differently. African-Americans and Caucasians were portrayed in stereotypically active and passive ways. • Media presented atypical exemplars of African-Americans in Katrina. • Limitations: gaps of samples • Future studies - local media, TV news - headlines, captions - facial expressions

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