An Examination of Newspaper Coverage of Hate Crimes in the United States

Abstract

This study examines 10 years of major newspaper hate crime coverage in the United States. Historically, scholars have gained valuable insights into American perceptions about crime by critically examining newspaper coverage of crime (for example, Kimmel, Warren, Dombrowski, Greer-Williams, & Orbe, 2001). The central argument is that the amount of press coverage of hate crimes has an impact on public perceptions, values, attitudes, and behaviors in the short run and on actual hate crimes in the long run (Dome, 1996). Previous studies reveal the existence of a unidirectional relation between both news content and public opinion regarding social issues. This project examines newspaper reports from 2006-2016 from each region in the United States with the top five newspapers (determined by readership) will be chosen from each region. A mixed method approach of both quantitative and qualitative is used to examine the prevalence of articles that focus on hate crimes and the types of hate crimes that are covered in regional newspaper.