Award Date

May 2017

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Journalism and Media Studies

First Committee Member

Paul Traudt

Second Committee Member

Julian Kilker

Third Committee Member

Gary Larson

Fourth Committee Member

Robert Parker

Number of Pages

112

Abstract

Understanding the role of media in the lives of consumers has been a longstanding concern of various scholars. Although the news media do not tell consumers what to think explicitly, they do imply what consumers should think, via the contexts in which news is presented. The central thrust of this thesis is a psychological and sociological perception study of news directors’ implicit and explicit perceptions of race when creating news content. The aim is to discover whether an implicit or explicit racial bias can be found amongst some news directors when covering racial minority groups. A better understanding of bias provides valuable insights on what media practices to utilize when covering diverse groups. Results lacked support that news directors exhibited any form of racial bias. Although the general assumption of the study was unsupported, the study provided possible realms for future research to study the history of negative perceptions of mass media content in terms of racial minority groups. This study has contributed and provided substantial support that broadcast news directors at network affiliate stations do not exhibit implicit or explicit racial bias.

Keywords

bias; diversity; journalists; news; race; racism

Disciplines

Broadcast and Video Studies | Communication | Communication Technology and New Media | Journalism Studies

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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