When Does a Message Sources Race Impact How That Message Is Received Racial and Social Justice Knowledge, Prejudice, and the Belief in Racism as a Zero-Sum Game

Duan, Daniel

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/90262 Copy

Description

Title

When Does a Message Sources Race Impact How That Message Is Received Racial and Social Justice Knowledge, Prejudice, and the Belief in Racism as a Zero-Sum Game

Author(s)

Duan, Daniel

Contributor(s)

Vargas, Patrick T.

Issue Date

2016

Keyword(s)

• prejudice
• racism
• attitudes
• social justice

Abstract

Race and social justice is a salient issue in the United States, as demonstrated by media coverage of the killing of Trayvon Martin, the killing of Eric Garner, and other similar cases. Consequently, the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) has risen, first on social media and later evolving into an umbrella organization for social activism. However, BLM has been met with controversy, with some claiming that anti-black prejudice is overblown and that the movement is illegitimate, especially in comparison to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Given that BLM is primarily led by Black activists, questions of internal biases (whether the arguments advanced by BLM would be better received if they were advanced by White people) come into play. This research asks how the race of an author can affect how that authors message is received when that message reflects modern issues surrounding race and social justice. Additionally, this study tests subjects for various preexisting factors: knowledge of racial and social justice issues, prejudice, and the perception of racism as a zero-sum game (a phenomenon illuminated by Norton and Sommers, 2011). In this study, as subjects prejudice increased, so did their dislike of an article about BLM when that article was written by a black author. When the same article was written by a white author, there was no significant difference in how much subjects liked it, regardless of prejudice. The same pattern followed for how subjects rated how much they liked the author of the article.

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/90262

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2016 Daniel Duan

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