America in Black and White: Locating Race in the Modern Presidency, 1933-2011

摘要

Research on race in public discourse tends to fall into 1 of 2 categories: Either it focuses broadly on how media communicate about racial groups and frame political issues in racial terms or it focuses specifically on how politicians, in 1 or 2 key speeches, discuss race. This study bridges these approaches. It borrows an analytical strategy from research on race in media but applies this strategy to presidential discourse. Drawing on a content analysis of every mention of race in presidential addresses over 8 decades, we find that presidents have avoided talking about race and especially specific racial groups. We also find that race discourse varies across speech types and that Southern Democrats discuss race differently than do others.