Willie horton’s image achieved iconic status during the 1988 presidential campaign. His darkened, menacing Black visage came to represent an amalgam of visceral associations: Black brutality and unbridled sexual appetite; White innocence and vulnerability; and “liberal” crime policy run amok. The Democratic presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis, became entangled in the conglomeration of associated fears produced by the political ads, by news media ad watches, and by social commentary and political speeches that invoked Horton’s name or likeness.

The fierce debate that followed over the nature of the race appeal involving Horton was largely motivated by widespread public recognition that something...

Communic ative processes are interdependent, making it necessary for media effects studies to address the interplay between the sender and receiver and the message itself. Now that we have a solid understanding of the types of messages that are employed in electoral contests in which racial minority candidates are involved, we need to explore what, if any, effects can result when those messages are received by (potential) voters. The next two chapters are dedicated to answering those questions. We are principally concerned with two types of race-based messages: racist appeals and racial appeals. As we described in the previous chapter,...

Racist appeals have long since been shown to have more or less significant effects on potential voters’ opinions about public policy. While their effect on perceptions of candidates and voting choice seems to reside with related perceptions about which candidate has appealed to race in his (or her) political advertising communication, it is apparent that viewing advertising appeals by a biracial pair of candidates influences that perception. The view that one candidate appealed to race has the potential to detrimentally affect participants’ view of either Black or White candidates so that, for some, there is an influence on their decision...

In Chapter 1, we argued that White candidates frequently construct political ads with potential for racist appeal. Further, we argued that the stereotypes and prejudices expressed and codified in those ads greatly influence the image that candidates of color project to the voting public. At that point, however, our assessment of race-based appeals extended only to the visibly produced but not yet broadcast advertising spot. The previous two chapters advanced us to that next milestone in this story: demonstrating that both racist appeals and racial appeals to Black authenticity influence not so much how potential voters evaluate candidates as their...

In Chapter 1, we focused our attention on the primary forms of race-based appeals that have appeared in political campaign advertisements over the past three decades. We specifically described how race-based appeals were communicated through various combinations of racialized language and images. We discussed the electoral circumstances that gave rise to their deployment and speculated on the ways that such ads might intentionally or unintentionally disadvantage one candidate or another or work to frame sponsoring candidates in the best possible light to voters. In other words, we considered race-based appeals primarily within the particular context of an election but focused...

When we refer to race-based appeals, we largely refer to communications that emanate from the candidates and their surrogates or supporters. However, as we noted in Chapter 4, the news media often buttress these appeals in the way that they frame their reporting of election contests. That is, when the mass media go beyond simply conveying candidates’ appeals to racialized framing, they may often work to support or undermine race-based claims made by candidates. In keeping with their “watchdog” function, news media can especially be involved in bolstering or mitigating race-based appeals, particularly with regard to accusations of who “played...

When we began delving into the subject of racialized political communication in 2001, we never seriously imagined the possibility of a Black president. When we personally encountered Barack Obama for the first time in the Massachusetts State House chambers in 2004, among a giddy group of cheering teenagers (who by 2008 would be of voting age), we—like many Americans—got our first glimpse of a potentially serious run. Yet when we began assembling this book just before the announcement of Obama’s candidacy in 2007, we thought little of his potential chances for presidential success.

The evidence and data in...