OTHER, UPPITY OBAMA: A Content Analysis of Race Appeals in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

Until 2008, only White candidates represented either of the two major parties as presidential nominees. Hence, little is known about how race appeals are framed by or against non-White presidential candidates. Barack Obama's election as the Democratic Party nominee allows us to investigate this...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Du Bois review 2012-01, Vol.9 (2), p.439-456
Main Authors: Erigha, Maryann, Charles, Camille Z.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Until 2008, only White candidates represented either of the two major parties as presidential nominees. Hence, little is known about how race appeals are framed by or against non-White presidential candidates. Barack Obama's election as the Democratic Party nominee allows us to investigate this issue. In this article, we conduct a content analysis of over 160 advertisements from the 2008 U.S. presidential election to examine how race appeals were framed (or countered) by each campaign. We find that the Republican campaign employed implicit racial appeals that played upon stereotypes of non-Whites as “un-American” and “other” and Blacks as “dangerous,” “criminal,” “incompetent,” and “uppity.” In contrast, the Democratic campaign de-emphasized race, portrayed “other” as positive, reinforced American identity, and spoke out against negative advertisements.
ISSN:1742-058X
1742-0598
DOI:10.1017/S1742058X12000264