Covering Muslims

We present the first systematic, large-scale analysis of American newspaper coverage of Muslims. By comparing it over time with reporting on other groups and issues as well as coverage of the subject in other countries, we demonstrate conclusively how negative American newspapers have been in their treatment of Muslims across the two-decade period between 1996 and 2016, both in an absolute sense and compared to a range of other groups. The same pattern holds in other countries, such as Australia, Canada, and the UK. While 9/11 did not make coverage more negative in the long run, it did dramatically increase the prevalence of references to terrorism and extremism.

Ideas, Interests and Foreign Aid

Why do countries give foreign aid? Although many countries have official development assistance programs, this book argues that no two of them see the purpose of these programs in the same way. Moreover, the way countries frame that purpose has shaped aid policy choices past and present. Instead, analyzing half a century of legislative debates on aid in these four countries, this book presents a unique picture both of cross-national and over time patterns in the salience of different aid frames and of varying aid programs that resulted.

Assessing the Effect of Media Tone on Attitudes toward Muslims

Does the tone of media coverage directly affect public attitudes? We use an online between-subjects experiment to show that exposure to articles of quantifiably different valences about Muslims or Catholics affects reported attitudes toward each of those groups. We also identify anxiety as a key mediator between exposure to articles of different valences and attitudes about each group. Our findings suggest that articles of a particular tone can influence views of social groups.

Atheism in US and UK Newspapers

We analyze coverage of atheism and atheists in American and British newspapers using computational text analysis techniques, including sentiment analysis and topic modeling. In particular, we show that greater negativity is associated with atheism as a concept than with atheists as individuals. Our findings add a new dimension to scholarship on differences between individual-targeted and group-targeted tolerance in public attitudes, establishing for the first time that media coverage mirrors such differences.