The Supreme Court regularly makes decisions with profound policy implications, but it largely leaves it to others to shape public opinion regarding those policies. The media play an important role in framing the Court's decisions, yet few studies have examined media coverage of the Court. It is quite possible that not all media frame the Court's decisions in the same way. We analyze the Black and mainstream presses' coverage of the Court's 1995 Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Federico Pena, Secretary of Transportation, et al. decision on affirmative action and find systematic differences between the two types of newspapers.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Federico Pena, Secretary of Transportation, et al., 515 U.S. 200 (1995).
2.
Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Federico Pena, Secretary of Transportation, et al., 965 F. Supp. 1556 (1997).
3.
Bennett, W. L. (1988). News: The politics of illusion (2nd ed.). New York: Longman.
4.
Caldeira, G. A. (1986). Neither the purse nor the sword: Dynamics of public confidence in the Supreme Court. American Political Science Review, 80, 1209-1226.
5.
Clawson, R. A., Kegler, E. R., & Waltenburg, E. N. (2001). The legitimacy-conferring authority of the U.S. Supreme Court: An experimental design. American Politics Research, 29, 566-591.
6.
Cong. Owens calls Clarence Thomas a danger to African-Americans. (1995, July 15). New York Amsterdam News, p. 9-9.
7.
The court and affirmative action. (1995, June 29). Baltimore Afro-American, p. A4-A4.
8.
Davis, R. (1994). Decisions and images: The Supreme Court and the press. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
9.
Franklin, C., & Kosaki, L. C. (1995). Media, knowledge, and public evaluations of the Supreme Court. In L. Epstein (Ed.), Contemplating courts (pp. 352-375). Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Books.
10.
Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1987). The changing culture of affirmative action. Research in Political Sociology, 3, 137-177.
11.
Gans, H. J. (1979). Deciding what's news. New York: Pantheon.
12.
Gibson, J. L. (1989). Understandings of justice: Institutional legitimacy, procedural justice and political tolerance. Law & Society Review, 23, 469-496.
13.
Graber, D. (1993). Mass media and American politics (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.
14.
Hoekstra, V. J. (1995). The Supreme Court and opinion change: An experimental study of the court's ability to change opinion. American Politics Quarterly, 23, 109-129.
15.
Hoekstra, V. J., & Segal, J. A. (1996). The shepherding of local opinion: The Supreme Court and Lamb's Chapel. Journal of Politics, 58, 1079-1102.
16.
Iyengar, S. (1991). Is anyone responsible? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
17.
Jeffries, J. L. (2000). Virginia's native son: The election and administration of Governor L. Douglas Wilder. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
18.
Kinder, D. R., & Sanders, L. M. (1996). Divided by color. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
19.
Kinder, D. R., & Winter, N. (2001). Exploring the racial divide: Blacks, Whites, and opinion on national policy. American Journal of Political Science, 45, 439-453.
20.
Marshall, T. (1989). Public opinion and the Supreme Court. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
21.
Martindale, C. (1986). The White press and Black America. New York: Greenwood Press.
22.
McCarthy, A. W. (1995, June 17). Justice Thomas does it to us again. Baltimore Afro-American, p. A1-A1.
23.
Miller, Y. (1995, June 29). Affirmative action is still on. Bay State Banner, p. 7-7.
24.
Mondak, J. J. (1990). Perceived legitimacy of Supreme Court decisions: Three functions of source credibility. Political Behavior, 12, 363-384.
25.
Mondak, J. J. (1992). Institutional legitimacy, policy legitimacy, and the Supreme Court. American Politics Quarterly, 20, 457-477.
26.
Mondak, J. J., & Smithey, S. I. (1997). The dynamics of public support for the Supreme Court. Journal of Politics, 59, 1114-1142.
27.
Nelson, T. E., & Kinder, D. R. (1996). Issue frames and group-centrism in American public opinion. Journal of Politics, 58, 1055-1078.
28.
O'Callaghan, J., & Dukes, J. O. (1992). Media coverage of the Supreme Court's caseload. Journalism Quarterly, 69, 195-203.
29.
Owens, R. (1996). Entering the twenty-first century: Oppression and the African American press. In V. T. Berry & C. L. Manning-Miller (Eds.), Mediated messages and African-American culture (pp. 96-116). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
30.
Poindexter, P. M., & Stroman, C. A. (1980). The Black press and the Bakke case. Journalism Quarterly, 57, 262-268.
31.
Reeves, K. (1997). Voting hopes or fears? New York: Oxford University Press.
32.
Savage, D. G. (1995, June 13). High court deals severe blow to federal affirmative action rights: Justices hold that race-based preferential treatment is almost always unconstitutional. But an opening is left for narrow, specific bias remedies. Los Angeles Times, p. A1-A1.
33.
Savage, D. G., & Ostrow, R. J. (1995, June 29). Ruling will hurt U.S. anti-bias programs, report says. Los Angeles Times, p. A22-A22.
34.
Slotnick, E. E., & Segal, J. A. (1998). Television news and the Supreme Court: All the news that's fit to air? New York: Cambridge University Press.
35.
Thomas, An embarrassment. (1995). Cleveland Call and Post, p. A4-A4.
36.
Wolseley, R. E. (1990). The Black press, U.S.A. (2nd ed.). Ames: Iowa State University Press.
