"Whiteness and news: the interlocking social construction of ""realities"""

This dissertation examines how mainstream U.S. journalism consistently serves white racial interests and the racial status quo, or what I call white incumbency, despite its push for diversity and its stated aims to improve coverage of nonwhite communities. It is based on an in-depth ethnographic study of two daily newspapers and extensive one-on-one interviews with 61 journalists. I found that although journalists strongly identify with the need for more diverse coverage in newspapers, they emphasize individual and personal stories that avoid recognition of historical racial power imbalances, exhibiting what Ruth Frankenberg calls power-evasive race cognizance. Journalists also demonstrate a number of often contradictory identifications and self-understandings about themselves and their work, such as commitments to diversity and not taking sides, but these conflicts are almost always resolved in favor of white incumbency. Journalistic conventions and practices, such as the watchdog function and its emphasis on public institutions, routinely produce stories that replay and reinforce racial hegemony by portraying nonwhites as problems or people seeking “special privileges.” Also, journalistic repertoires about those conventions and practices avoid interrogations of journalists’ ongoing complicity in the maintenance of white incumbency.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communications

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Dolan, Kevin M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Nerone, John C.
• Roediger, David R.
• Christians, Clifford G.
• Ono, Kent A.

• Critical journalism studies
• Critical whiteness studies
• Journalism
• Multiculturalism
• White incumbency
• identity
• Objectivity
• Diversity
• Ethnography
• Sociology of news

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Kevin M. Dolan

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24404

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/24404