Framing Inequality at the Ground Level

2019 ◽  
pp. 144-179
Author(s):  
Matt Guardino
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Issue Framing ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Policy Debates

This chapter demonstrates that neoliberal news coverage of economic and social welfare policy can shape public opinion in politically consequential ways. It presents an analysis of media content during the 2010 debate over extension of the George W. Bush tax cuts that largely confirms the coverage patterns of earlier economic and social welfare policy debates. It follows this analysis with an online survey experiment. This experiment demonstrates significant effects on public opinion generated by narrow issue framing in news coverage of corporate tax policy. The chapter ends by discussing implications of these findings for public opinion, political knowledge, and socioeconomic inequality.

When are Stereotypes about Black Candidates Applied? An Experimental Test

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristyn L. Karl ◽  
Timothy J. Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Experimental Test ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Racial Identities ◽  
Black Candidates

AbstractPast research shows that candidates' racial identities influence the assumptions that voters draw about how they will behave in office. In a national survey experiment examining televised candidate advertisements, we find evidence that stereotypes differ both in their potency and how vulnerable they are to disconfirmation. Consistent with previous work, black candidates are broadly assumed to be more liberal than white candidates, although the effect is notably small in magnitude. Yet when it comes to more specific stereotypes—how black candidates will behave on individual issues—effects are not only much larger, but also more contingent on what information is available. We find that by providing a small bit of ideological information, black candidates can overcome the assumption that they will enact liberal policies as concerns taxation and non-racialized aspects of social welfare policy. But it is much more difficult for them to overturn the assumption that they will prioritize aid to minorities while in office.

Undergraduate Social Welfare Policy Debates: An Assessment of Outcomes Using the Policy Debate Rating Scale

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-82
Author(s):  
Stan Bowie
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Future Policy

This research empirically assessed the learning outcomes of structured debates in an undergraduate social welfare policy course. The longitudinal mixed-method study represents the only one in the literature on social policy debates in undergraduate social work education. For the five cohorts of students surveyed, the Policy Debate Rating Scale assessed learning outcomes on cognitive, behavioral/affective, and comparative perspective dimensions. The results showed strong evidence of higher level learning and supports the use of active learning to promote critical thinking, public speaking, and policy practice skills among social workers. Implications for future policy practice such as the need for more instruction on dialectics, differential perspectives, and improved designs for future research are discussed.

Toward a Critical Understanding of News Media, Public Opinion, and the Politics of Economic Inequality

2019 ◽  
pp. 9-49
Author(s):  
Matt Guardino
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
News Media ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Media ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Material Power

This chapter sets the conceptual and historical context of the argument and describes patterns of U.S. public opinion that the book seeks to explain. It situates the book’s argument within scholarship on the politics of economic inequality, public opinion, news framing of policy debates, and the political economy of the media. The chapter also develops a new theory of media dynamics. This theory explains how corporate and governmental influences shaped by media policies filter news coverage of economic and social welfare policy issues. The chapter also summarizes the book’s contribution to empirical research on material power in American politics and to scholarship about the tensions between neoliberalism and democracy.

Social Welfare Policy in South Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horman Chitonge ◽  
Ntombifikile Mazibuko
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Social Welfare Policy

Don’t You be My Neighbor: Support for Racial-Exclusion Constitutional Provisions in Mid-19th Century Indiana and Illinois

2021 ◽  
pp. 1532673X2110153
Author(s):  
Jac C. Heckelman ◽  
John Dinan
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Racial Threat ◽  
Southern State ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Racial Exclusion ◽  
Constitutional Conventions ◽  
Levels Of Support

Racially discriminatory provisions in the U.S. Constitution and southern state constitutions have been extensively analyzed, but insufficient attention has been brought to these provisions when included in northern state constitutions. We examine constitutional provisions excluding blacks from entering the state that were adopted by various northern states in the mid-19th Century. Previous scholarship has focused on the statements and votes of the convention delegates who framed these provisions. However, positions taken by delegates need not have aligned with the views of their constituents. Delegates to state constitutional conventions held in Illinois in 1847, Indiana in 1850 and 1851, and Oregon in 1857 opted to submit to voters racial-exclusion provisions separate from the vote to approve the rest of the constitution. We exploit this institutional feature by using county-level election returns in Illinois and Indiana to test claims about the importance of partisan affiliation, religious denomination, social-welfare policy concerns, labor competition, and racial-threat theory in motivating popular support for entrenching racially discriminatory policies in constitutions. We find greater levels of support for racial exclusion in areas where Democratic candidates polled better and in areas closer to slave-holding states where social-welfare policy concerns would be heightened. We find lower levels of support for racial exclusion in areas (in Indiana) with greater concentrations of Quakers. Our findings are not consistent with labor competition or racial-threat theories.

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