Race or Place? The Impact of New Depictions of Urban and Rural Poverty

Objective. While scholars have investigated how the race of welfare recipients in news portrayals affects attitudes toward welfare, few if any, have considered if the urban or rural setting of coverage contributes to or interferes with racial portrayals. Therefore, I investigate whether portrayals of poverty as either urban or rural or black or white perpetuate stereotypes and result in diminished support for welfare. Methods. I use a survey-based experiment that includes news stories about welfare where the race and place of the target are manipulated. Respondents received one of four treatments: urban black; rural black; urban white; or rural white. Results. I find that Anti-Black stereotypes and Anti-Urban stereotypes impact attitudes toward welfare policy and to a lesser extent attitudes toward welfare recipients. Conclusion. A consideration of place and race illustrates that situational and dispositional explanations of behavior provide a great deal of explanation for evaluations of welfare.

Gender and Racial Stereotypes in Popular Video Games

While the violent content of video games has caused wide concern among scholars, gender, and racial stereotypes in video games are still an understudied area. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a better understanding of the stereotypical phenomenon in video games. The book chapter first provides a comprehensive review of previous studies conducted upon gender-role and racial portrayals in video games. Then a small-scale content analysis on a sample of official trailers, introductory sequences and covers of 19 of the most popular video games is introduced. Finally, the implications of stereotype in video games and the possible social and psychological impacts on players, especially adolescent players, are discussed.