Media and Minorities

Criminal Blackness  129
his characterization of framing: “Frames select some aspects of a perceived
reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way
as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral
evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.”15
While racial framing is important for defining the situation, the timing
in which frames are presented is also important. The timing with which racially
framed stories occurred in news reports about the two most comparable
cases — Martin and Brown — reveals a clear pattern. Figure 4 presents a timeline
of the number of stories about these two cases that came out on each day.
The lines indicate whether stories were racially framed or not. In both cases,
we can see that racialized headlines appear in the initial stages of coverage
much more often than in latter stages. In the early reporting of both incidents,
non-racial framing is the norm. But, for both cases, there are also peor
very close. While the contest over racial framing appears more protracted
in Trayvon Martin’s case, especially in comparison to Michael Brown’s, one
should remember that coverage of Martin’s killing did not begin in earnest
until roughly two weeks afterwards. (See figure 4.)
The difference in the number of racially framed and race-neutral stories
in Trayvon Martin’s case indicates that there was a concerted effort by activists
to frame Martin’s death in fundamentally racial terms. But it also reflects
an enduring storyline that journalists emphasized: a story about race
and racial injustice. On the one hand, activists have much to gain by framing
Martin’s death (and other victims’ deaths) racially, for that allows them
to use it to show that racial injustice persists in the U. S. That, in turn, serves
both the rhetorical purpose and the justification for building a political movement
aimed at ameliorating racial discrimination. On the other hand, journalists
do not typically act as activists. That is, they do not actively seek to influence
political agendas (at least not ideally). However, by framing stories
as racial, journalists justify continued research into and writing about the
racial dynamics of the stories they pursue and the contexts in which the incidents
they cover take place. That is, racial framing provides an impetus for
journalists to further explore and bring to light other forms of racial injustice
that permeate local communities and the nation. For example, racially
framing the Michael Brown incident provided a foundation for journalists
to explore how the municipal court system in Ferguson exploited poor, Black
residents. Such stories were not about Michael Brown per se, but journalists
were able to write about them, in part, because it related to the racial context
surrounding Brown’s case.
15 Robert M. Entman, “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,” Journal of
Communication 43, no. 4 (1993): 51–58.
© 2016, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
ISBN Print: 9783525300886 — ISBN E-Book: 9783666300882