Objective. Despite the increasingly diverse legislative records of African-American members of Congress, much of the population continues to believe that AfricanAmerican legislators are interested only in minority issues. If African-American House members are becoming more like their nonblack colleagues, then why do many citizens continue to hold these stereotypes about African-American legislators? Methods. We examine local television news coverage of House members and compare the coverage received by African-American and nonblack incumbents. Results. We find that local television newscasts devote more coverage to AfricanAmerican members of Congress but this coverage is also more race oriented, especially in less diverse markets. In fact, local television stations produce more raceoriented coverage of African-American legislators regardless of their legislative records on minority issues. Conclusions. Local television news stations may be partially responsible for the prevailing stereotype of African-American House members who are narrowly focused on race-oriented issues.It should come as no surprise that race continues to be one the most fundamental factors that shapes politics. Race plays a particularly important role in how citizens evaluate politicians. In particular, despite the fact that African-American members of Congress have produced increasingly diverse legislative records, much of the population continues to believe that AfricanAmerican legislators are interested only in minority issues. If African-American House members are becoming more like their nonblack colleagues, then why do many citizens continue to hold these stereotypes about AfricanAmerican legislators? In this article, we seek an answer to this question by examining how local television news stations report on these incumbent legislators.Local news coverage is a critical tool used by legislators to present themselves and their legislative record to constituents. Legislators use local coverage to communicate information about their activities in Congress and n Direct correspondence to Brian F. Schaffner,
The 2008 Simulations and Role Play (S&RP) II track focused on issues in American politics and theory. Building on conversations in previous tracks (see S&RP track summaries from 2006 and 2007 inPS), the 25 discussants focused the dialogue mainly on best practices with some discussion on faculty research.
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