Discrimination in Times of Crises and the Role of the Media

Abstract

Can the extent of ethnic discrimination change quickly, and what circumstances and mechanisms make such changes possible? I address these questions by using scraped data to study the daily evolution of customer discrimination against Arab doctors in Israel from January 2020 to June 2021. Results show that: (1) the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis in March 2020 led to a dramatic decline in discrimination; (2) the eruption of a wave of ethnic riots in May 2021 had the opposite effect; (3) media coverage of the contribution of Arab doctors to the fight against the pandemic helped bring about the first change. (JEL D91, I12, J15, J44, L82)