The Intersection of Race and Crime in Television News Stories: An Experimental Study MARK PEHLEY Univers.fty of Ke-ntucky TODD SHIELDS University of Arkansas BRUCE WILLIAMS University of Illinois at Urbana-Charnp<.ign Studies of media content consistently find that black criminal suspects are por- trayed more frequently <11 1d more menacingly than white susptYts in television news stories of violent crime. f-lere we in.restigate rhe impact ol such portrayals on white viev .. 'crs' aliitudes by means of a video experiment in -..vhich we manipulate only the visual imagf> of the race of the suspect in a tele\rision news story uf violent .:rime. We fovnd, consistent with our expectations, that a brief visual imnge ·Jf ar: Africi'l.n American rnJle suspect in a televised crime :,tory was capable of activating racial stereotypes, which in turn henvily bi;1sed evaluation:; of the suspect along <.JCia! lines. Thus, white participants in our experiment who t>ndorscd negative stereotypes of African Americans viewed the blJ.ck 5uspect in the crime story as guilty, more de5erving of ment, more !il<ely to commit future violei'.ICf', and with more- fear and /c;athing t/)an <l 5imilarly port.r:Jycd white suspect. In the conc:fusion of the article, we discuss the implicatiom of our findings for the stur!y of rac.ial stercotyp.ing, visual image:;, <1.nrl the intersection of race and crime in television r.ewscasts. Keywords crime news, experimental resParch, race, stereotypes, viwc·l imagP.s Race ancl crime ·intersect ir1 complex and often insidious ways in American politics. In one of the most contrf.>versial events of the 1988 presidential campaign, for e•G:1mple 1 the gk1wering im2ge of wePkend-furlough escapee and rapist Willie Hor- ton, an African :\merican, was used by George Bush's supporters to inspir·2 a fedr of crime and to portray Michael Dukalds's weakness in combating ,it. Based on her anulys!s of focus group reactions to the 'vVHiie Horton advertisement (and the Bush campaign'·, own "turnstile" spot), J;3.mieson {1992) concluded that the ads used video anD aurlio segnwnts effectively to distort Dukuki::;'s record on crime a·1d to incite not only a fear of crime but racial fears as welL This rPsearch was partially supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation {SESJU10043). Af'! earlier version of this article was presented .:1t the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, April 14-16, 1994, Chicago, IL. The .:tuthors would like to thank Chi Huung. Ellen Riggfe. and .. Pre5s For their advice a11d assist?.tnc-e. 309 Po!iticctf Corr-munica1ion, 13:309-327, 1996 Copyright@ !9% Taylor & francis 1058-4609/96$12.00 + .00 Copyright© 2001. All Rights Reseved.