FoDiRa-Project: Implicit and explicit racism in news and social media: Extent and effects

This project investigates implicit and explicit racism in the mediated public sphere (established news media, alternative media, social networks) in Germany and its effects on racist stereotypes prevalent within the larger public. We expand on a shorter project that was funded within the first round of the DeZIM racism monitor. During the first round we successfully developed instruments for the automated measurement of explicit and implicit group-related stigmatization within the news coverage of selected key media outlets. Based on this research we will now capture a broader picture of the larger mediated public sphere in Germany. We will investigate the following questions: Which ethnic, cultural or religious groups are portrayed with positive or negative connotations in which areas of the mediated public sphere? What differences are there in implicit and explicit emotional tonality of the news coverage of different groups within established media, alternative media, and social media? In which thematic context do we find a significantly larger share of explicit or implicit negative connotations relating to specific groups? How does the degree of implicit and explicit negative associations within the mediated public sphere affect implicit and explicit racist stereotypes within the larger public? We draw on established theories from social psychology and communication research related to group attribution and stigmatization, starting with Social Identity Theory and Social Categorization Theory, which capture the centrality of group membership in how people perceive themselves and others. Mediated discourses play an important role in the reproduction of such group schemata, especially concerning the attitudes towards outgroups (“Mediated Intergroup Contact”). To analyze the entirety of these influences, we investigate negative as well as positive attributions within the mediated public sphere. Through continuous data collection over the whole project period we will capture a longitudinal image of the degree of explicit and implicit racist stigmatization within the German mediated public sphere.