Four-country newspaper framing of Barack Obama's multiracial identity in the 2008 US presidential election

Abstract

Though Barack Obama was the first African American presidential nominee for a major party in the history of the US presidential election, his multiracial identity put him under intense scrutiny during the 2008 election – more than any other previous black aspirants for the White House. Using quantitative content analysis of election stories in the newspapers of four countries (New York Times – US; Times – Britain; China Daily – China and Daily Nation – Kenya), this comparative study examines the prevalence of four racial frames associated with Obama's multilayered racial identity: ‘African American’, ‘black’, ‘Kenyan roots’ and ‘white roots’. In addition, the study investigates the four newspapers’ valence coverage of the four racial frames in relation to Obama's candidacy. The findings indicate that ‘Kenyan roots’ was the racial frame which occurred most frequently, followed by the ‘black’ frame. Overall, Obama received more positive coverage than negative across the racial frames depicted in the four newspapers.

Keywords:

• Barack Obama
• biracial candidate
• framing
• multiracial identity
• newspapers
• race
• racial frames
• racial identity
• US election

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kioko Ireri

Kioko Ireri, who graduated in 2013 with a PhD in Mass Communication from the School of Journalism, Indiana University-Bloomington, US, is assistant professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the United States International University-Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. His research interests include political and international communication, focusing on how the media shape and portray political issues and events in developing democracies. He is also interested in the practise of journalism in developing countries in relation to politics, especially in Africa. Email: [email protected] or [email protected]