RESPONSES TO BLACK AND WHITE NEWS ANCHORS : EFFECTS OF TWEET TYPES, AND MODERATION BY HUMANITARIANISM/EGALITARIANISM MOTIVATIONS

Increasingly network affiliate stations are hiring reporters and anchors of color, with the belief that racially diverse newsrooms provide coverage that satisfies the diverse news needs of the many Americans who rely on local television news. Also increasingly, network affiliate stations encourage their on-air professionals to use social media, to post on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This dissertation first asks from a structural racism point of view, how African Americans/Blacks and Whites response to African American/Black and White news anchors and their stories. It then asks how audiences respond when these anchors are said to not tweet, tweet a neutral news statement, or to tweet their own opinion about controversial issues. The tweet impact is theorized to result from the degree to which the two types of tweets depart from norm violations for professional journalists—who tweet the news, but generally eschew tweeting their own opinions. Results show Whites are less positive about African American/Black than White anchors, and that there is negativity about opinionated tweets. Further, the results show complicated relationships among anchor race, audience race, type of tweet, age, and political affiliation.