Framing Race: The Election of the First African-American Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi

Lord have mercy! We're going to have a black mayor in Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi. An anonymous black woman quoted in Chappell (1 997) The above epigraph expresses the shock within the black community of Jackson, Mississippi when Harvey Johnson was elected as the city's first African-American mayor in June, 1997. Surprisingly, four years earlier Johnson failed to win the Democratic nomination for the mayor's office. How did Johnson rebound from his earlier defeat in the 1993 Democratic mayoral primary election? In other words, how does one explain Johnson's historic victory-the first African-American mayor of Jackson, Mississippi-in light of his prior defeat in 1993? This study argues that the role of the media proved crucial to Johnson's 1997 electoral fortunes by de-emphasizing race in its coverage of the election. Conversely, it is suggested that during the 1993 Democratic mayoral primary election, the print media racialized the campaign to the detriment of the electoral fortunes of Harvey Johnson. The study first provides a review of the literature and then offers a brief overview of the 1993 and 1997 mayoral elections. The following section subsequently identifies the data and methods utilized to answer three central research questions underpinning the study. Finally, the analysis concludes by addressing the implications of the major findings. Framing Race Framing is "the process by which a communication source, such as a news organization, defines and constructs a political issue or public controversy" (Nelson, Clawson and Oxley, 1997, p. 567). Parenti (1986) further notes that framing news content is "the manner in which the news is packaged, the amount of exposure, the placement (front page or back, lead story or last), the tone of presentation (sympathetic or slighting), the accompanying headlines and visual effects, the labeling and vocabulary" (p. 2221. While journalistic norms serve to m~nirnize bias in the news media often frame issues with the selection labels and code words designed to "convey politically loaded images" (Parenti, 1986, p. 220). In the past, black candidates have complained about the bias and limited coverage of the media (Pettigrew and Alston, 1988). Charles Evers, the first African-American elected to the office of mayor in Mississippi since Reconstruction, lamented, "The Press has been and is one of the worst enemies, along with the police, that the Negro has in Mississippi" (Lyle, 1968, p. 68). This media bias has been particularly prevalent in political contests in which African-American candidates sought high …