Dana Mastro’s research while affiliated with University of California, Santa Barbara and other places

Although immigration is a highly complex sociopolitical human rights concern, the media persistently frames the issue around a narrow set of themes primarily pertaining to cultural, economic, and physical threats, with a focus nearly exclusively on immigration from Mexico. Although the implications of exposure to these harmful narratives have received some attention from researchers and advocacy groups, the focus has centered nearly entirely on effects among White voters. Scant scholarship has examined the social, political, and emotional implications of consuming this content among Latino American media users. The current study examines the consequences of exposure to news coverage depicting immigrant Latinos in negative, group-threatening ways among non-immigrant Latino audiences. With a sample of 340 non-immigrant Latinos recruited through an online survey service, this study explores the circumstances under which Latinos experience vicarious shame and anger when exposed to group-threatening news coverage. Results from this study provide support for frameworks testing vicarious emotions in mediated contexts and advance current research in this domain by illuminating the potential for specific media messages to evoke ingroup-directed affective responses and impact group identity. The roles of ethnic identity and salient group membership in these processes are additionally examined.

Guided by the Social Identity Model of Collective Action, the current research utilizes a three-wave longitudinal study collected pre and post the 2020 U.S. Presidential election to examine the motivations underlying Latino Americans’ group-based social media engagement (N = 1,050). Results revealed that Time 1 group (Latino) identity increased Time 2 perceptions of social media as efficacious in improving group outcomes, which in turn increased Time 3 group-based social media engagement. Although T1 Latino identification was not significantly associated with T2 perceptions of personal or group-based injustice, the former (but not the latter) increased T3 group-based social media engagement. Our findings reflect that marginalized group members engage with social media in part because they believe it is efficacious in improving their disadvantageous group status. This may be an especially attractive strategy for those who face individual experiences of unjust treatment.

Media depictions of interactions between members of different ethnic/racial groups can have either constructive or detrimental social impact depending on the characteristics of these representations. To advance understanding of these interracial dynamics, the linguistic characteristics of interracial interactions in scripted primetime television shows were examined. Human and computer-assisted analysis of 548 interactions involving 578 characters revealed a relatively egalitarian pattern of representation of interracial interactions. Furthermore, in line with communication accommodation theory, characters generally matched each other’s language use (i.e., converged) during interracial interactions.

The goal of this study was to apply insights from social identity gratifications and ethnic/racial identity development frameworks to better understand how adolescents perceive, select, and avoid media content which has the potential to damage self-and group-concept. We conducted focus groups with 32 Latino adolescents aged 13 to 15. We found mixed evidence that youth prioritized the ethnicity of characters in program selection. Most referenced personality or age as the primary identity-based factors of interest. Although students widely recognized negative stereotypes of Latinos in mainstream English-language media, this did not overwhelmingly dictate media choices, seemingly due to lack of alternative choices. In contrast, Spanish language programming offered a positive alternative to English-language media and may serve identity needs. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The social diversification hypothesis (SDH) examines the benefits of internet communication for disadvantaged individuals. In a novel application, we use it to explore the perceived costs of internet use, particularly Facebook across two different analyses. First, in-depth interviews with 45 socio-economically and racially diverse participants from a midwestern college town revealed that People of Color and those without 4-year degree were more suspicious of Facebook and more likely to have been the victim of an online scam. In contrast, Whites and those with four-year degrees were often overwhelmed by, but resigned to using, Facebook, expressing instead frustration with the perceived socio-emotional limitations of communicating online. Qualitative findings were then triangulated with a 2018 Pew survey of 2,002 U.S. adults: disadvantaged groups perceive greater social and personal costs of being online while advantaged groups are more dependent on the Internet. Findings suggest that the costs of internet use vary by access to social capital. In addition to a novel theoretical application of the SDH, we discuss the need for demographic-specific digital literacy design and corporate policy changes that can help mitigate these costs.

This study moves beyond previous research by demonstrating how prior exposure to stereotypical content can reinforce the selection of comparable biased news content and by clarifying its intergroup and interpersonal consequences. With two experiments (N = 236, N = 270), we show that media effects and selectivity of biased media content about Arabic migrant workers are connected by automatic (i.e., implicit) stereotypes. The findings reveal that exposure to moderate doses of stereotypic news primes affects the selection of biased news via implicit stereotypes and subsequently shifts intergroup and interpersonal outcomes in the direction of the activated biased beliefs. These effects did not surface for high doses of stereotypic news primes, suggesting that individuals resist and inhibit activation processes when exposure is perceived to be too extreme. As subtle forms of bias are omnipresent in news environments and implicit stereotypes operate partly under the radar of conscious awareness, they may affect selection without individuals being aware of it. The findings imply that audiences’ biased selectivity should not be seen in isolation from prior media exposure.

It is well documented that news media’s coverage of social unrest is sensationalized; however, our knowledge is limited in understanding how the intersection of race with depictions of social unrest influences emotional responses to this content. By applying assumptions from the protest paradigm and intergroup emotions theory, the current set of studies experimentally examines this relationship. Results indicate that racialized news images of dramatized social unrest provoke heightened, complex group-based affective responses that vary based on aspects of psychological group identification among audiences. These outcomes suggest that journalistic practices, whether or not intentionally, may exacerbate race relations regarding social change.

Content analyses of U.S. English-language news coverage of immigration indicate that these stories are laden with negative, threatening messages and have an almost exclusive focus on Latino immigrants. However, little is known regarding how non-immigrant Latinos process and interpret these messages. The current survey of adult non-immigrant Latinos living in the United States addresses this question by applying insights from the rejection-identification model and research on vicarious shame. Based on this research, experiencing group shame in response to immigration news should drive Latinos to distance themselves from this identity, leading to greater affiliation with American identity (to maintain a positive self-concept) and stronger support for restrictive immigration policies (to mitigate the potential threats). Alternatively, experiencing anger in response to this coverage should result in less distancing from the shared Latino identity (i.e., greater affiliation), prompting decreased association with American identity and less support for restrictive immigration policies. Results from the mediation model tested here found support for predictions stemming from both vicarious shame and rejection-identification assumptions, indicating that they represent distinct pathways to views on immigration attitudes and identity management. Furthermore, in line with social identity theory, Mexican Americans (vs. non-Mexican Latinos) were more likely to distance from the immigration message and perceive immigration coverage to depict negative beliefs others hold about their ethnic group (owing to the disproportionate emphasis on Mexicans in this coverage). Results are discussed in terms of the implications for group standing as well as the importance of legitimacy of media messages in this context.