ABSTRACT
This article proposes a theory of racial mediation and examines how candidate race affects media coverage of political viability. Using two different types of content analysis-manual and automated-the article assesses print media coverage of white and visible minority candidates in the 2008 Canadian federal election. The study reaches two substantive conclusions. First, it appears that candidate race does not influence reporting on political viability in the aggregate, but does affect how nonincumbent candidates with racial minority backgrounds are portrayed. Although nonincumbent white candidates receive fairly positive coverage of their electoral qualifications, this is not the case for visible minority candidates. Incumbency washes away these differences, suggesting that once minority candidates have, in effect, proven themselves with an electoral win, they will receive coverage that is equivalent-and sometimes even more favourable-than their white competitors. Second, this study demonstrates how methodological choices influence the conclusions reached by content analysts. The article highlights how a researcher using an automated approach to content analysis could reach different conclusions than a researcher relying on a manual approach. The article concludes with a discussion of the trade-offs that researchers face when studying the media coverage of minorities.
