Candidate coverage: Newspaper photographs, ethnicity and community diversity

Despite political representation remaining far below Latinos' share of the population, even as its population has rapidly increased in the past two decades, little research has compared news coverage between Latino candidates and white candidates vying for public office. Further, no research has examined the relationship between variations in community characteristics and local news portrayals of candidates based on ethnicity. A content analysis of 815 newspaper photographs from 14 newspapers compared coverage between Latino candidates and white candidates in the last two months of two gubernatorial elections and two U.S. Senate elections that occurred between 2003 and 2008 in the U.S. Southwest. Further, the relationship between candidate photographs and community structural characteristics (racial/ethnic plurality, proportion Latino, Latino median income, Latino education levels, and Latino poverty rates) was explored. Results show that overall by state there was little difference in photograph portrayals between candidates based on ethnicity. On the other hand, there was a strong and positive relationship between cities' degree of racial and ethnic diversity and the amount, prominence and favorability of photographs of Latino candidates relative to white candidates. Finally, structural characteristics of Latinos, such as size and socioeconomic indicators, in cities had little predictive power for photograph coverage of candidates based on ethnicity. Findings indicate that newspapers in more racially and ethnically diverse cities are more likely to provide more, more prominent, and more favorable visuals of Latino candidates than white candidates. Further, city-level differences were lost when candidate coverage was examined by state, which indicates that city-level analyses of political coverage may be better models than state-level analyses for political communication studies in the future because differences in coverage by city may have real consequences on political outcomes.