Ending Affirmative Action: Public Opinion and Media Depiction of the California Civil Rights Initiative.

Since its inception in the 1960s, affirmative action (AA) has been framed in various ways by popular media. In this paper, we analyze 36 popular press articles that covered the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), a referendum to remove preferential treatment in hiring, education, or government contracts based on characteristics such as race or gender. We content analyze media frames in the popular press coverage of AA and CCRI during the onset of the policy debate in 1995, and investigate patterns in 157 public opinion polls during the same time frame to determine if public opinion supports or challenges the media frames. The vast majority of press coverage of CCRI included frames that express anti affirmative action views, especially ones that denounce preferential treatment in some way. However, our analysis of public opinion data suggests that people were more supportive of affirmative action than framing of the issue would suggest, but that respondents were likely to question preferential treatment for unqualified candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]