Blighted Evacuees or Wrathful Storms: Investigating Stigma and Challenge Frames in Newspaper Articles.

Media depictions can have a profound effect on how certain issues are framed. This study investigates media framing of two recent hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, in a local daily newspaper in Austin, Texas. Using a content analytic method, a total of 387 articles are examined for the media’s use of two specific frames- challenge and stigma frames. The results show that the use of challenge and stigma frames varied between coverage of hurricane Katrina and Rita. While the coverage of Rita was more likely to use challenge frames than stigma frames, the coverage of Katrina was more likely to use stigma and not challenge frames. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]