Red or Blue? The Use of Dichotomous Colors in News Coverage (Top Student Paper).

Since the 2000 presidential election, the United States is seen less as a dichotomy of Democrats and Republicans, and more as a dichotomy of "red states" and "blue states." This breakdown of the tendency of certain states to throw their electoral support one direction or the other seems to be increasingly referenced in political coverage, yet little academic study has been done to chronicle this shift. This study was designed not only to detect the presence of this terminology over the last five federal election cycles, but also to analyze if the use of the terms is related to the means by which the stories are framed. This content analysis suggests that the terms are indeed increasing in frequency, and are most closely associated with stories that are framed in terms of the contest of the election, and campaign strategy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]