Renee Nikolov
Advisor: John Chin
Majors: International Relations and Politics; Behavioral Economics, Policy, and Organizations
A Preliminary Study of Media Framing Effects on Americans' Perceptions of Asian Americans
Recent spikes in hate crimes against Chinese Americans along with increased news coverage of China due to the coronavirus pandemic suggests that there is a significant relationship between media portrayals of China and Americans’ opinions of Chinese Americans. This thesis plans to explore this relationship to provide information on the impact of media portrayals of China on Americans’ opinions of Chinese Americans that can guide the creation of policies to reduce racism against Chinese Americans – such as hate crimes – and prepare Chinese American communities for responding to racism induced by negative media coverage of China. The thesis will investigate the question: can the media prime Americans to see Chinese Americans as a “yellow peril” or “model minority”? For this study, I hypothesize that the media can prime Americans to see Chinese Americans as a “yellow peril” or “model minority” through narratives of China framed in either a “yellow peril” or “model minority” perspective. Whereas prior research in this area has primarily been qualitative cultural histories, I will be the first to use a survey experiment to test the causal influence of media frames on public perceptions of the threat posed by and loyalty of Chinese Americans.
Bio
Renée Nikolov is an Asian American student studying International Relations and Politics as well as Behavioral Economics in Dietrich College. She is involved with a lot of advocacy organizations around campus — including ABLE CMU, CMU Asian Student Association’s advocacy team, and CMU Against ICE. In her spare time, she organizes educational resources about different social justice issues and disseminate them to the CMU community. She is passionate about educating CMU community members to care about the issues that affect their peers and others around them and always hopes to inspire others to exhibit more empathy and become more proactive in making the world a better and more inclusive place.