Study reveals nation's 'dirty little secret' - post Katrina
Special to the NNPA from the Louisiana Weekly
Issue date: 4/19/09 Section: Politics
NEW ORLEANS (NNPA) - Contrary to a popular notion reported in news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 Gulf Coast disaster did not reveal to most Americans that widespread poverty and inequality are the nation's ''dirty little secret.''
Rather, most Americans were aware of these problems before they were highlighted by the devastation of Katrina, according to a new study by Stanford sociologists. As a result, the event did not become a watershed in the debate over poverty, as some pundits have claimed.
In fact, awareness of poverty and inequality actually decreased among some groups of Americans after Katrina, suggesting that some people may have reacted negatively to news coverage by what they claimed to be a ''liberally biased media,'' according to the study, ''Did Katrina Recalibrate Attitudes Toward Poverty and Inequality? A Test of the 'Dirty Little Secret' Hypothesis.''
The paper, co-authored by sociology Professor David Grusky and doctoral student Emily Ryo, will be published in the spring edition of the Du Bois Review. Lawrence Bobo, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor, co-edits the two-year-old, peer-reviewed journal on race in the social sciences. The forthcoming issue, which also includes a paper by education Professor Emeritus John Baugh, will be wholly devoted to new research related to Katrina.
By way of polls, researchers gauged attitudes changed following the disaster. According to a Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of the U.S. adult population claims to have paid ''very close attention'' to news about Hurricane Katrina, making it the fifth-most closely watched story in the last 20 years.
''It follows that Katrina had the potential to recalibrate public ideologies in ways far more profound than, say, the release of yet another government report on inequality and poverty,'' Grusky and Ryo write in the study.
According to the researchers, journalists broached many themes in their coverage of the disaster, but a common one was that Hurricane Katrina cast a fresh light on the depth and extent of poverty in America.
Rather, most Americans were aware of these problems before they were highlighted by the devastation of Katrina, according to a new study by Stanford sociologists. As a result, the event did not become a watershed in the debate over poverty, as some pundits have claimed.
In fact, awareness of poverty and inequality actually decreased among some groups of Americans after Katrina, suggesting that some people may have reacted negatively to news coverage by what they claimed to be a ''liberally biased media,'' according to the study, ''Did Katrina Recalibrate Attitudes Toward Poverty and Inequality? A Test of the 'Dirty Little Secret' Hypothesis.''
The paper, co-authored by sociology Professor David Grusky and doctoral student Emily Ryo, will be published in the spring edition of the Du Bois Review. Lawrence Bobo, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor, co-edits the two-year-old, peer-reviewed journal on race in the social sciences. The forthcoming issue, which also includes a paper by education Professor Emeritus John Baugh, will be wholly devoted to new research related to Katrina.
By way of polls, researchers gauged attitudes changed following the disaster. According to a Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of the U.S. adult population claims to have paid ''very close attention'' to news about Hurricane Katrina, making it the fifth-most closely watched story in the last 20 years.
''It follows that Katrina had the potential to recalibrate public ideologies in ways far more profound than, say, the release of yet another government report on inequality and poverty,'' Grusky and Ryo write in the study.
According to the researchers, journalists broached many themes in their coverage of the disaster, but a common one was that Hurricane Katrina cast a fresh light on the depth and extent of poverty in America.
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