New Research by Seth K. Goldman, Communication, Cited in Vox Podcast

New research by Seth K. Goldman, associate professor of communication, was recently cited in the Vox podcast, “The Weeds.” The podcast cited a paper Goldman co-authored, published in “The Journal of Politics” in January which examines how and why white Americans living near black Americans adopt more negative racial attitudes.

The episode of “The Weeds,” titled "Mike can get what done?," aired on Tuesday, February 18, one day before Michael Bloomberg made his debut on the debate stage as the latest Democratic candidate for president. It dives into the policy positions and results of Bloomberg's three-term stint as mayor of New York City.

One of Bloomberg's most controversial policies was stop-and-frisk; police officers stopped and searched millions of New Yorkers, of whom the majority were Black and Latinx and had not committed any crime.

Goldman and co-author Daniel J. Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, hypothesized that whites' racial contexts during adolescence produce prejudiced responses. They examined over 30-years worth of population and youth-parent data to determine that while racial composition of whites' current counties is not a consistent predictor of racial prejudice, the racial compositions of the county they lived in during high school is; proximity during one's formative years increases racial prejudice years later.

Goldman's research focuses on the effects of mass media and political communication on stereotyping and prejudice, particularly in the context of public opinion about race, gender, and sexual orientation. He is the author, with Diana Mutz, of “The Obama Effect: How the 2008 Campaign Changed White Racial Attitudes,” which won the Frank Luther Mott-Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award for the best research-based book on journalism/mass communication published in 2014. In addition, his work has been published in academic journals such as the “American Journal of Political Science” and “International Journal of Public Opinion Research.”

Goldman holds a joint appointment in the department of communication and the Commonwealth Honors College.