How Black Women Get Their Political News Matters in This Election
Originally published by Nieman Lab
In 1892, Ida B. Wells began editing the Memphis Free Speech, and used the newspaper to crusade against lynching. Her motto “Truth is mighty and will prevail” lives on in investigative journalism to this day. For the last two decades, many Black women have been lauded as the steadfast participation in the democratic process. Yet, as the paragons of democratic ideals, where do Black women get political information that educates and facilitates their involvement in the American political system?
We wanted to know how Black women engage with news today. We wanted to understand where Black women receive their news, how they form their opinions and policy priorities, and what they do with all that during elections. To find out, we recently completed a study that examines what media sources Black women frequent, how they engage with media and news, and how generation, education, and income shape their social media posting patterns.
Black Americans as a whole are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. to get their news on TV, according to Pew research. That’s also true of Black women, who, we find, watch television news more than any other source. The majority of Black women do not post their political views on social media. For the women who do post, it’s mostly on Facebook.
Here’s our takeaway: There are key variations in how Black women consume political news and how they engage with this information. Politicos must take these variations into account when reaching out to younger and older and higher- and lower-resource Black women.