The Framing of Marijuana in Black Newspapers

Abstract

Recent scholarship has demonstrated a shift in media discourse about marijuana, yet few studies investigate how structural conditions influence variation in engagement with frames about marijuana. Moreover, given the long history of racialized discourse surrounding marijuana, it is surprising that scholars have not investigated framing in media produced by and for communities of color. Drawing on news articles about marijuana in regional Black newspapers in the United States from 1991 to 2016 ( n = 2,625), regression analyses reveal that structural factors like political action (e.g., ballot initiatives) and crime rates influence engagement across four unique framing domains: youth, policing, crime, and policy. I argue that, as newsworthy events, ballot initiatives provide opportunities to (re)frame marijuana as a policy issue, whereas conditions of crime shape the extent to which Black newspapers discuss marijuana as a problem impacting youth.