Hate Crime in the News: The Media’s Role in Agenda Setting

Examining the extant literature on hate crimes shows that there has been an evolutionary process of Hate Crime legislation (HC). Similar to other social movements such as civil rights, the hate crime movement also had various waves which eventually lead to the passage of legislation. By and large, however, HC research has focused on victims and offenders of hate crimes as well as motivations of bias. Moreover, less research has been done on the media’s portrayal and coverage of HC. Since the media is a noted influencer in social issues (Culotta, 2002; Quisenberry, 2001), we sought to answer how the news media are reporting incidences of hate crimes – particularly LGBTQ+- and compare them with official crime statistics reported by law enforcement agencies. In order to answer these questions, our research utilized a qualitative content analysis using QSR NVivo 12.0 to identify potential themes and trends which may be overlooked in simple quantitative methods. Our dataset comes from the Hate Crime Index ("ProPublica," 2018), for the month of June 2018. Official FBI data is also utilized for comparison, spanning from 2012 to 2016. Our results suggest that the media reports HC within an overall internal Agenda Setting Orientation. During analysis, two main themes were identified that show the (i) media report both the failures and challenges of law enforcement in dealing with HC issue and, (ii) that media highlights various best practices some agencies engage in. Limitations and future research directions are discussed

Stronger Together: Tiny-housers’ Views of Community

Over the last decade, tiny homes (generally described as homes smaller than 500 ft2) have grown in popularity thanks to recent representation in the media (Ford and Gomez‐Lanier 2017). An increasing number of people have begun to adopt this reimagined way of living, and some tiny-housers have sought to live near other tiny-housers, forming tiny house communities (Kilman 2016, Mangold et al. Forthcoming). Little systematic research focusing on the tiny-housers views of community exists. To provide initial insights, 30 interviews were conducted with people at various stages in their tiny house journeys. The 30 interviews were transcribed and analyzed in Nvivo 11. Preliminary findings suggest that many of these tiny-housers want to redefine the normative American concept of community by rejecting sub-urban frameworks and borrowing elements from both strong place and interest-based community models. They seek to accomplish this vision through one or more of the following: (i) increased community participation, (ii) shared spaces and resources, and (iii) development of significant relationships with neighbors rooted in mutual support and frequent interaction. While participants strive for this type of community, they also insist upon a clear recognition of personal space and boundaries. Participants also express an interest in having diverse communities, yet desire to maintain many common interests and goals. These community elements are not entirely unique to the tiny house movement. The small space, however, both encourages and facilitates this kind of community participation. Key words: Tiny house, lifestyle, downsizing, good life, alternative lifestyle, minimalism Ford, Jasmine and Lilia Gomez‐Lanier. 2017. Are Tiny Homes Here to Stay? A Review of Literature on the Tiny House Movement. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal 45(4):394-405. Kilman, Charlie. 2016. Small House, Big Impact: The Effect of Tiny Houses on Community and Environment. Undergraduate Journal of Humanistic Studies 2. Mangold, Severin, Chelsey Willoughby, Devin Hing, Codey Collins and Toralf Zschau. Forthcoming. Why Live Tiny? A New Multi-Dimensional Model. Sociological Spectrum