Entman, Robert (1949–)

Robert Entman is a well-known interdisciplinary political communication scholar. He received his bachelor's degree in political science from Duke, a Ph.D. in political science from Yale, and an M.P.P. in policy analysis from Berkeley. He taught public policy analysis at Duke and joined the faculty at Northwestern University's [Page 212]interdisciplinary program in communication studies, journalism, and political science. Entman also served as professor of communications at North Carolina State University and as adjunct professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina. He has worked as codirector at the Center for Information Society Studies, and since January 2006 has served as a J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro professor at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs.

Entman's academic approach deals with the media's normative functions, social responsibility, and inclusive democratic processes. His research focuses on political communication and communication policy, with primary studies measuring the media's framing effects on public policies and opinions. Entman's further analyses criticize media coverage styles that negatively influence policy development processes. Theoretically, Entman believes the media shapes elite and public perceptions. His books Media Power Politics (1981) and Democracy Without Citizens: Media and the Decay of American Politics (1989) developed the idea of media bias and its effect on politics. He argues that one-sided media framing, in particular, manipulates public opinions of civic issues. Furthermore, his cascading activation model theoretically illustrates the mechanism of framing spreading through the hierarchical levels of administration, elites, media, news frames, and the public. Entman argues that interpretive incongruence between two different levels of information flow interrupts an intended political framing.

Another primary focus of Entman's studies is media coverage of race and race relations. In The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America (2000), he noted that African Americans receive less media coverage and are more likely to be presented negatively in television news. Entman asserts that African American politicians are often portrayed as black community leaders and troublesome individuals, while ordinary African Americans are described as poor, uneducated, and socially hostile. Entman argues that the media's unbalanced racial coverage fuels and deepens prejudice toward African Americans. The Black Image in the White Mind was awarded Harvard's Goldsmith Book Prize, the Lane Award from the American Political Science Association, and several other awards.

Entman extended his framing studies to media influence in international contexts, suggesting that news coverage of similar events that are framed differently yield differing public perceptions of identical events. In his book, Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy, he argues that if the U.S. government wants to lead international politics and obtain greater public support, it must utilize skillful one-sided news coverage that favors its political agendas. Entman has also authored several reports on communication policy for the Aspen Institute, the Commission on Radio and Television policy, and the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunication, as well as articles and book chapters in the political communication, public opinion, race relations, and public policy fields.