The Birth of a Nation:Media and Racial Hate
研究了1915年电影《一个国家的诞生》如何通过巡演加剧了当地的私刑和种族骚乱，并在一个世纪后仍与更高的仇恨犯罪率相关，对理解媒体与种族仇恨的关系有重要启示。
This paper documents the impact of popular media on racial hate by examining the first American blockbuster: 1915’s The Birth of a Nation, a fictional portrayal of the KKK’s founding rife with racist stereotypes. Exploiting the film’s five-year “road show,” I find a sharp spike in lynchings and race riots coinciding with its arrival in a county. Instrumenting for road show destinations using the location of theaters prior to the movie’s release, I show that the film significantly increased local Klan support in the 1920s. Road show counties continue to experience higher rates of hate crimes and hate groups a century later.