God Bless Mississippi: The Promised Land of State-Sanctioned Bigotry

Abstract

A surge of religious freedom bills started to sweep through America after their Supreme Court decided same-sex marriage should be legal. Mississippi was one of the states that introduced an religious freedom act, which would protect religious people when they deny their services to LGBT individuals. Almost immediately, the media responded with an outcry against it. This thesis argues that American news reports covering HB 1523 are biased. It does so by analysing seven feature articles from major American online news outlets to see whether the apparent liberal bias actually exists, by examining the concepts of agenda setting, framing, status conferral and balance. The extent to which an article is biased depends on the representation of both the opposing and supporting side, and the depiction of the LGBT community. Eventually, an overall liberal media bias is established, but the LGBT community is severely limited in their representation.