are based on a single presentation of a single story about race, genes, and health. Although we do not know whether exposure to such items has a lasting effect on attitudes, our content analysis suggests these messages are repeated again and again, leading us to expect that message impact will be reinforced and strengthened over time. Second, we created our vignettes from news items in two outlets respected for balanced and thorough reporting, the New York Times and Associated Press. Television, where the majority of people turn for the news (Pew Research Center for the People and the Press 2013), likely reports backdoor messages in an even more simplified, stark, and dramatized manner. The messages the majority of people actually receive may thus be even more likely to engender beliefs in essential racial differences than the ones represented in this study.
