Culture frames of the 2004 presidential campaign: Public relations strategies for mobilizing Florida's Latinos

This dissertation uses framing theory and the concepts of emic and etic to formulate a culture frames model for identifying, describing and comparing mass media and individual frames. This model also helps determine levels of culture affinity between diverse frames and their sources. The results of this dissertation are a series of frames regarding the issue of healthcare coverage in America used in public relations strategies targeting Latinos in the state of Florida during the 2004 presidential election in the United States. The referential frames used by Latino-subgroup members (Colombian, Cuban, and Puerto Rican Americans) were also included in the results.;A content analysis of 125 political and communitarian campaign communications using the culture frames model resulted in several key frames that were used in these mobilization efforts. The major Bush/Cheney political campaign frames were for the Bush Agenda for America, the Combative Frame: Bush Policy vs. Kerry Policy and the Latino American Dream frames. The Kerry/Edwards political campaign frames included the Stronger America, and the Failure and Struggle frames. Finally, the main LULAC/SVREP communitarian campaign frames were the Healthcare Reform and Latino Plight frames.;The Latino frames emerged from the content analysis of in-depth interviews with 21 Latinos of voting age in the state of Florida. The main Colombian American frames were the Struggling Latino, and the Universal Healthcare Hybrid frame. The main Cuban American frame identified was Enforcement vs. Reform. Finally, the Puerto Rican American frames were the Struggling Latino Worker and the Progressive Government frames.;The conclusions in this study highlight the importance of attending to cultural nuances as these may impact the effectiveness of public relations campaign strategies. These findings argue against treating minority groups as a monolith and recognize the differences that may exist between the frames of reference used by members of a minority group. These findings also suggest that public relations practitioners who rely on a culture frames model will be better equipped to design, implement and evaluated effective public relations campaign strategies in today's multicultural society.