Minorities and Communication 1998 Abstracts
Minorities and Communication Division
Examining Kwanzaa’s Mainstream Media Coverage and Special Event Marketing Appeal • Gail F. Baker and Marilyn S. Roberts, Florida • To date, studies on African Americans and media coverage primarily have focused on blacks in magazine and newspaper stories. Little attention has been given to African American events that are not considered hard news. The current study examines the level and nature of Kwanzaa coverage by mainstream or general population newspapers. Five exploratory research questions form the basic parameters of this work. The sample contained 78 articles, which appeared in 22 different news sources from 1987 to 1995.
The Race Story Begins: Newspaper Coverage of the Landmark Brown v. Board of Education Decision • Sharon Bramlett-Solomon and Eileen Baston Arizona State University • Prior to the May 17, 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas Supreme Court decision, which made segregation in public schools unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, there was near-total neglect of the black community unless the story dramatized some sensational aspect such as crime. As news coverage of the Brown desegregation decision arguable marked the beginning of the “race story” in American journalism, it would seem important to examine how the press treated the court order.
An Analysis of Political Violence Toward The Vietnamese-American Press • Jeffrey Brody, California State University-Fullerton • The Vietnamese-American press has been beset by political violence. Sine 1981, five Vietnamese-immigrant journalists in communities across the United States have been murdered. These and other attacks against the Vietnamese-American press have created a climate of fear and intimidation that has silenced free speech.
Hire and Higher: An Analysis of the Relationship Between Numbers of Asian-American Editors and Coverage of Local Chinese by The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon • Herman B. Chiu, Missouri • This study found a strong relationship between the hiring of Asian-American editors at The Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and coverage of the city’s Chinese community. Issues of the paper from the 1970s, before it employed any Asian-American editors, the 1980s, when it employed two, and the 1990s, when it employed three, were compared. Samples showed a dramatic increase in the number of stories about local Chinese after two Asian-American editors joined the news staff.
What’s Wrong with this “Representative Picture?” African American Perspectives on the Portrayals of Blacks in Television News • Lorraine Fuller, Southeast Missouri State University • Over fifty years ago the Commission on Freedom of the Press, headed by Robert M. Hutchins, developed five standards of performance that were required of a free and responsible press. One of the five standards required that the press provide a “representative picture” of the constituent groups of society. This requirement would have the press accurately depict the various social groups and show concern for balance and fairness in the gathering and dissemination of news.
At the Heart of It Is the People: Reservation Newspapers and Western Settlement • Lucy A. Ganje, North Dakota • Too often the histories of reservation, small-town newspapers, and the people who worked long hours to produce them, are forgotten. This paper documents a Dakotah and Japanese American couple who published a newspaper on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation for 35 years. It relates their experiences while attempting to place those encounters in a broader, historical context. Corporate greed, the U.S. government and religious organizations all served to colonize the West.
Sensing, Valuation, and the Portrayal of African American TV Newsmakers • Camilla Gant, State University of West Georgia and John Dimmick, Ohio State University • In content analysis after content analysis, media analysts have documented that African Americans are rarely seen and heard as TV newsmakers, and the roles and news story topics in which they appear lack diversity. Any attempt of parity will require media analysts to simultaneously analyze content and the decision making process that produces content. Hence, TV news decision making research is a theoretical framework from which to explain how often TV newsmakers will be seen and heard, and in what roles and news story topics they will appear.
Sex Without Consequence: The Sexual and Reproductive Health Content of Latino Magazines • Melissa A. John, North Carolina State University • This study investigated the sexual and reproductive health content of Latino women’s and teen magazines distributed in the United States. Three hundred and twenty-eight articles and items from 160 issues of 16 magazines were analyzed. Sexual activity comprised 42% of the sexual and reproductive health content in women’s magazines and 64% in teen magazines. Receiving less attention were pregnancy, contraception, abortion, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases. Emergency contraception received none.
Reaffirming the Need for Journalism Diversity: Lessons From a Yearlong Review • Ronald B. Kelley and Michael Antecol, Missouri-Columbia • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
The Minority Press Goes to Bat Against Segregated Baseball • Chris Lamb, College of Charleston • During a radio interview on July 29, 1938, New York Yankee outfielder Jake Powell said he worked as a policeman in the off-season and kept in shape by cracking “niggers” over the head with his nightstick. Powell was immediately suspended for 10 days. The “Jake Powell Incident” provided the catalyst to challenge segregation in baseball mobilizing pressure from black activists, journalists, and others who wanted to integrate baseball. This article examines how this story was covered by mainstream dailies, black weeklies, and the Daily Worker, a Communist daily published in New York City.
Strategies for Surveying Small, Urban Publications on Patterns of Writing Staff Racial Diversity • Yvonne Laurenty, Kingsborough Community College (CUNY) • This study pre-tests the design of a questionnaire customized to survey racial diversity among writing staffs at 50 small Brooklyn and metropolitan New York City publications unreported by the print media’s annual national diversity census. The survey’s 42 percent initial response supports the feasibility of expanding the scope of inquiry to managers’ attitudes toward diversity. Evaluation of design strategies, which offers “best practice” guidelines for probing sensitive, race-based issues within the industry, anticipates a more comprehensive future study.
The Lone Ranger Rides Again: Black Press Editorial Stands on the Vietnam War During the Johnson Administration • William J. Leonhirth, Florida Institute of Technology • The mainstream black press faced numerous challenges during the Vietnam War. A review of editorial topics in these newspapers during the Johnson administration shows disagreement on support for black military service abroad, on whether war funding reduced support for domestic programs, and on whether war issues diverted attention from the civil rights movement. These newspapers attempted to maintain and build their support for President Johnson’s civil rights policies, while questioning his war policies.
A Sort of Compassion: The Washington Post Explains the “Crisis in Urban America” • Peter Parisi, Hunter College • In recent years, prestige papers have published a number of in-depth series on life in urban African-American neighborhoods. These stories appear to address calls by a wide range of media critics for more compassionate, contextual coverage of minority life, executed in depth and by minority journalists. The present study examines the most celebrated of these series Leon Dash’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, “Rosa Lee’s Story: Poverty and Survival in Washington,” published in the Washington Post.
Tuskegee Airmen, Censorship and the Black Press in World War II • Michael S. Sweeney, Utah State University • This paper examines the conflict between the black press and the Office of Censorship. In 1942-45, American media were urged to comply with censorship guidelines that limited news about troops that might aid the enemy. Black papers, however, wanted to publicize the Tuskegee Airmen. The Chicago Defender and other media inadvertently violated the censorship code. The conflict ended with the press following the code, and censors giving black journalists no special treatment or punishment.
The Influence of Television Use and Parental Communication on Educational Aspirations of Hispanic Children • Alexis Tan, Yuki Fujioka, Dennis Bautista, Rachel Maldonado, Larry Wright and Gerdean Tan, Washington State University • This study provides evidence that frequent viewing of American television and positive parental communication lead to higher educational aspirations among Hispanic children. The influence of American television may be to provide a contextual foundation for learning (e.g., general familiarity with the predominant culture) in American schools which goes beyond the learning and adoption of Anglo American values. The findings that positive parental communication leads to higher aspirations suggests that biculturalism may indeed be the mediating factor between television use and aspirations.
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