Minorities and Communication 2000 Abstracts
Minorities and Communication Division
Faculty Competition
Diversity in Local Television News: A Clogged Pipeline? • Terry Anzur, Sheila Murphy and Mieke Schechter, Southern California • The article presents a survey of television news directors in markets ranked between 100th and 150th nationally in terms of size, where aspiring TV news anchors and reporters get their first jobs. Entry-level hiring is done primarily by white males and reflects their perceptions of the local audience, the perceived difficulty of finding qualified applicants and the low priority placed on diversity. Women and minorities are under-represented among actual hires, contributing to an industry-wide shortage of diverse on-air talent.
Crime and Ethnic Group Coverage: Media Exposure and Audience Perceptions • Christopher E. Beaudoin and Esther Thorson, Missouri-Columbia • This study examines connections among media exposure and audience perceptions of ethnicity and crime coverage — in light of the continuing decline of newspaper readership. Relying on a telephone survey, it demonstrated that different ethnic groups view coverage in different ways and that newspaper readership was positively correlated with perceptions of coverage. The opposite was true for local broadcast news. Via structural equation modeling, the study suggests that perception determines media use • and, thus, that low credibility may undermine readership.
Copycats, Conspirators and Bigots: Themes in Southern, Northern and Western Newspaper Editorial Portrayals of the Black Church-burning Crisis • Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, Arizona State • Between January 1, 1995 and December 1997 at least 142 black churches were set on fire through arson, bombings or attempted bombings. Examination of all church burnings’ editorials appearing in the Lexis Nexis database and Editorials on File over this two-year period, yielded 109 editorials for content analysis. Findings in this preliminary study call into question the assumption of some media critics and scholars who suggest that regional differences exist in southern and northern newspaper portrayals of racial conflicts.
Media Correlates of a Protest in a Minority Community: Southern California’s Vietnamese Americans and the Hi-Tek Video Store Incident • Jeffrey Brody, Tony Rimmer & Edgar P. Trotter • California State-Fullerton — This paper explores correlates of participation in a protest in an immigrant community. Participation was assumed to be inversely associated with acculturation, political tolerance, and perceptions of English and Vietnamese-language media. Bivariate analyses of a 41 8-respondent survey showed no discrimination between protesters and nonprotesters on demographic variables, some discrimination on acculturation measures (on two attitudinal but not on three language proficiency indices), and significant discrimination on measures of media use and assessment of coverage of the incident.
Constructing Blackness: Media Coverage of African American Support for President Clinton • Dwight E. Brooks, Georgia and James A. Rada, Rowan • African American support for President Clinton. Nearly 40 broadcast, newspaper and magazine stories produce explanations that were placed into five discursive themes: morality, political pragmatism, distrust of the criminal justice system, forgiveness/redemption, and Clinton’s rapport with African Americans. The media not only contribute to the social construction of Blackness in intriguing ways, but its failure to explain White support (or lack of) for the President reinforces the invisibility of Whiteness as the norm.
Black in White: A Historical Inquiry into the Afro-Caribbean Press in the U.K. • James P. Danky, State Historical Society of Wisconsin and David Henning, Wisconsin • This paper, the initial part of a larger project on Afro-Caribbean and Diasporic journalism, asks the question “what do academic journalism histories say about the press by and for British blacks?” This paper begins with an overview of British journalism historiography from the nineteenth century to the present, looks at publications by and for British blacks, and treatments of that journalism by the academy. This paper is also a contribution to black British historical studies.
A Myth Analysis of Race and Beauty in Teen Magazines • Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Texas at Austin • This paper examines how race and beauty are interpreted by popular media targeted to teenage girls, in the context of the contemporary politics of diversity. This research employed myth analysis (Barthes, 1972) to uncover the ideological themes underpinning the discourses of racialized beauty in four top-circulating teen magazines. The analysis revealed a construction of beauty in which race was used as a device to orient girls toward consumerism by glossing over its political, historical, and cultural moorings and reinscribing categorical racial boundaries.
Black Like Me: How Idealized Images of Caucasian Women Affect Body Esteem and Mood States of African-American Females • Cynthia M. Frisby, Missouri • Using the theory of social comparison, the present research explores how exposure to idealized images of physically attractive Caucasian women affects and changes the self reported esteem levels of African-American women. Though research reveals that the number of portrayals of African-Americans in ads is growing, little if any research has explored how images and advertisements influence behaviors and attitudes toward advertising images and messages. A sample of African-American females was surveyed on body esteem and other self-perception variables.
What A Difference A Channel Makes: Commercial Images In General Market V. Spanish Language Television • Jami Armstrong Fullerton, Oklahoma State and Alice Kendrick, Southern Methodist • Analysis of prime time commercials on NBC and Univision revealed the occurrence of significantly fewer commercials on Univision as well as significantly more inventory devoted to public service announcements. Commercials on the networks were also found to focus on different products and services. Roles of primary characters on NBC revealed a strong professional male presence on the general market network, contrasted with the prevalence of female characters on Univision.
Bridges Across the Digital Divide: An Exploratory Study of AHANA and Women’s Websites on the Internet • Dennis W. Jeffers, Central Michigan • This paper reports the results of an exploratory study which examined content of websites targeted at African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and women (AHANA/W), as well as the content of OneNetNow.com: a recently launched website designed to bridge the digital divide. The study focused on a large number of “demographic” and “content” variables previously used to document the digital divide. The results suggest that there is a great deal of similarity between websites not specifically designed to bridge the digital divide (existing AHANA/W sites) and OneNetNow.com.
Race and the Praxis of Crime Reporting: A Narrative Paradigm for Portrayals of Deviance • Craig Maier and Maggie Patterson, Duquesne • Social science studies present conflicting evidence of the effects of crime and race news coverage on audience and lead to a seemingly intractable debate. This essay suggests that narrative analysis may be a more useful tool. Using the content of an original study done in City X a mid-sized, mid-Atlantic city, and previously published social scientific research as a point of departure, this paper explores how narrative theory reconfigures race, crime news, and public opinion.
Do Skin Tones Matter When Judging the Guilt of Accused African Americans Pictured in News Crime Stories? • Dwyane Proctor, University of Connecticut Health Center and L.B. Snyder, Connecticut • Pundits’ claim that darkening complexions of African Americans accused of crimes in news photographs influence readers to prejudge the accused as guilty. Potential jurors (N = 421) read one of three news articles about a man arrested for murder. Two articles contained a photo of the accused; he was shown as African American with light or dark colored skin. The third article contained no photo or ethnic description of the accused.
What a Difference a Year Makes: A Content Analysis Before and After the Start of a Latino Initiative • Shelly Rodgers and Esther Thorson, Missouri-Columbia • In an attempt to connect with and maintain readers, the Los Angeles Times launched a Latino initiative in the fall of 1998. The goal of the initiative was to seek out more Latino sources across a wider variety of topics. Although the Latino initiative is still on-going at the Times we wanted to see whether changes in the numbers and representations of Latinos were noticeable after one year of the initiative’s start date. Our findings suggest improvements in the representation of Latinos.
The University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux Logo • Raul Tovares, North Dakota • Taking a Gramscian perspective, this paper interrogates an official document addressing the University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux logo. Prior to the late 1960s the dominance of the UND campus by white students, faculty, and administrators created a climate in which the appropriation of Native American images and symbols for fun and sport went largely unquestioned. The debates that have developed around the Fighting Sioux logo reflect the struggles of different groups to define the parameters of acceptable and unacceptable forms of communication.
Student Competition
Media Messages and the Thin Standard: Are African-American Women Receiving the Same Messages? • Laura I. Collier, Houston • A content analysis of three African-American and three Caucasian women’s magazines (72 issues) for the year 1997 was conducted to ascertain if African-American women receive the same thinness-depicting messages characteristically observed in the Caucasian media. In addition, body measurements of models found in Ebony and Ladies’ Home Journal from 1945-1998 were conducted. Results revealed African-American magazines place less emphasis on content dealing with body/shape/size. However, body measurements of African-American models follow similar thinness trends to Caucasian models.
Television Network Diversity Deals and Citizen Group Action in 21st Century Broadcasting Policy • George Daniels, Georgia • This paper provides an analysis of recent efforts by the NAACP and other ethnic groups to negotiate diversity agreements for employment and programming at the four major broadcast networks. The calls for diversity issued in 1999 are compared to the work of citizen action groups that influenced broadcasting policy in the 1960s and 1970s. With varying mechanisms for network accountability and monitoring of diversity, the agreements amounted mostly to a victory in the “court of public opinion.”
Building Identification with Hispanic Voters via the Web • Maria Len-Rios, Missouri-Columbia • This is the one of the first studies to examine presidential campaign messages targeting Hispanic voters during the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. A case study, employing textual analysis guided by using Kenneth Burke’s concept of identification, is used to determine how Bush and Gore identified with Hispanic voters through (l) common experiences/association, (2) antithesis, and (3) subtlety or cunning. Results reveal that Bush invested more in his “En Espanol” Web site.
Pointing Fingers: Victim Blaming and News Coverage of African-Americans, Health and Public Policy in Two Major Metropolitan Newspapers • Nicole Mikel-Brumfield, Florida • The presence of victim blaming of African-Americans and their health issues, as it relates to public policy, was examined through the content analysis of two newspapers, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the New Orleans Times Picayune, from November 1997 to November 1998. Overall, the Times Picayune published more victim blaming articles than the Plain Dealer. Also, male reporters did more victim blaming as was more blatant than their female counterparts.
Justifying the FCC’s Minority Preference Policies • Seung Kwan Ryu, Southern Illinois-Carbondale • This study investigates how courts have used empirical evidence in justifying the standard review they applied as their rationale in FCC’s minority preference and equal protection policies. The study suggests that courts should adopt not only evidence of historical and societal discrimination but also empirical evidence as their rationale, since in previous studies empirical evidence has already shown a positive correlation between minority ownership and program diversity in broadcasting.
Gender Stereotypes and Race in Music Videos: Cultivating Unreality • Helena K. Sarkio, Minnesota • Cultivation research examines the extent to which television shapes its audience’s perception of reality. The objective of this study was to contribute to the understanding of how exposure to the total pattern of music videos can cultivate their viewers’ conceptions of Caucasian and African-American women and men. Through a content analysis of music videos on BET, MTV and VH1, significant differences between the four groups were uncovered.
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