Minorities and Communication 1999 Abstracts
Minorities and Communication Division
Faculty Papers
Black, White, Hispanic, And Asian-American Adolescents’ Responses To Culturally Embedded Ads • Osei Appiah, Iowa State University • Researchers digitally manipulated the race of characters in ads and the number of race specific cultural cues in the ads while maintaining all other visual features of these ads. Three hundred forty-nine black, white, Hispanic, and Asian-American adolescents evaluated black character or white character ads based on their: 1) perceived similarity to the characters in the ads; 2) identification with the characters in the ads; 3) belief that the ads were intended for them; 4) overall like/dislike of the ads.
An Analysis of Role Portrayal in U.S. Spanish-Language Television Promotional Announcements • Jami J. Armstrong, Oklahoma State University and Alice Kendrick, Southern Methodist University • This study, the first to profile television promotional announcements on Spanish-language television, revealed an emphasis on sexual content and contact, suggestive dress and a high degree of sex role stereotyping. The images a viewer of Spanish language television receives via promotional announcements is that programming will feature an abundance of scantily clad, young, attractive women. The findings call into question whether the station promotional announcements, as well as programming they represent, are m keeping with the Hispanic cultural values as expressed in the marketing and communication literature.
Third-Person Perception and Optimistic Bias Among Urban Minority “At-Risk” Youth • John Chapin, Rutgers University • Recent third-person perception articles suggest that optimistic bias is the mechanism underlying the perceptual bias, but fail to empirically test the assumption. Minority “at-risk” youth are neglected in both literatures, despite the fact that they are frequently the target audience for the resulting campaigns. This study sought to bridge a gap between communication and psychology by determining to what extent third-person perception and optimistic bias co-vary in a sample of urban, minority “at-risk” youth.
Exclusion, Denial, and Resignation: How African American Girls Read Mainstream Teen Magazines • Lisa Duke, Florida • ‘Teen, Seventeen, and YM; the best-selling teen magazines, are arguably culturally specific in their execution of major themes, yet enjoy a substantial African American audience This is a qualitative study of how 26 Black and White readers of teen magazines understand and negotiate African American girls’ relative absence from these texts. Black participants’ interpretations of teen magazines change with age, but also with girls’ growing racial awareness and identification, demonstrating the pertinence of Helms’s (1995) model of racial-identity development to the data.
“Beyond the Looking Glass:” Thoughts and Feelings of African American Images in Advertisements by Caucasian Consumers • Cynthia M. Frisby, Missouri-Columbia • Advertisements with “all-black” actors are often placed in “black media” to reach African American markets. The main purpose of this study is to determine if certain African American images could be used to reach other target markets in mainstream media (i.e. Caucasians). Seventy-six Caucasian female and male undergraduates were asked to list any and all thoughts concerning Caucasian and African-American female images. Content analysis of the thoughts revealed that when considering Caucasian images, comments focused primarily on the model’s beauty and physical image.
Trust, Efficacy And Political Information Seeking Among Latinos • Jose R. Gaztambide-Geigel, Institute for Puerto Rican and Latino Studies and Connecticut, Storrs • This paper seeks to understand political information-seeking behaviors by Latinos and to clarify the relationship between these behaviors and political trust and efficacy. It also looks at whether there are differences in this relationship for three groups of Latinos: those born in Puerto Rico, those from Latin America, and those born in the United States. Analysis of survey data @4=502) from Connecticut suggests that efficacy predicts paying attention to political commercials, but not attention to news on media.
Looks Like Me? Body Image In U.S. Hispanic Women’s Magazines • Melissa Johnson, North Carolina State University • This study coded 1,749 non-advertising images of women for body size and muscle tone in 51 issues of 13 magazines targeted to Latinas in the United States. Body size differed significantly by origin of publication and magazine format, with thinnest images originating from non-U.S. magazines and from fashion magazines. Latina magazines’ female images were no haven from unrealistically thin women in general market media. Hispanic magazines had pluralistic and assimilationist functions in their female depictions.
The Indianapolis Recorder: A Midwestern Black Newspaper Passes Century Mark By Finding Formula For Survival • Tendayi S. Kumbula, Ball State University • The Indianapolis Recorder is one of a handful of African American newspapers to have been published continuously and to have survived for more than 100 years in the United States. Through a combination of grit, determination, good management and understanding of what its readers and advertisers want, the newspaper, published in Indiana’s capital, has outlived its competition and continued to thrive. This has happened at a time when even some mainstream papers have faced hard economic times, which have resulted in cutbacks, downsizing and even the shutdown of some media outlets.
A Critical Analysis of the Newspaper Coverage of Native Americans by The Oklahoman newspaper for 1998: A study focusing on Indians stereotypes, types and kinds of stories about Native Americans • Dianne Lamb, Georgia Southern University • This study reviewed 309 articles about Native Americans in The Oklahoman for 1998 to determine the presence of stereotypes, if any, and the kinds and types of articles written about American Indians. The results showed that 31.4 percent of the coverage or 98 articles were about American Indians engaged in traditional artistic pursuits. The Indian of the past was the most common image of the Native American presented to the readers of The Oklahoman in 1998.
Hate Speech and the Third-Person Effect: Susceptibility, Severity, and the Willingness to Censor • Jennifer L. Lambe and Dhavan V. Shah, Minnesota • The concern that hate speech may provoke actual violence shares a commonality with the third-person effect hypothesis, which predicts that as people perceive “harmful” messages to have a greater effect on others than on themselves, they will be more likely to support censoring those messages. In a randomized telephone survey of 407 adults in a major midwestern metropolitan area, this study finds support for both the perceptual and behavioral components of the third-person effect in the context of hate speech.
Issue(s) African Americans Would Like to See Receive More Coverage In The Media • Teresa Mastin, Middle Tennessee State University • This study was conducted to provide African American community members with an opportunity to voice their thoughts about media programming. Participants were asked “What Issue(s) Would You Like to See Receive More Coverage in Media Programming?” The 235 responses were divided into two categories: issue related and “media do a good job”. The issue-related category was divided into three topical areas: community related; health, education, and welfare related; and civil rights related.
Racism In (and Out of) the News • Peter Parisi, Hunter College • This paper explores the textual strategies through which the U.S. press (1) rejects racism in principle then (2) declines to consider it as a structural or pervasive feature of contemporary U.S. society. The paper first examines a small sample of New York Times headlines employing the term “racism.” Second, if offers a textual analysis of coverage by the New York City press, particularly the Times, of a racist float in a Queens Labor Day parade.
The Press and Lynchings of African Americans • Richard M. Perloff, Cleveland State University • From 1889 to 1918, over 2,500 Black persons were lynched by White vigilantes, often with unspeakable cruelty. Shamefully, virtually no research has explored the ways that the press discussed this peculiarly American crime. This paper seeks to redress the imbalance in the literature. It is concluded that mainstream newspapers frequently provided racist descriptions of Black lynchings during this period, but press coverage slowly improved over the course of the twentieth century. Directions for future research are outlined.
It’s Time To Force A Change: The African American Press’ Campaign For A True Democracy During World War II • Earnest L. Perry Jr., Texas Christian University • For the African American press, proclaiming that there would be no “Close Ranks” during the Second World War was not enough. As the messenger for African Americans, the press was expected to be a leader not just in the fight for inclusion, but for justice emanating from a war against the evil and aggression that accompanies a theory of white supremacy. This study looks at how the African American press in conjunction with other civil rights organizations used the dual victory campaigns to pressure the government to change its exclusionary policies.
Health Communication Research and African Americans: A Conceptual Framework • Carolyn Stroman, Howard • Enormous amounts of money and efforts have been exerted to improve the health status of Americans. As a result, the overall health status of Americans has steadily improved throughout the 20th century. A number of medical and non-medical factors have been associated with the overall improved health status of Americans. Increasingly, though, the general public, as have health professionals, has come to the realization that issues of personal behavior play a key role in health and illness.
A Minority Voice In The Wilderness: Julius F. Taylor And The ‘Broad Ax’ Of Salt Lake City • Michael S. Sweeney, Utah State University • In 1895, the liberal, Democratic, African-American and non-Mormon journalist Julius Taylor founded a Salt Lake City newspaper, the Broad Ax. intending to promote the Free Silver wing of the Democratic Party and convert blacks from the GOP. Although he championed racial and religious equality, he could not overcome political, cultural and financial pressures. This paper examines the dominant themes in the Broad Ax’s four years in Utah, and the forces that helped drive Taylor and his paper to Chicago.
Multicultural Media Pedagogy: An Alternative View • Jocelyn A. Geliga Vargas, Lehman College/CUNY and Suzanne LaGrande, Baruch College/CUNY • Based on a ten week video literacy workshop for Latina teen mothers conducted in Holyoke, Massachusetts, we reflect upon the tenets and contributions of media literacy, critical pedagogy and multiculturalism. We then develop a vision for engaged and collaborative community media education. The central contribution of the model we sketch is the proposition that culture and cultural difference arise as the guiding principles for any pedagogical intervention.
Student Competition
Out of Their Hands: Framing and Its Impact on New York Times and Television Coverage of Indians and Indian Activism, 1968-79 • Jennifer M. Bowie, Ohio University • This content analysis of 243 stories identified and described a media frame used by the New York Times and television network news programs to marginalize Indians and Indian activists from 1968-79. Activist events set a large portion of the media’s agenda. Indians were framed as a violent, militant, and divided out-group. Based on this deviant and illegitimate frame-and on limited survey data-this study concluded that this coverage had a negative impact on public opinion.
Model Minority Discourse in the News Media: A Comparison of Asian American and Mormon Cases • Chiung Hwang Chen, Iowa • This paper examines the power relationships between the majority and minority groups through a comparison of media’s Asian American and Mormon “success” stories. The media cover Asian Americans and Mormons in a remarkably similar manner, utilizing a “model minority discourse.” I discuss how the media have constructed Asian Americans and Mormons as “models,” how this “success” image can slide into a minority “threat,” and how the discourse marginalizes both groups by keeping them “placed” as minority.
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield: Race and Biraciality in Star Trek • Michele S. Foss, Florida • The television show Star Trek made a distinct and direct comment on the issue of race with the episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.” Through an analysis of the images and dialogue in this episode, and relying on Leah R. Vande Berg’s theory of species-as-race (1996), this paper illustrates how Star Trek defined race within a science fictional setting, and how that definition depended on the contemporary environment in which it was written.
Japanese-American Internment Redress and Reparations: A Pilot Study of Media Coverage by the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post-1986-1999 • Joy Y. Nishie, Nevada-Las Vegas • This pilot study examines media coverage in the period prior to, during, and after the passage of the Japanese-American World War II internee reparations bill in 1988. An archival search of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post from 1986 to 1999 was used. Findings showed that both newspapers, despite their differences in the amount of articles printed, tended to be positive toward the redress and reparations bill.
KVUE-TV’s ‘Crime Guidelines’ and Unconscious Racism: A Case Study • Bob Pondillo, Wisconsin-Madison • This is a case study of KVUE-TV, Austin, Texas, during its first year employing written guidelines to determine whether or not a crime event is news. The paper hypothesizes that because newsrooms frame events in the narrative of the dominant ideology (and are systemically, unconsciously racist without using guidelines), a crime guideline routine would work to structure unconscious racism, exacerbate the problem of racialized news coverage, and reveal the subjective quality of deciding what is news.
(Under)exposed! Images of Asians and Asian Americans in News Photographs • Shelly Rodgers and Doyle Yoon, Missouri-Columbia • The authors examine stereotypes and portrayals of Asians and Asian Americans in newspaper photographs. Both subgroups are outnumbered by all other ethnicities, and are stereotyped in nearly half of the photos examined. Asians appear most frequently as tragic victims, and Asian Americans are seen most often as submissive. Implications suggest that the extent to which stereotypes are reflected in the news media, biased and inaccurate expectations may be formed by members outside the subgroup, resulting in harmful and negative consequences for the member group.
Newspaper Coverage of Immigrant Issues in Changing Communities: A Content Analysis • Mahen Saverimuttu, Michigan State University • The paper examines three extra media factors, community pluralism, economic conditions and socio-economics to understand how immigrant groups are represented in the newspapers. The study reveals that (a) existing measures of community pluralism need greater examination (b) newspapers appear to reflect the community in their representation of immigrant issues (c) Coverage of immigration in communities with greater unemployment has a decisively economic orientation and (d) Immigrants from countries of lower socio-economic status are more frequently the focus of immigration coverage.
Sources of Influence in the Framing of Community Conflict • Mahen Saverimuttu, Michigan State University • This study utilizes an integrated framework of community structure and media frames to examine the manner in which four Californian newspapers covered the highly divisive issue that was California’s Proposition 187. The frames utilized by the newspapers and the many groups seeking to air their perspective, within the structure of a pluralistic community, revealed that (a) groups with less power within the communities garnered substantial coverage through collective action, (b) there was significant congruence between the groups’ frames and newspapers’ frames.
The Media, Susan Smith, and the Mythical Black, Kidnapper: Why Don’t I Trust My Black/White Neighbor? • Jennifer L. Bailey Woodard, Indiana University • As an example of how the media works as a legitimator of dominate culture, this paper takes a critical look at the 1994 case of Susan Smith and the media’s coverage of the alleged kidnapping of her children by a black male. The common sense, naturalized images and myths about blacks espoused by media rhetoric in these stories are symbolic of the distrust it perpetuates; a distrust that whites and blacks must try to overcome.
Print friendly
