Minorities and Communication 2012 Abstracts
Faculty
The DC Snipers and Shifting Signifiers of Otherness: Newspaper Coverage of John Allan Muhammad and John Lee Malvo • Angie Chuang, American University School of Communication; Robin Chin Roemer • Studies of news coverage of Other identity in the form of blacks, Muslims, and immigrants have found that such signifiers are often overemphasized and represented as motive of crime or terrorism. A mixed method data analysis of newspaper coverage of the DC Snipers, arrested for a 2002 shooting spree that killed ten people, shows that the suspects’ layered identities and unusual crime challenged historic representational patterns.
Newspaper Coverage of the 25th Anniversary of the King Holiday • Carla Kimbrough, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • Anniversaries hold special meaning; they give us a time to reflect, to celebrate, to mourn, to remember. Holidays often offer the public a chance to do all of that. This paper analyzes qualitatively how newspapers covered the 25th anniversary of the national holiday named in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. King has become one of the country’s most celebrated citizens and the only one to be honored with a national holiday who was not a U.S. president (Haines).
Opposite but Equal: Examining the Protest Paradigm through the Hegemonic Lens • Josh Grimm, Texas Tech University • This study explores how Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., were in the New York Times and Washington Post. Drawing on concepts of hegemony and racism, a textual analysis was conducted to examine coverage of each man. Through this framing, Malcolm X was labeled as a deviant while Martin Luther King, Jr., was embraced as a righteous leader. These characterizations reinforced hegemonic power structures while challenging the established “protest paradigm.”
Natives in the News: How the Rapid City Journal Covered Native Americans on Page 1A • Savannah Tranchell; Mary Arnold, South Dakota State University • A content analysis of the 2010 Rapid City Journal’s front page, the paper examines how often the Journal runs stories about Native American and tribal issues and which topics are covered. The findings offer a snapshot of the Journal’s reporting on Native issues and highlights patterns in coverage. The study concludes that, in the name of quality journalism, media outlets like the Journal must maximize coverage of the community rather than doing what is easy and readily accessible.
Hispanics’ uses and gratifications in the three-screen media environment • Kenton Wilkinson, Texas Tech University; Anthony Galvez, Rhode Island College; Todd Chambers, Texas Tech University • This paper applies uses and gratifications theory to assess how Hispanics residing in and around a midsized southwestern U.S. city utilize “three screens:” television, Internet and mobile phones. Focus groups and a survey (n=204) were used to compare younger and older users and those with differing levels of acculturation. The results indicate that mobile phones are a crucial contemporary technology, and that academic researchers should be paying close attention to promotion and use of the three screens.
Illegal or Undocumented? Alien or Immigrant? An Examination of Terms used by the News Media, 2000-2010 • Thomas J. Hrach, University of Memphis • This study examined the terms news organizations used to describe people living in the United States illegally for the period from 2000 to 2010 and whether the Hispanic or Latino population of a region was a determining factor. It utilized a database that searched 3,863 titles from news organizations during the 11-year period for nine regions of the country and a statistical analysis. It found that “illegal immigrant” was the dominant term, and its use increased despite pressure from immigrant advocates to discontinue its use.
On-Air Diversity: Comparing Television Network Affiliates’ Ethnic Representation • Amy Jo Coffey • A national sample of the on-air talent (N=1513 reporters, N=2094 anchors) at television network affiliates (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) was content analyzed to compare the ethnic diversity of their on-air personnel. Grounded in representation and strategic competition theory, results indicated that the network affiliates had highly similar representation levels between them, however Hispanics were the most underrepresented group overall. Representation levels were also found to be highly similar to national population levels, offering some encouraging news for diverse hiring.
“Where Do I Belong, from Laguna Beach to Jersey Shore?”: Portrayal of Minority Youths on MTV Reality Shows • Sung-Yeon Park, School of Media & Communication, Bowling Green State University; Korea University, Seoul, ROK (Visiting professor); Mark Flynn, Bowling Green State University; Alexandru Stana; David Morin, Bowling Green State University; Gi Woong Yun • MTV Reality shows popular among young audiences were analyzed. All minority groups, except mixed-race women and gay men, were underrepresented. No ethnic/racial difference was found in plot centrality, popularity, and being hated. In romantic involvement, however, intergroup differences emerged: mixed-race women were more likely to be in a committed relationship, in an interracial relationship, and a target of romantic desire whereas Latinos and Blacks were less likely to be represented in all three aspects of the romantic involvement.
Does Language Matter? The Effects of News in Spanish vs. English on Voting by U.S. Latinos • Barry Hollander, University of Georgia • As the Latino population in the U.S. continues to grow, along with this population’s political impact, it is important to understand how the news media are used in terms of integration into the nation’s social and political culture. This study uses national survey data to examine the role the language of the news – in Spanish or English – may play in political participation.
Latino Online Newspapers vs. Mainstream Online Newspapers: A Comparative Analysis of News Coverage of the 2010 Health Care Reform • Masudul Biswas, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania • This study analyzes the news coverage of the 2010 Health Care Reform in a comparative context between Latino online newspapers and mainstream online newspapers by using the theoretical framework of media framing.
Choctaw and Cherokee Nations: How Freedom of Expression Isn’t “Just a White Man’s Idea” • Kevin Kemper, University of Arizona School of Journalism • Freedom of expression isn’t “just a white man’s idea.” This theoretical essay engages with laws by and affecting the Choctaw and Cherokee Nations in Oklahoma to see whether individual liberties like free expression and its subsets of free press and speech can be reconciled with the sovereignty of those tribes. Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, argues that those who put the needs of society over the rights of the individual are promoting totalitarianism.
Writing the Wrong: Can Counter-Stereotypes Offset Negative Media Messages about African-Americans • Lanier Holt, Indiana University • A plethora of studies show media messages activate or exacerbate racial stereotypes. This analysis, however, may be the first to examine which types of information – those that directly contradict media messages (i.e., crime-related) or general news (i.e., non-crime-related) are most effective in abating racial stereotypes. This study’s findings suggest fear of crime is becoming more a human, fear, not just a racial one. Recommendations for media are also briefly discussed.
Student Papers
“What if Michael Vick Were White?”: Analyzing Framing, Narrative, and Race In Media Coverage of Michael Vick • Bryan Carr, University of Oklahoma • Literature shows that athletics and the media that cover them have long been intertwined with issues pertaining to race and ethnicity. This relationship was particularly prevalent in media coverage of the Michael Vick dogfighting case, with many authors questioning whether Vick would have received different treatment if he had not been African-American.
User-Generated Racism: An Analysis of Stereotypes of African Americans, Latinos, and Asians in YouTube Videos • Lei Guo, University of Texas at Austin; Summer Harlow, University of Texas at Austin • This study examines representations of African Americans, Latinos and Asians in YouTube videos, exploring whether YouTube serves as a type of alternative media where the status quo is contested. Results show most videos analyzed perpetuated racial stereotypes. Further, videos that included stereotypes, most of which contained user-produced content, were more popular. We argue citizens use YouTube to perpetuate the same stereotypes found in mainstream media, rather than use it as an alternative counter-public sphere.
Ghost in the House: Remembering Champion Jack Johnson • Carrie Isard, Temple University • Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world, lived a life full of public triumph and private tribulations, and in the time since his death, his memory has emerged as a complex and contradictory story. Using a collective memory theoretical framework, this paper conducts a narrative analysis of four Jack Johnson memory texts: Hollywood film The Great White Hope (1970); Big Fights, Inc. documentary Jack Johnson (1970); Ken Burns’ documentary Unforgivable Blackness (2005) and Trevor Von Eeden’s The Original Johnson two-part graphic novel (2009, 2011) to examine how Johnson has been remembered in shifting historical, political and social contexts.
Perception and Use of Ethnic Online Communities as a Health Information Source among Recent Immigrants in the United States • Junga Kim, University of Florida • This study investigated the role of ethnic online communities as a health information source for Korean Americans, applying the uses and dependency model as a theoretical framework. A survey was conducted to examine use and evaluation of online communities and physicians as diabetes-related information source among Korean Americans with different levels of acculturation.
Celebrated Images of Blackness: A Content Analysis of Oscar Award Winning Films of the 20th Century • Roslyn Satchel, Louisiana State University Manship School of Mass Communication • Religious liberty is essential to democracy. Democracy, and civility between religious groups, however, are in jeopardy due to the ways in which media conglomerates use religion—Christianity, in particular—as a political force for creating xenophobia against cultural minorities. This paper examines 10 films with the highest viewership of all time for framing bias and system justification in use of “the native” stereotype as described by Stuart Hall (1981).
Stereotypes in Blockbusters: An examination of Asian Characters in Top Box Office American Films (2000-2009) • Jia-Wei Tu, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong; Xing Liu • This study is an up-to-date investigation on how Asians are portrayed in American films. Top 10 American gross income films of each year from 2000 to 2009 were analyzed. Asian characters in the 100 films were examined from four dimensions: images, romantic relationships, costumes and accents. The findings have demonstrated that Asians are not completely annihilated but symbolic trivialized; the Asian stereotypes still exist in the top box office films.
Fine and Punishment: James Harrison, NFL fines and USA Today’s construction of black masculinity • Molly Yanity, Ohio University • Research points to a structural problem of overt and inferential racism that is prevalent in American society and finds its way en masse to the sports pages. While violence in sports draws larger audiences to arenas and stadiums, the “Bad Black Man” seems to be the scapegoat when that institutionally-promoted violence results serious health risks. During the 2010 National Football League season, Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison was represented as the “Bad Black Men.”
Framing Immigration: An Analysis of Newswire and Regional Newspaper Coverage of Immigration in the U.S. • Rodrigo Zamith, University of Minnesota • This study seeks to analyze and compare the coverage of the issue of immigration in the United States by newswire services and regional newspapers in cities near the southern border. Drawing from framing theory, the author adopts a mixed-method approach consisting of an interpretive analysis and a computer-aided analysis. The findings reveal important similarities and differences in the framing of the issue and in the depiction of immigrants, with serious social and political implications.
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