TV Entertainment, News, and Racial Perceptions of College Students (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Communication, 2008
A random survey of nonstudent adult residents was undertaken to determine whether exposure to network news has a demonstrable effect on racial attitudes and perceptions of African Americans. After controlling for a number of factors, results revealed that exposure to network news depressed estimates of African American income. In addition, network news exposure increased the endorsement of African American stereotypes, particularly the view that African Americans were poor and intimidating, and was positively associated with higher racism scores. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Television and Its Influence among African-Americans and Hispanics
This literature review argues that the broader implications of social learning by a subordinate group through the cultural apparatus of the dominant group has not usually been made an explicit part of the theoretical perspectives utilized in studies of minorities' experiences concerning the impact of television. The review presents the principal components of a comprehensive approach to studying the impact of the mass media. The paper identifies conceptual points of entry and then discusses the representations of Blacks and Hispanics in the context of the changing media environments which produce them and examines the evidence of media effects in the context of socially generated individual and group differences. The paper concludes that the research literature on Hispanic and African-American orientations to mass media in general, and to television in particular, provides only a partial inventory of differences, and a bare minimum of understanding about those factors which prod...
The current study content analyzes the 345 most viewed U.S. television shows within 12 separate television seasons spanning the years 1987 to 2009. Using multilevel modeling, the results from this comprehensive content analysis then are used to predict national-level racial/ethnic perceptions (between the years 1988 and 2008) with data from the American National Election Studies (ANES). Content analysis results reveal severe underrepresentation of Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans, and a tendency to depict ethnic minorities stereotypically (e.g., overrepresentation of hyper-sexualized Latino characters). Multilevel-modeling analysis indicates that both the quantity and quality of ethnic media representations contributes to Whites’ racial attitudes.
Intergroup Contact, Media Exposure, and Racial Attitudes
2012
Abstract The present investigation uses intergroup contact and media systems' dependency theories to illuminate the relative significance of various sources of information in shaping Caucasian-American attitudes toward African-Americans.
journal.au.edu
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of television portrayals of ethnic minorities, particularly in the United States on group vitality and identity. The empirical evidence shows that certain television programs may influence minorities' perceptions of their group vitality and identities and media selection. This paper presents the effects of television depictions of minorities focusing on the individual differences perspective. Social identity theory, ethnolinguistic identity theory, uses and gratifications, and social identity gratifications help explain the role of individual differences on the use of media for social identity and group vitality.
This article provides a review of the research record on the potential for media literacy education to intervene in the media's influence on racial and ethnic stereotypes, and explores the theoretical concepts that underlie these efforts. It situates media literacy theory and practice within particular emphases in the field and synthesizes qualitative and quantitative studies. Quantitative research on the effect of media literacy training and mediated counterstereotypes on reducing racial/ethnic prejudice is described. In addition, we report qualitative data from an ongoing study of early adolescents who took part in a media literacy curriculum on stereotypes. The research record reveals that although the topic is severely understudied, media literacy education holds great promise for its ability to shape media-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors and encourage an active and critical stance toward media. Media have been shown to have the potential to promote or to call into question stereotypical views of social groups, including those defined by race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity (Mastro, 2015; Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015). Accordingly, there is promise for education efforts addressing the media's role in stereotyping to mitigate the effects of exposure to negative or narrow media depictions of social groups and possibly even enhance the positive media influence of exposure to nonstereotypical and favorable media depictions.
2009
Despite a preponderance of evidence that news reports increase negative racial attitudes, some researchers have demonstrated that the print media can reduce such effects. Research has yet to examine whether television news can similarly reduce negative racial attitudes among viewers, even though television suffers from a worse reputation for encouraging such biases than does print. Building upon psychological research into the malleability of prejudice, the present research explores television’s potential to affect viewer prejudice. Psychological research (e.g., Dasgupta and Greenwald, 2001; Wittenbrink, Judd, and Park, 2001) shows that targeted manipulations can both positively and negatively affect implicit prejudices. Media research (e.g. Power, Murphy, and Coover, 1996; Casas & Dixon, 2003; Ramasubramanian, 2005) demonstrates that print media can produce positive and negative effects upon stereotypes and prejudice, though such research remains somewhat contradictory. Capitalizing on psychology’s differentiation between implicit and explicit attitudes, this study is the first specifically to explore the potential for television news to prime counter-prejudicial attitudes. Specifically, the study uses an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure television news’ facility to serve as a prime to strengthen or weaken racial schema and impact racial attitudes. After recording base-level prejudice through the IAT, researchers showed national news segments featuring famous and infamous Whites and Blacks to 130 White participants. Each segment was chosen either for visual impact or for the potential emotional impact of its subject. Pairs of segments served as either stereotypical or counterstereotypical manipulations. Following presentation of the segments, researchers measured post-manipulation implicit prejudice using the IAT and recorded levels of explicit prejudice as responses to semantic differentials and feeling thermometers. Data did not support initial hypotheses concerning the segments’ effects upon explicit and implicit prejudice, but the experiment did yield interesting results that should help future media researchers. This dissertation provides a guide for future media research designs utilizing the IAT, suggests that television may possess a positive capacity to curb pro-White biases in society, and implies that television’s propensity to increase anti-Black attitudes may be more limited than previous media research studies seem to suggest.
Television and Social Stereotypes
Prevention in human services, 1983
Multiple content analytic studies of TV portrayals of four social roles are presented, identifying consistent and persistent stereotypical attributes. Sex roles, ethnic roles, occupational roles, and age roles are discussed. Research on the impact of those portrayals is reviewed, and research on programming, critical viewing skills and parental mediation strategies which may serve to counteract stereotypic portrayals is presented. Researchers interested in the impact of television on individual values or behaviors, ranging from simple impression formation to increased aggressiveness, have faced a common dilemma in field work since the early 1960s. It has not been possible to find large numbers of humans without an enormous amount of television exposure who still bear any resemblance to a normal population. The perfect control group is unavailable. As we began this paper, however, the near-perfect experimental subject was found, and fittingly in a vicarious fashion. Peter Sellers captured the ultimate impact of television in his film portrayal of the TV idiot-savant Chance in Being There. All Chance knew was what television showed him; all he wanted was more of what television might show him. Television content comprised his cognitive mapping of the only world important to him-the TV world. If he hadn't seen it on television, it literally did not exist for him; he didn't know what to d o or how to do it. Were the perfect control subject equally available in this era of off-air, cable, videotape and videodisc television opportunities, the resultant human could be equally outrageous. An individual with no television experiences could well suffer from social Reprints may be requested from Bradley S. Greenberg. Communication Arts Building,