Constructing Racial Groups' Identities in the Diasporic Press: Internalization,Resonance, Transparency,and Offset

This study examines the ways that the Korean American diasporic press constructs identities of its own ethnic group as well as those of other racial/ethnic groups by employing both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The author identifies three metaframes of diasporic media's representations of interracial relations—(a) internalization/resonance (related to racial/ethnic minorities), (b) transparency (related to Whites), and (c) offset (related to their ethnic members)—as ways that the diasporic media adopt, adapt, and counteract prevailing racial ideologies in their new host country. The diasporic media offset the negative images of their own ethnic members in the mainstream media by depicting the roles of their own group as victims of other racial/ethnic groups. Findings indicate that Korean Americans were frequently shown as victims of crimes (mostly related to Blacks), racial discrimination (mostly related to Whites), problematic laborers (mostly related to Latinos), and business rivals (mostly related to other Asian Americans).     

Content Analysis of the Portrayal of White Characters in Black Films Across Two Decades

Race and media research in the United States emphasizes the representations of ethnic minorities in mainstream media. These sometimes-poor representations of minority groups have implications for social attitudes. However, social groups are defined in relation to one another, and race specifically is a hierarchical category with Whites positioned above. Some scholars suggest that whiteness has meaningful implications for Whites’ racial identity formation. Yet little empirical attention has been given to the portrayals of Whites in racially targeted or ethnic-oriented media, where whiteness is most conspicuous. This study uses social identity theory and critical race theories to examine the portrayals of Whites in Black films. We conduct a content analysis of 32 Black-oriented films spanning two decades. We argue that such investigations (a) position race-oriented films as necessary sites for understanding racial discourse and (b) shed insight into how ethnic media creators may use film as a platform to accept or resist dominant ideologies.     

Ethnic Media in the United States: An Essay on Their Role in Integration,Assimilation, and Social Control

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants have entered the United States in the last 2 decades and even more are expected to do so in the coming years. This increasing presence of members from diverse ethnic identities is leading to what some have characterized as a permanently unfinished American society. Ethnic groups have grown active and have established institutions to sustain their ethnicity and ease their transition into American society with varying degrees of success. One such institution with a significant role in assimilation and integration is the ethnic mass media. This article is a theoretical exegesis on the role of ethnic media from a functional conflict perspective. Drawing from the literature on immigration, the sociology of the community press, social conflict, and postindustrial theories, we speculate on the functions of ethnic media and how that may manifest in their news content. Finally, propositions are offered for a more systematic study of ethnic media and their roles given their importance to current debates on American identity and multiculturalism raging in the country.     

The problematic status of u.s. statistics on race and ethnicity: An “imperfect representation of reality”

This article extends Stratford's brief observations about the problematic status of racial and ethnic group statistics to a discussion of the relationship among these statistics, public policy, and the conceptual status of race and ethnicity. Federal statistics are organizational products that are socially constructed. They represent the implementation of public policies that govern political, social, and economic life. It is the interaction between politics and the subjective meaning of race and ethnicity that is responsible for the continual modification of racial and ethnic group statistics. The article discusses the premises on which racial and ethnic group statistics have been based and illustrates how they were implemented in the instructions of the decennial censuses for classifying the race and ethnicity of the population. The article then summarizes some of the empirical evidence from recent research conducted by federal agencies and social scientists to show that racial and ethnic group statistics produced by government record keeping systems have no objective status. The meaning of race and ethnicity is contextual, situational, and subjective, and, thus, how respondents and observers define these concepts has significant consequences for the quality of federal statistics.     

The Effect of Prime Time Television Ethnic/Racial Stereotypes on Latino and Black Americans: A Longitudinal National Level Study

Much is known about the negative consequences of exposure to ethnic/racial stereotypes in the media, on White audiences. However, there is substantially less research addressing the effects of such media content on members of racial/ethnic minority groups. The present study examines this question using repeated cross-sectional national level data alongside a content analysis of top prime time shows between 1987 and 2008. Multi-level modeling analyses reveal that media representations of Latinos and Blacks were associated with Latinos’ and Blacks’ ingroup attitudes, however effects on attitudes towards Whites were not significant.     

The Impact of Internal Labor Markets on Newspaper Industry Personnel Practices

Media industries in the United States have consolidated significantly in the second half of the last century. One consequence of the consolidation is a restructuring of the way the industries construct and access their labor markets. As the media group integrates or even coordinates the hiring of personnel, the Internal Labor Market can be expanded to cover all or major parts of the media company. Creation of what is termed here an Extended Internal Labor Market has the potential to alter personnel practices in the group.

This article tested this expectation in one specific area, the hiring of and investment in journalists, for one type of media, the daily newspaper industry. One indicant of quality hiring is the location and employment of journalists who are members of racial or ethnic minority groups. It was predicted in this article that daily newspapers that are part of an optimally configured Extended Internal Labor Market would be more likely to hire minority journalists than other newspapers. These newspapers also were expected to be more likely to value professional development of their journalists, and to provide encouragement for their journalists to engage in both internal and external training activities.

The data are generally consistent with the hypotheses. The size of the company plays an important role in understanding the relationships.     

Different Paths,Different Voices: The Historical Contexts of Women’s and Minorities’ Access to Broadcasting

This essay extends Susan Carter’s (2004) models of women’s access to broadcasting to include racial and ethnic minorities. It investigates the different historical contexts of female and minority access to commercial broadcasting, and argues that women and minorities have rooted their media access in different models. The intersection of race and gender, combined with an evolving cultural, political, and regulatory environment, has had a powerful influence on which of the three access models were used by women and people of color.     

Three ifs and a maybe: Mari Matsuda's approach to restricting hate‐speech

This essay examines the issue of “hate speech,” racial, sexual, and ethnic‐based expressions of hate, on the college campus. Many commentators have called for colleges and universities to create polices to prohibit such expression. Others have noted that First Amendment rights protect such expression. This essay discusses both positions, and offers a third perspective designed to protect expression without dismissing the damage caused by hate speech.     

Exposure of Taiwanese adolescents to pornographic media and its impact on sexual attitudes and behaviour

This article examines the use of pornographic media by Taiwanese high school students, and explores the effects of exposure to such on their attitudes and behaviour in terms of sexual permissiveness.

The results of this research indicate that more than 90 per cent of the students interviewed had at least some exposure to a variety of pornography, with males reporting significantly higher exposure frequencies than females. The results also show that exposure to pornographic media has significant effects on high school students’ sexual permissiveness and nonexclusive sexual attitudes and behaviour.     

The Influence of Religiosity and Ethnic Identification on Media Use Among Muslims and Non-Muslims in France and Britain

This is an examination of the ethnic media use of French and British Muslims. A total of 677 Muslims participated in the study. Analysis reveals being an immigrant or a native of a nation does not significantly influence ethnic media use in France but does in Britain. Ethnic identification was also revealed as an influential predictor of ethnic media use among Muslims in France but not in Britain. Religiosity significantly predicted ethnic media use among British Muslims. The article argues religiosity and ethnic identification should be included in studies examining media use among ethnic groups.     

Representations of Interpersonal Interaction and Race/Ethnicity: An Examination of Prime-Time Network Television Programs

Racial and ethnic relations in America are a form of social interaction about which changing perceptions could have important consequences. Current research examining the nature of discrete social interaction situations in entertainment content on television is lacking. This study was conducted with the objective of obtaining an updated account of the state of interpersonal interaction portrayals between characters of different racial/ethnic backgrounds in popular prime time programs on broadcast television. Specifically, we analyzed prime-time television program content on 4 major U.S. broadcast networks. Findings are interpreted via a media priming framework.     

Children's media use in Indonesia

This article explores how Indonesian children have integrated media into their daily lives: media ownership at home, media uses, and gratifications sought, are discussed, as is the way in which gender and social-status influence the children–media relationship. Survey data of Jakarta-based children aged 9–15 (N=589) reveal that Indonesian children live in a media saturated environment, with high availability of media platforms in their homes and bedrooms. Similar to children in the US and Europe, children in Jakarta spend considerable amounts of time on a wealth of media platforms and experience multiple gratifications from using multiple media. Gender differences persist in that boys tend to be more into gaming, while girls focus more on communication aspects. High social-status children tend to have more media at their disposal in their bedroom, especially electronic games, computers, and Internet connections. Television is still prominent in the media menu of today, but mobile phones are ready to take its place in the near future.     

Métissage on the Airwaves: Toward a Cultural History of Broadcasting in French Colonial Algeria, 1930–1936

This article explores the methodological challenges and possibilities of writing a cultural history of broadcasting in French colonial Algeria during the tumultuous decades between the two world wars. In a diverse, multi-ethnic colonial society, how can historians and media scholars evaluate audience reception? What meanings did radio broadcasting acquire in the colonial context? To answer these questions, this article considers the controversies surrounding two culturally hybrid broadcasts produced by Radio-Algiers during the 1930s. A careful examination of the remaining historical record concerning these broadcasts, from newspaper accounts to archival sources, exposes the cultural fluidity that typified everyday colonial life and reveals how radio broadcasting politicized music and oral language in novel ways. Broadcasting—as a purely sonic medium—challenged the classificatory mechanisms of the French colonial state and the racial and ethnic boundaries that undergirded colonial society. In consequence, historical memories of Radio-Algiers and its role during the waning years of the French empire deny the sonic cultural hybridity that flourished over the interwar airwaves.     

Rebels of the underground: Media,orality, and the routes of black emancipation

Studies of race in communication studies often critique and/or celebrate representations of people of color, but recently scholars have called for studies to “go beyond” representation. Building off the work of Sarah Sharma, Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and Walter Ong, this article considers how forms of media, rather than solely content, have racial implications that exceed their representational capabilities. Through an analysis of slave narratives, this article argues that the Underground Railroad was a “media environment” that assisted slave emancipation. This environment celebrated oral forms of mediation and the bodies of certain black runaway slaves to mediate the lines between freedom and bondage.     

Television Viewing,Racial Attitudes,and Policy Preferences: Exploring the Role of Social Identity and Intergroup Emotions in Influencing Support for Affirmative Action

This paper explores how White viewers' perceived portrayals of African-Americans and Latino-Americans on TV influence their real-world feelings and beliefs about these outgroups, which in turn affect their support for race-targeted policies. A computer-based survey (N=323) included measures relating to perceptions about racial/ethnic groups on television, real-world stereotypical beliefs, prejudicial feelings, and support for affirmative action policies. The affective-cognitive model of policy reasoning presented in this paper extends and improves upon prior research in several ways. It considers intergroup emotions as an important mediator by including prejudicial feelings toward racial/ethnic outgroups in the path analyses. Unlike past research that typically grouped all negative stereotypes into one global measure, this study explores how specific types of stereotypes such as criminality and laziness work independently and simultaneously to influence policy preferences. Finally, this integrated cognitive-affective model of policy reasoning is applied to both perceptions of African-Americans and of Latino-Americans, which provides greater confidence in the applicability of the model. Implications of the results and directions for future research are discussed.     

Coming Together to Address Systemic Racism in Museums

A group of 25 multi‐generational, multi‐racial museum professionals met in January 2016 for a 3‐day dialogue about museums and race. They concurred that forming alliances among museum practitioners of all races and ethnic backgrounds is a critical step in dismantling the persistent and pervasive presence of structural racism in museums. This article asserts that there are both demographic and ethical imperatives for close examination of all aspects of museums’ programs, their staffs and boards, the publics they serve, and the organizations that exist because of them. It provides an introduction to the vocabulary and attendant systems of white privilege, oppression, and intersectionality, offers concrete suggestions for people of all backgrounds to join forces, and ends with a call to action to bring racial awareness and action to the forefront in our institutions, our communities, and our nation.     

How Ethnic Are U.S. Ethnic Media: The Case of Latina Magazines

In this article, I review 3 waves of ethnic media scholarship, and I describe how the dominant paradigm shifted from assimilation concerns to pluralism. I used qualitative and quantitative content analysis to examine news and features in 5 new nationwide women's magazines targeted to U.S. Hispanics. Thirty-eight percent of the manifest content mentioned Latinos and 27% mentioned specific Latin American cultures. These new English-language and bilingual Latina magazines distributed in the United States had simultaneous assimilative and pluralistic functions. One function was the ability to create a pan-Hispanic identity for members of various Latin American cultures. The magazine content does not fit within the confines of current language-based ethnic media models. I propose a revised model of ethnic media that reflects dual functions of assimilative and pluralistic expression and takes into account the possibility of more symbolic ethnic media functions.     

Classifying racial and ethnic group data in the United States: the politics of negotiation and accommodation

“Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity,” formerly known as “Statistical Policy Directive 15,” is a classification system that has formed the basis of the U.S. government's collection and presentation of data on race and ethnicity since 1977. During the mid-1990s, it underwent a public evaluation to determine whether the racial and ethnic group categories should be revised. This article examines the history of Statistical Policy Directive 15 from its origins through October 1997 and evaluates its consequences on political, economic, and social life. Among the many lessons that government information specialists can take away from the history of Statistical Policy Directive 15 is that classification systems are not neutral tools that objectively reflect and measure the empirical world. Classification systems cannot be isolated from the larger political setting. They are tightly linked to public policies, and, in the case of racial and ethnic group classification, they constitute highly contested social policy about which there is little public consensus.     

Informational Sources,Social Media Use,and Race in the Flint,Michigan, Water Crisis

Safe, clean water is necessary for health and well-being. Water issues affect minority and vulnerable populations at disproportionate rates, including the poor and racial and ethnic minorities. An investigation of the relationships of race, social media use, and informational sources during the municipal water crisis in Flint, Michigan, reflects an instrumental view of communication and uses and gratifications theory in this study. Data from 208 Flint residents in 2016 indicated that African American respondents favored interpersonal networks and resources and were more likely than other racial groups to obtain current information about the water crisis via Instagram. Preferred channels and sources to receive additional crisis information varied on the basis of race.