Minorities and Communication 2014 Abstracts
Faculty Research Competition
Content Analysis of the Portrayal of White Characters in Black Films Across Two Decades • Omotayo Banjo, University of Cincinnati; Nancy Jennings, University of Cincinnati; Nikole Dorsett, University of Cincinnati; Todd Fraley, East Carolina State University • Whiteness scholars contend, in addition to marginalized groups, Whites are also victims of socio-political constructions of race. Little empirical attention has been given to the portrayals of Whites in ethnic-oriented media, where whiteness is most conspicuous. We conducted a content analysis of 31 Black-oriented films spanning two decades. Such investigations a) position ethnic-oriented media as necessary sites for race scholarship and b) shed insight into how ethnic media creators use film to illustrate racial tensions.
Trayvon Martin and the News: An Analysis of Rhetoric in Website Messages by Civil Rights Organizations • Riva Brown, University of Central Arkansas • This qualitative content analysis explored rhetoric used by the NAACP, National Urban League, National Action Network, and ColorOfChange.org in press releases, blog posts, and miscellaneous public relations material during the Trayvon Martin case. It also examined their mainstream print news media coverage. After George Zimmerman fatally shot Martin and was not charged with his murder, these organizations demanded justice. Results suggested they preferred rhetorical strategies and tactics that encouraged supporters to unite against perceived enemies.
Richard Sherman Speaks and Almost Breaks the Internet: Race, Media, and Football • Margaret Duffy, Missouri School of Journalism; Janis Teruggi Page, George Washington University; Cynthia Frisby, University of Missouri; Brad Best, Missouri School of Journalism • A controversial interview with football player Richard Sherman was the subject of extensive controversy and enormous reaction in mainstream and social media, especially through Twitter and shared visual memes. Through the lenses of Critical Race Theory, Visual Rhetoric, and Symbolic Convergence Theory, we see the Richard Sherman incident as revelatory of the persistent and interlocking patterns of racism and sexism in contemporary society.
Ethnic Identity as a Predictor of Microaggressive Behavior Towards Blacks, Whites, and Hispanic LGBs by Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics • Troy Elias, University of Oregon; Alyssa Jaisle; Cynthia R. Morton Padovano • Racial differences still exist when it comes to attitudes toward homosexuality in the U.S. Blacks hold significantly less favorable attitudes towards LGB than Whites but not Hispanics after controlling for demographics. Despite less favorable attitudes towards the LGB community, Blacks display a significantly lower likelihood of engaging in microaggressions than both Whites and Hispanics. Finally, as Whites’ ethnic identity gets stronger, their likelihood of engaging in microaggressions to LGB increases, moreso than Blacks or Hispanics.
Examining cultural resonance of health narratives to influence HIV prevention behaviors among young African Americans • Diane Francis; Joan Cates; Adaora Adimora • Concurrent sexual partnerships—sexual partnerships that overlap in time—may contribute to the high rates of HIV among African Americans. Changing attitudes, perceived norms and motivations about concurrency, therefore, could potentially reduce participation in this behavior, which in turn could reduce HIV transmission rates. This study examined African American students’ reactions to HIV prevention messages developed for a health communication campaign to reduce concurrent sexual partnerships. We used radio advertisements to explore whether narrative messages were more effective than non-narrative messages in influencing attitudes and beliefs about sexual concurrency. We also examined whether participants thought the messages were culturally resonant and engaging or transporting. Cultural resonance of messages is important in health communication campaigns. However, few studies have examined the effectiveness of HIV prevention messages in cultural narrative format. A survey of African American students (n=211) found the non-narrative messages to be more culturally resonant (t(196) = 2.92, p<.01) and transporting (t(196) = 1.72, p=.09) than the narrative messages. In qualitative analysis, participants said that the narrative ads were stereotypical and not representative of their culture, both of which could potentially detract from any attempts at persuasion. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups on attitudes, perceived norms or motivations. Given that health stories are increasingly being used to influence HIV-related attitudes, beliefs and motivations among African Americans, it is important to examine factors such as perceived cultural resonance to design more effective culturally appropriate messages.
The impact of emotional costs on racial digital divide • Kuo-Ting Huang, Michigan State University; Shelia Cotten, Michigan State University • Computer intervention in the classroom has been proved to increase students’ self-efficacy in previous racial digital divide research. This paper further investigates how African American’s psychological factors impact their patterns of computer usage. The results suggest that students’ emotional cost and computer self-efficacy were mediators of the relationship between home computer usage and information orientation. These findings provide significant implications for bridging the racial digital divide by highlighting the roles of these psychological factors.
Racial Attitudes, Egalitarian Values, and Media Use • Tien-Tsung Lee, University of Kansas; Yvonnes Chen, University of Kansas • Most studies on attitudes toward racial equality have focused on one single egalitarian value and a limited number of media variables. A survey of U.S. adults (N=7,025) indicated that support for racial equality is part of three egalitarian dimensions (racial attitudes, gender roles, and attitudes toward sexual minorities), suggesting that egalitarian values apply to supporting equality for multiple social groups. Additionally, the use of traditional and Internet media is associated with racial attitudes.
Casting Youth as Information Leaders: Social Media in Latino Families and Implications for Mobilization • Michael McDevitt; Shannon Sindorf, University of Colorado Boulder • Promotion of the DREAM Act during the 2012 campaign presented an opportunity to examine how social media might cast young adults in the role of information leaders in Latino families. Despite widespread use of social media and interest in the DREAM Act, Latinos lagged behind non-Latinos in voting and in discussion about politics with family and friends. We discuss how mobilization efforts in future elections can harness new media by recruiting youth as information leaders.
Power, Gender, and Ethnic Spaces: Geographies of Power Shifts in Roma Communities • Adina Schneeweis, Oakland University • This study examines the inextricable (and understudied) link between ethnicity, gender, power, and space. Through the case study of health mediators of Roma ethnicity in Romania, this research bridges spatial theory and feminist scholarship with critical approaches to communication to assess how gender and power relations operate in, and mark, ethnic spaces. Drawing from ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews, I argue that power relations are dependent on space – and mobile across ethnic spaces. Perceptions of the mediators’ power roles change between institutional landscapes (perceived spaces of hegemonic, dominant directives), Romani communities (conceived space where the Romani mediators communicate their knowledge and have symbolic control), and the lived space of resistance and internalized discrimination, which is both an active constituent of, and a challenge to, racism at the same time.
Effects of Mediated Exemplars on Implicit Prejudice Toward Hispanics • Alexis Tan, Washington State University; Salah Alghaithi, Washington State University; Christine Curtis; Davi Kallman; Chenwei Liang; Cameron Moody; Somava Pande, Washington State University; Rachel Sauerbier, Washington State University; Kara Stuart, Washington State University; Chun Yang, Washington State University; Sabrina Zearott, Washington State University • This study asked whether a single exposure to a positive Hispanic exemplar in a video clip could reduce implicit prejudice toward U.S. Hispanics. Participants were White and non-White college students at a large U.S. university.Selected to appeal to college students, the video clip portrayed a Hispanic female student who overcame prejudice to excel in college. The video clip was presented in an on-line laboratory experiment.Implicit prejudice was measured by the Hispanic/White Implicit Association test which taps automatic and implicit preference for Whites over Hispanics. Results show that White participants who watched the video clip reported significantly less negative implicit bias toward Hispanics compared to White participants who did not watch the video clip. Non-White participants who watched the video clip reported a slight preference for Hispanics over Whites, while non-White participants who did not watch the video clip reported no preference for Whites over Hispanics. Therefore, the video clip decreased pro-White bias among Whites, and increased pro-Hispanic bias among non-Whites.We explain these results using principles from priming and conversion models of stereotype and prejudice change. We also discuss implications for using positive exemplars in the media to reduce prejudice.
The Cultural Capital of Ethnic Immigrant Newspapers in the U.S. • Tim Vos, University of Missouri; Yulia Medvedeva, University of Missouri • This study uses in-depth interviews with representatives of ten ethnic immigrant newspapers to examine the cultural capital of the ethnic press and how that cultural capital compares to the cultural capital of journalism in the U.S. mainstream press. The study finds that ethnic immigrant newspapers, with some notable exceptions, do not appear to hold substantially different cultural capital from the US mainstream press.
Politics in the Toybox: Sports reporters, Native American mascots and the roadblocks preventing change • Erin Whiteside, University of Tennessee • Despite increasing pressure from sporting organizations and other key public figures, myriad schools, colleges, Universities and professional sports teams continue to employ Native American mascots. Furthermore, advocates continue to face staunch opposition in defending their position that teams abandon Native American imagery. Sports journalists occupy a unique location within the mascot debate as they regularly cover teams with Native American mascots and it is common practice to refer to the mascots within stories. The visibility sports reporters give to mascots contributes to a desensitizing process in which the public may become alienated from the serious social costs such imagery may incur. In light of this ongoing debate, this research uses a survey to examine sports reporters’ experiences and attitudes toward Native American mascots, and their beliefs about the role sports reporters should take in the public debate.
Eyes on the Prize I: Henry Hampton’s pre-production school sessions and the role of the media in the civil rights movement • Kathleen Wickham, University of Mississippi • Eyes on the Prize, the two-part PBS series, is one of the most significant research projects on civil rights activities in the United States. This manuscript focuses on the detailed research process that Hampton employed prior to filming, focusing on the pre-production lectures and talks relating the media and the civil rights movement.
‘Return of the King’: A Millenial Audience Reception of The Boondocks • Jason Zenor, SUNY-Oswego; David Moody • Critics have raised their eyebrows at the work of Boondocks creator McGruder repeatedly accusing him of making a mockery of the legacies of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Associated Press, 2006). They have questioned his insensitivity to the 9-11 attacks and the promotion of misogynistic themes through the voice of his characters. Moreover, his frequent use of the ‘N-word’ has been considered to be offensive. Accordingly, this study examines how a millennial audience, one which came to age in an era of political correctness and in a supposed post-racial society, reads The Boondocks, a text that seems to challenge political correctness and the acceptance of a truly post-racial America.
Student Paper
A Fusion of Stereotypes? How Fusion Network Handles Hispanic Representation • Brooke Biolo • The recently launched (2013) network, Fusion, is a collaboration of the Spanish-language Univision and ABC/Disney. US television has a long history of reducing Hispanics to stereotypical roles in television and these two networks have opposing backgrounds on this front. This analysis looks at how Fusion handles established stereotypes of Hispanics in media. I argue that Fusion endorses a multicultural world image through an emphasis on universal themes and Hispanic cultural positives in their programming.
Don’t Worry, Be Happy: An Examination of Journalist Message Boards • Kortni Alston, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications; Kevin Hull, University of Florida; Anthony Palomba • This study explored whether or not journalists vented their workplace frustrations on online message boards. A content analysis of the National Association of Black Journalists message board and the TVSpy Watercooler message board was conducted. Results found that symptoms leading to burnout were not frequently discussed, and that NABJ message board was found to be significantly more positive in tone than the TVSpy Watercooler board. Factors including race, anonymity, and sense of community are discussed.
Black nerds, Asian activists, & Caucasian dogs: Racialized self-categorization within Facebook Groups • Jenny Korn • Facebook Groups reflect a contemporary way for users to demonstrate membership in cultural groups that are salient to them, including ones based on race. Race continues to serve as a meaningful category for understanding the social world, especially in the United States (Chao, Hong, & Chiu, 2013), so Internet-based displays of racial membership via Facebook Groups reflect the ongoing significance of race. In this paper, I contribute to the “new cultural politics of difference” by focusing on modern, organic representations of race on the Internet (West, 1993). While Facebook has been the site of study for individual behavior (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007), Facebook Group behavior has been understudied (Park, Kee, & Valenzuela, 2009). I update self-categorization theory with its application not to individuals, but to racialized groups online, as examples of cultural markers of identification (Turner & Reynolds, 2011). Facebook Groups are cultural representations of the way that individuals understand their racial group membership (Rockquemore & Arend, 2002). Facebook Groups serve as voluntary communities open to users that desire homophilic relationships. In this study, I focus on race-based Facebook Groups as sites of cultural identification for users. Within Facebook, I examine discourses by racial identity groups that are White/Caucasian, Black/African-American, and Asian/Asian-American. By analyzing digital discourses created by users in racialized Facebook Groups, I conduct a contemporary study on cross-racial variance across online identity groups. The discourses on the politics surrounding culture are changing, forcing Internet representations of race to follow suit. This study explores how race matters online.
Pluralistic Ignorance in Sino-Hong Kong Conflicts: The Perception of Chinese Mainland People Living in Hong Kong • Miao Li, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • This study examined pluralistic ignorance in a local context: conflicts between Hong Kong and Mainland China. Different from past studies mainly focusing on in-group pluralistic ignorance, which examined whether people could correctly perceive the opinions of others who belong to the same social group as they do, this study investigated whether people could correctly perceive the public opinion of a collective to which they do not belong. With two representative samples of Chinese mainland students studying in Hong Kong and Hong Kong local students from three universities in Hong Kong, this study discovered that mainland students overestimated the local public’s unfavorability against Chinese mainlanders and the Chinese government. This overestimation was found to be positively associated with their attention to media content about the Sino-Hong Kong relationship and the extent to which they perceive pertinent media content to be biased toward Hong Kong, but negatively associated with their interpersonal communications with other Hong Kong residents about the Sino-Hong Kong relationship issues. The overestimation of the local public’s unfavorability against Chinese mainlanders and Chinese government reduced mainland students’ willingness to stay in Hong Kong for further study/work and domicile. To extend the pluralistic ignorance research to study how migrants perceive the mainstream opinion in the society to which they migrated was suggested.
Coverage of Meskwaki Language in the Des Moines Register • Subin Paul, University of Iowa • The issue of tribal language endangerment receives minimal attention in the mainstream press. This preliminary study looks at the coverage of Meskwaki language, which is spoken by the Meskwaki tribe of Iowa, in the Des Moines Register. Using qualitative textual analysis, the study shows that the newspaper promoted bilingualism involving English and Meskwaki languages and proscribed the solo use of the latter.
Different news, distinct views (on immigration): The choice of labels and sources on FoxNews.com and Fox News Latino • Vinicio Sinta, University of Texas at Austin • The recent launch of ethnic-oriented news outlets by mainstream media companies can provide an opening for alternative views on public issues such as immigration. This study compares how Fox News Latino and parent site FoxNews.com used distinctive labels to describe unauthorized immigrants and immigration legislation, and turned to a different mix of sources in their coverage. Results show that despite the shared ownership and brand, Fox News Latino and FoxNews.com provide contrasting perspectives on immigration.
Finding the First Lady: The Construction and Negotiation of Michelle Obama’s Identity • Leticia Williams, Howard University • Dominant media portrayals of the first lady and Black women have increasingly become the guiding parameter for contemporary understandings of women whose identities and characterizations are contingent on prevalent typologies. Though similar in analysis of identity and representation, these two areas of study have developed in separate lines of research. The purpose of this study is to identify and examine the multiple and fluid identities of First Lady Obama and synthesize studies of gender, race, and presidential spouses. A textual analysis of 22 articles published between January 2009 and January 2012 was used to explore the construction of intersectional identities and strategies to negotiate stereotypes, historical representations, or limited characterizations of the first lady and Black women. Findings showed that magazine portrayals of First Lady Obama’s identity communicated shared understandings of intersectionality (i.e., race, gender, and class) as a social phenomenon, particularly for women.
