Andrea Harmon
Race, gender & Media
12/7/07
Race in advertising

When looking through ads in two magazines I found that most of the people pictured in them were white males. The other big percentage of people pictured were black males who are famous.
The previous study by Dana E. Mastro and Susannah R. Stern (“Race and Gender in Advertising: A Look at Sexualized Images in Prime-Time Commercials,” 2006, Sex in Consumer Culture) reveals that the race of characters has little to do with how they are represented sexually during a comparison of television commercial of a 3 week sample from February 2001. In this study of six major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, UPN, and WB) males and females were represented equally across races, but did find that Latinos were most always portrayed as sexualized.
The most relevant study used by the previous study is the work by Wilson & Gutierrez (“Race, multiculturalism, and mass media: From mass to class communications,” 1995), which found that when minorities were found in advertising, they were ‘limited in number and narrow in scope.’ This earlier study, upon which Mastro & Stern’s study is based, found that images of African Americans in advertising were scarce and often unfavorable, and despite the growth of African Americans in ads, they were often represented as servants and entertainers.
Corpus and method:
My corpus comprises all full-page ads, appearing in the March 2007, issue of DETAILS Magazine and the Feb. 8, 2007, issue of Rolling Stone Magazine. The method is a quantitative and qualitative content analysis, in which all characters in each ad was coded first as black, white or other, coded for male or female, and then was coded for their role in the advertisement.
Findings:
Rolling Stone Magazine included 17 depictions of characters in full-pages ads: 10 of white males, 5 of white females, 1 of a black male and 1 of a black female. Most characters take on various roles, however; the one black male is a basketball star and the one black female was used for her stereotypically large hair. There was a purpose for these two black characters, they weren’t just everyday roles. In DETAILS Magazine included 133 characters in full-page ads: 109 of white males, 15 white females, 8 black males, and 1 black female. Two out of the three black males in the magazine ads were famous characters, Tiger Woods and Jay Z. The other black male was in a smoking advertisement.
Conclusions:
This mini-study matches many studies of the past which have shown many more white males popping up in ads than any other race or gender. When black characters are shown in these ads they have specific roles that are taken on because of their profession or for stereotyping purposes. From the two magazines studied there were 11 blacks out of 150 characters. Of those 11 characters 9 were celebrities, 1 was used in a Versa ad for her stereotypically large hair and one was used to sell the nasty habit of smoking. There weren’t any typical roles, such as sitting in an office, modeling clothes, or using a toothbrush, that were played by a non-white character. Also, white men were mostly pictured in groups. These groups of white males were usually hugging or playfully pushing each other around. White woman were pictured more than black male or females, but still not as much as white males.
A larger study of full-page print ads for these magazines could be attempted to see if these pattern continues. The study could go a little further by seeing what direction the character’s eyes are facing. Is the character looking at the camera, to the side or at another character? Does the direction the eyes are facing say something about the role they are playing? The study could also count how many times white males are put in groups compared to any other race or gender. The larger study should also include more magazines from the different issues.

Music videos

After watching that video in Fridays class all I have to say is....WOW. It's been a while since I watched music videos, and I knew that some pretty crazy stuff was out there, but man. It seems like every video you watch has a half naked or naked ladys flapping her stuff in front of the camera, and it's not just in rap anymore... country has adopted this horrible tactic. Then I sit there and think to myself, these woman volunteered for this! Some arent' even getting paid to show things that shouldn't be seen by anyone but their husband and their mommas. Country music is my favorite and it just ticks me off to see that migrating over to those vidoes. Country videos used to tell a great story. You could see where their emotions were coming from, now all you see is were babies come from. I might sound like a ridged person, but this just isn't a few girls dancing around, they are kissing on each other and doing things that they shouldn't on tv, unless they switch to the porn industry. That video really opened my eyes to the music industry. I think some regulations should be put into place.

Dallas Morning News article

I really like this article. It's not everyday that a media person would willingly admit that they are gulity of jumping to conclusions. She points out the fact that we all do it, and I completely agree. The article is so well written and it makes you beleive that what she is saying is a true confession and not just some sad attempt to cover up here mistake. I don't even know this person and I respect her. I think all media people should take her as an example and start following the right path. news shouldn't be a he said she said kind of thing. We should do all we can to only put the facts and not what we think happened.

Race and news reporting

I read the story on the school shootings in Cleveland, and I have to say that I'm really confused as to why they threw the race in there like that. I mean in the beginning of the story nothing was mentioned of it, then out of no where they say coon is white and the other kid is black. It said that Coon was a gothic kid who stood out in a school of blacks. I wonder if this information even needs to be written. I realize that its information that people want to know, but I think if could have been incorporated in a different way.

Review for test

Ethnicity- Group with a common culture

Race- a classification of human beings based on physical characteristics or genetic markers.

Brown sugar stereotyping- When woman of color are sexualized.

Lotus Blossom stereotype- when Asian woman are sexualized

Critical consumption- Consuming media more critically by being taught to do so. This helps us not to form to what society wants us to do.

Case Study- study of individual unit, a person, family or social group, usually emphasizing developmental issues and relationships to compare to a larger group.

Content analysis- to determine meaning, purpose or effect of media by evaluating details.

Interreality comparison- Show how media depictions may distort reality. One of first studies to report data on Latinos.

Cultivaiton theory- How things in media effect people long term. May alter attitudes or beliefs.

Stereotyping- Simplified and standardized concept invested with special meaing and held common by members of a group.

Face-ism - tendency to represent people in terms of their face or head as opposed to their body. In general, males will have a head shot and females with have full body shots or waist up. People's perception of face only pictures are more positive than full body shots.

Burns

One quote that I found from Ken Burns' 'The War' hits home Sunday on PBS" says "It's also, like war, about that ultimate event, one's death, which we avoid mightily in our normal lives ... and love to see in our movies to be distracted by, as if by witnessing a great deal of death, we are somehow cheating it." I've never really thought about it this way, but it has some truth in it. War movies are made so that people can understand (or at least witness) the pain, hardwork and sacrifices that these men took upon themselves. And I think in some way when we watch these movies it makes us realize how good we really have it. I can't quite explain it, but this quote is very powerful. It says alot about our country and what we have been taught to believe. Why does death interest us so much? Is it because its somthing we have no control over? I'm unsure, but that's probably why its in so many movies. As far as being forced to include Latino images in the movie, I think that things should be portrayed accuratley so that the public will understand how things really went. We have no way of knowing, we weren't there, we need a little help with the facts.

Jena 6

The Jena 6 issue is a difficult one. The only news broadcast that I watched about it was on the "Free the Jena 6" website. They have a video of a news broadcast from their channel 8. One thing that I noticed about this clip was the comments from the black families. They said that the blacks had no chance in that trial because the jury was all white. It's really hard for me to believe that this is true, but then again I try to believe that we have gotten over the whole black vs. white thing. I know it's still out there, but it seems like we as a society should have grown out of that by now. I think that the jury did make a mistake by making the jury all white. If they had put blacks and whites in there, then maybe the families would have accepted the ruling more freely. I believe that all people, reguardless of color, should recieve the same ruling for the same crimes. If there was only a way to hold a trial without reveiling the race, gender or any characteristics of the person, things might run more smoothly and fairly. I would like to think as a judge in the United Stated of America, that the judge in this case made a educated and unbiased decision in his ruling. Many people said that the whites who hung the nooses in the tree should have recieved the same punishment as the blacks who beat up the boy. I understand that the nooses could have been seen as a threat and hurt their feelings, but actually commiting the crime is a different case to handle. I hope that that things turn out fairly.