Race, gender and media: A methods approach: 2008

Thursday, November 20, 2008

bells hooks and Spike Lee

bell hooks, a philosophy prof at City College in New York, has interviews up at YouTube and essays on the web, to discuss Spike Lee's work and other issues. You may find her discussions at YouTube by just typing her name, and you may also read her work about depictions of blacks in film at:

http://stevenstanley.tripod.com/docs/bellhooks/ondeath.html

Ad industry and its problems of diversity

Here's a new book--Madison Avenue and the Color Line--by Jason Chambers, one of the authors from our textbook (on alcohol and sexually oriented appeals), with video of discussion about the problems of the advertising industry in recruiting employees of color and in its use of stereotyping. Here's the link:
http://www.aef.com/industry/industry_leaders/2008_color_line/_view/email111908

Interestingly, the cover image for this book features an African-American male in whiteface, a sort of meditation on blackface and our viewing of Bamboozled.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Study about alcohol ads near schools

This UT-Austin press release gives information from a kind of billboard content analysis, about alcohol advertising near schools with larger numbers of Hispanic students. The analysis also counted types of images used in these ads:

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2008/10/28/alcohol_advertising/

Thursday, November 6, 2008

An announcement from UCD

UCD professors, students and employees: Please help feed North Texans living with hunger by donating a jar of peanut butter before November 20th. Boxes are located in the first floor main office and next to the security desk. This campaign is a class project for Dr. Berri O’ Neal’s management class and every donation is greatly appreciated. Learn more at spreadhope2008.org

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

No class this week

Remember, we won't be meeting this week. I'll see you again, for Spike Lee's Bamboozled, on Nov. 13.

As you are researching for your final projects and finding your texts for analysis, please email me with questions. If you are doing a qualitatively study, keep the idea of "saturation" in mind. What is saturation? It's when you've reached a kind of fullness of categories or observations. In other words, if you looked at 10 more ads or five more episodes of a sitcom, would you come up with any more "codes" or interpretations of what is going on? Would you add more categories of unique things? Have you already counted or discovered what is there, and adding more won't make your coding scheme or descriptions richer? If the answer to this last question is "yes," then you've reached saturation.

When you've reached saturation, you don't need to keep adding texts for analysis. That means you get to stop and focus on reporting the findings of your study, analyzing what themes or patterns you have found.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Links for next few weeks

Neil Foote will be a speaker in our classroom on Oct. 30; here's a preview of his perspective, from Poynter.org:

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=58&aid=147332

And a link to the Commercial Closet, which Glenn Griffin mentioned last week:

http://www.commercialcloset.org

For a foundation article about stereotyping, here are the words of Walter Lippmann:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/j6075/index.html?edit/course_syllabus.html

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Final project assignment

We'll talk more about this tonight and next week.

You’ll be writing a 10-page final project, double-spaced, for the end of the semester. For this assignment, you’ll need to choose a method from those listed below, and you’ll need to choose a focus, too, from the areas of race, gender, sexualities, disabilities, dialects, economic class or a subset of these.

For methods, choose from:
Historical analysis (case study)
Content analysis (quantitative or qualitative)
Theme analysis
Semiotics or signs analysis
Rhetorical analysis
Narrative interviewing

First, you’ll need to find a corpus of mass media texts (ads, films, news stories, editorial cartoons, comics, TV shows, music), following protocols discussed in class for ensuring a consistent group of texts. Next, you’ll conduct research to build a short review of literature, using one major study on which to base your own. Be sure to include some theoretical work in this literature review, such as van Zoonen’s work on the politics of gazing or bell hooks’ work on stereotyping.

Devise a list of possible research questions for your corpus, after reading scholarly work about your topic. Once you’ve considered your texts and your lit review, you’ll decide on which method will be most useful for analyzing these texts and answering your potential research questions. To develop your methodology, finalize your research questions and write up a protocol for analyzing your data (be sure this method will expose findings that will be responsive to your research questions).

Report your data and synthesize these findings with your literature review, mixing your results with insights you have and with theories that you’ve studied. These insights will form the basis of your discussion/conclusions.

All parts of your paper should be like pearls on a string—all parts should be the same as to their purpose. In other words, tie things together and be sure your methods match your research questions, which should match your lit review and your discussion.

For your works cited page, which should be page 11 or higher, you’ll need to use APA style, which will be discussed in class. There are also online resources for how to cite sources; be sure to use quote marks for all material quoted from sources other than your own brain. After indirect or directly quoted material, give the citations of where this information may be verified, by offering the author’s name, the year, and page number.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Sexism in election coverage

We've been talking about this all semester. Here's are two interesting Q&A articles about current coverage, sexism, and coverage of Geraldine Ferraro in the 1980s:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/ii_20081001_8507.php

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/ii_20081002_1929.php

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The test

We'll be turning our discussion to other media beyond news media, starting with this week. We will continue, however, talking about news media as coverage arises that fits our course interests.

Define these terms, to help you study for your vocabulary test on Thursday, Oct. 9:

What is the difference between ethnicity and race?

The brown sugar stereotype in advertising (chapter 17)

The lotus blossom stereotype in advertising (chapter 17)

What is a model minority? Why do some Asian-Americans, for instance, say that being a model minority can be a negative experience?

What is media literacy or critical media consumption?

What is a case study?

What is content analysis?

What is interreality comparison and why is it important?

What is a good definition of stereotyping? Be able to give some examples from the news media.

Why are we interested in schema, especially role schema?

Schema theory says that humans use “organized knowledge … abstracted from prior experiences” to process new info and to retrieve stored info (Graber, 1988). Role schema means that sometimes, people (such as journalists) have expectations about who should serve in certain roles. This can be problematic, such as when a reporter decides to call a source for a story, and that reporter always calls a man (or a woman, or a white person, or a person of color), depending on what sort of professional job that source has.

Stereotyping fits with schema theory. Walter Lippmann in Public Opinion (1922) coined the term, which literally means “solid model.” He wrote that “the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations & combinations.” However, stereotypes also are one dimensional, perjorative, and powerful identifiers that may seep into our schema.

Zingrone and “simplex,” as in mass media can only produce simplex--this also fits with schema and stereotyping, since our world is complex, but mass media can produce only simple ideas.

Agenda-setting theory: Long-held theory which states that media don’t tell people what to think, but rather, tell people what to think about.

Uses and gratification theory: Newer theory which states that media are best understood from viewpoint of audience, rather than from power of media or communicator. It asks "What do people do with media?" In this theory, audience is active, and media compete with other sources of need satisfaction.

Gerbner and other researchers believe that heavy exposure to cultural products (media) affect a person’s concept of reality (p. 108 in textbook). Social learning theory (Bandura) says that people model behavior that they see in others or from television/film (pp. 127 and 136 in textbook).

Dear Dr. Lambiase (or an advice column for your miniprojects)

QUESTION
Dear Dr. Lambiase,

So for my mini-study I have gathered 15 magazines to see how the pictures of the people of the covers differ. From families and their newborns, to stars that are "too thin for tv", and even magazines focus on fashion and new trends. My question is over a term you used in class. We were talking about the different shots like head shot with just the face, then body shots which I'm guess is from head to mid thigh and then full body. Is this the right terminology?

Thanks and see you tomorrow,
A student from JOUR 4250

ANSWER
Yes, wonderful student, you have it just right. Some people call this "facism," in terms of a fascination with women's bodies/men's faces. Here's what you are going for: does this publication show a kind of "real world" that is diverse and full of different kinds of people? Or does this publication show a world that has been narrowed down by its producers? It sounds like your publication has been narrowed to celebrities or a different subset of the "beautiful people." And are these beautiful people diverse, or just one type?

Your quantitative part of this mini study will show us whether there's equal representation between women/men and other groups. But the qualitative study might go something like this: there are equal numbers of men and women, but all of them are extremely thin or some other characteristic. It's a kind of news as dreamworld--advertising used to be the main kind of dreamworld in media, but now those "perfect lifestyle" depictions are everywhere. Some scholars would call this a kind of visual annihilation, where some types of people are never depicted.

Hope this helps a bit. Let me know if you have other questions.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

For next third of semester

A link for the next third of the fall semester, from Ad Age, about GLBT issues:

http://adage.com/article?article_id=131168

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Latinos and mass communication

Check out the National Association of Hispanic Journalists link, for its discussion of these terms: illegals, illegal aliens, undocumented workers, undocumented immigrants.

http://www.nahj.org

Here's a link to a Fort Worth Business Press story about marketing to Latinos, and the complexities of that task:
http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=8386

We'll talk more about this in the second third of the semester.

Crime, race and content analysis

Here are two studies that refer to crime reporting in Philadelphia and other large cities; both include reference to KVUE in Austin and that station's attempt in the 1990s to curb crime reporting, which tends to distort and exaggerate criminal activity and to extend stereotypes of blacks as criminals, whites and victims.

www.localtvnews.org/papers/CrimeCommLocalTVNews.pdf

http://www.justicejournalism.org/pdfs/SceneOfTheCrime.pdf

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Internship ops for journalism students

College journalism students are invited to apply for the 2009 Scripps Howard Foundation Semester in Washington Program.

Six interns, including one international student, work as reporters for the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire in our downtown Washington bureau. We pay a stipend and provide free housing in furnished apartments in Northwest Washington near the National Zoo.

Interns’ stories are published on our Web-based wire: www.shfwire.com. Some of their stories may go to the Scripps Howard News Service’s 400 client newspapers. Interns may write for hometown or campus newspapers and earn internship or independent study credits through their universities. We tour Washington journalism and government institutions, bring in guest speakers and meet weekly to discuss issues in journalism.

The program is open to college juniors and seniors who are studying print or online journalism. It is not open to graduates or graduate students. Download the application form at our Web site. I’m also attaching a PDF document about the program that you can forward to faculty and students or post on a bulletin board. Thank you

2009 Program dates and application deadlines

Spring – 15 weeks

Program: Jan. 12 to April 24, a special program that includes the presidential inauguration and the National Journalism Awards dinner

Stipend: $2,450

Application postmark deadline: Nov. 1, 2008

Summer – 10 weeks

Program: June 8 to Aug. 14

Stipend: $1,800

Application postmark deadline: Nov. 1, 2008

Fall – 14 weeks

Program: Sept. 14 to Dec. 18

Stipend: $2,350

Application postmark deadline: March 16, 2009

Friday, September 12, 2008

For next week, Sept. 18

See information about media effects readings, below on Sept. 11 entry--there are links instead of handouts. Be sure to check out the "Girl Like Me" link, in terms of effects, and we'll continue our discussion of race and reporting (and the video we watched in class on Sept. 11). We'll also tackle the Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson case (see links in Sept. 11 entry).

Here's a short example of a ministudy (choice 2):

I examined the "Home" section of the New York Times, Sept. 11, 2008. Although it was a 10-page section, three full pages were advertising. For this analysis, I used both quantitative and qualitative content analysis. First, all stories in the section were coded by byline (whether male or female), sources used (male or female), and subject of stories (whether focused on a man or a woman). Second, all photographs were analyzed and described for a more qualitative measure. Another qualitative measure was attempted by scanning all stories for descriptions of people. These descriptions were analyzed and compared, to determine how gender and race may have played a role in these descriptions.

In terms of the quantitative measure, 5 stories were written by men, and 6 were written by women. Sources in these stories were evenly divided between men and women, with .....

OK, this should help you get started on your own ministudy--let me know your questions.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Grab yer hats, dudes ...

We'll start talking about accents and regional stereotypes tonight, especially as they pertain to news coverage of candidates. Here's something to start our thinking on this topic:

http://blip.tv/file/990887/

Thursday, September 4, 2008

When should sexuality be mentioned in news coverage?

An article from the NYTimes about a fashion designer:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/magazine/31pilati-t.html

Coverage of lesbians, gays & transgendered people

For tonight's discussion, a stylebook supplement for news coverage:

http://www.nlgja.org/resources/stylebook.html

and an article from People:

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20129572,00.html

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Two links for future discussion

An article about Michelle Obama's speech:
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=149495

An article about (non)diversity and the NY advertising establishment:
http://adage.com/bigtent/post?article_id=128219

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

A link about summer movies

It would be great to meet for a movie this semester, so be thinking of fall releases and be ready to recommend something. We'll talk about popular entertainment more at the semester's end, but for now, here's PBS commentary for you:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93995425

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Welcome to the course

I'm looking forward to thinking about news media, strategic and digital communications, and entertainment media in our class this fall. We'll be following the presidential election and media coverage of the major candidates, through the lenses of race, gender, sexualities and other issues. We'll start that conversation with discussion of editorial cartoonists and their strategies for representing the candidates.

Throughout the semester, please check here at least once a week for helpful links and assignments. Also, we'll have additional discussion here, too, about issues that were introduced in class.

And at the end of the semester, we'll have our usual media smorgasbord, where you bring your media favorites for fun
and scrutiny.