Race, gender and media: A methods approach

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.