Race and Television

Paper Summary:

In an effort to determine whether television's representation of race and gender is balanced and accurate, or negative and stereotypical, this paper studies the characters in mid-1990s television commercials to see which ones exercised power and which ones satisfied romantic and domestic fantasies. From this study, the paper finds that commercial television endorses and defends existing social hierarchies.

From the Paper:

"In both television broadcasting and commercials, studies demonstrate that less than 10% of human air time comprises of any non-Whites, of which the majority are African Americans, with the odd glimpse here and there of Latinos and Asian Americans. Studies in addition, illustrate that images of nonwhite characters have altered significantly from older stereotypical representations of Aunt Jemima or Amos and Andy, but researchers do not have the same opinion that current television images are more constructive or sensible than their ancestors."

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