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Help your class or discussion group become more aware of minority media. Assign one of the following activities as an individual journal experience or a group report:
Check the Internet to find and compare reviews of a current film targeted to an ethnic or racial minority audience in a — daily newspaper — black or Hispanic newspaper or magazine — women's publication — other film review Internet sites. How does each one view the film's characters and theme? Is it perceived “controversial?”
Visit a newsstand and bring in a copy of the following publications (or others) targeted to a specific... Read More
We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentation of things which concern us dearly. It shall ever be our daily duty to vindicate our brethren, when oppressed, and to lay the cause before the public... From the press and the pulpit we have suffered much by being incorrectly represented. Men... have not hesitated to represent us disadvantageously, without becoming personally acquainted with the true state of things. - Freedom's Journal, 1827
History, it is said, has been written by the victors. The media, it should... Read More
And the Company President Is a Black Woman
Longstanding tradition, fear and habit govern the color of the faces you see on the screen. But pressure and negotiation encourage casting directors to break this vicious cycle. By Rodney Mitchell
Over the past decade, discontent over Hollywood's chronic failure to cast minority actors and depict minority groups fairly in both motion pictures and television has sharpened progressively. Several studies have demonstrated conclusively the under-representation of minorities in the media. They also show that time after time, black actors are cast as welfare recipients, criminals and domestic help; Asian actors as launderers and exotics; Latino actors as gang members and drug dealers; Native American actors are seldom seen at all.
These facts, and the recurring criticism of industry casting... Read More
How well do local news outlets in your community cover minority issues?
To find out, organize a media monitoring project in a class or discussion group. Just one week of monitoring can surprise you with what's included — and what's left out.
Select one week to monitor. Have one or several people commit to reading one daily paper or watching one local TV news program for the entire week. (Videotaping gives a permanent copy for later review.)
Each monitor should count the number and length (in column inches or minutes/seconds of air time) of stories involving minority persons or subjects.... Read More
"I'd get calls from editors and they'd say, 'I've got to hire a black by the end of the week.' It was like they were football coaches and needed a place kicker."
This recollection from former CBS News president Fred Friendly describes the changed atmosphere in newsrooms after the Kerner Commission report, published in 1968, pointed a finger at the hiring practices of a lily-white news media.
The turnaround replaced a business-as-usual climate in which minorities were almost entirely unrepresented and, as the report put it, "the press basked in a white world. Looking out of it, if at all, with... Read More
During the September 18, 1986, televising of The $25,000 Pyramid, a most remarkable exchange occurred. In this popular game show two pairs of contestants compete. For each pair, a series of words appears on a screen in front of one contestant, who gives clues to try to get the partner to identify the correct word.
On that special day, the word gangs' came up on the cluer's screen. Without hesitation, he fired out the first thing that came to his mind: 'They have lots of these in East L.A." (a heavily Mexican-American area of Los Angeles). Responding at once, his guest celebrity partner... Read More
There's more to advertising's message than meets the casual eye. An effective ad, like other forms of communication, works best when it strikes a chord in the needs and desires of the receiving consumer -- a connection that can be both intuitive and highly calculated.
The following questions can help foster an awareness of this process. Use them for class or group discussions or your own individual analysis of ads or commercials. You may be surprised by the messages and meanings you uncover.
What is the general ambience of the advertisement? What mood does it create? How does it do this?
... Read More
The advertising budgets of developing countries are on the rise. This is due mainly to the rapid expansion of commercial television in Latin American countries and of public service networks in Asia and Africa which have been lured into going the commercial way. Though the influence of transnational advertising corporations still persists, the ownership patterns of national and local agencies have undergone a change in recent years.
In several Latin American nations such as Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Venezuela, foreign ownership of advertising agencies is severely restricted... Read More
The conventional wisdom about minorities in advertising goes something like this: In the bad old days, before the civil rights movement of the 1960s, minorities seldom appeared in mainstream media advertising. But the 1960s brought Awareness and Sensitivity, as well as Desegregation. Since then, minorities have taken their place alongside whites in the integrated world of advertising.
Well, you can't prove that by me. For the past three months I have been scrutinizing television and print advertising but I haven't seen many minorities, either alone or with white companions.
Sure, from time to... Read More
"Bumperstickers $1, Nuclear-Free Zone Window Decals 2/$1, Buttons 2/$1.25. Complete Organizer's Kit, $5.00."
This ad for a group called Nukewatch is only a mild version of the promotional efforts of social justice campaigns in recent years. Live Aid, Mother Jones sweepstakes and Hands Across America, among others, have adopted the marketing techniques of product advertising on a much grander scale. Surely this poses a Faustian dilemma: how far can a justice campaign go in selling itself before it sells out?
It is understandable that progressive organizations would resort to Madison Avenue... Read More
When Creativity Isn't Enough: What Makes Ads go Bad?
An advertising lawyer explains the complex regulations that can relegate million dollar campaigns to the circular file. By Robert G. Simon
As the senior broadcast attorney for a company that owns several worldwide advertising agency systems, it's my job to make sure our broadcast and print advertising meets legal requirements.
As a result, my desk is constantly swamped with print ads, radio scripts, coupon ads and storyboards for television commercials. These creative efforts represent hours of time and expertise — but many of them can't be printed, published or broadcast, even though they may be perfectly acceptable legally.
In fact, a large proportion of potential advertising is subject to self censorship, for a startling... Read More
Teens grow up in a commercial world.
By the time the average adolescent graduates from high school, he or she will have watched nearly 900 thousand television commercials. To this add radio spots, magazine ads, billboards... no wonder teens feel so very much at home wandering through shopping malls looking at price tags.
"Mall-lingering," as William Kowinski calls it in The Malling of America, utilizes the preprogramming youth already have as consumers. Modem merchandising simply puts the finishing touches on their development as hard-core, lifelong shoppers.
Commercials gladly tell youth... Read More
Dismembered bodies — thighs, breasts, anus lie strewn across the television screen… exotic women drape themselves over leopard-skin rugs seductively beckoning unknown men...
No, these are not scenes of war's carnage or documentaries of women forced into prostitution. This is commercial advertising, reproduced in the hard-hitting documentary, Killing Us Softly, a 20-minute film that is an excellent resource for use by classes or discussion groups that want to explore the impact of advertising images on society's view of women.
As the pictures flash by and the narration by feminist scholar Jean... Read More
Cloning the Consumer Culture
How International Marketing Sells the Western Lifestyle By Noreene Janus
No one can travel to Africa, Asia. or Latin America and not be struck by the Western elements of urban life. The trappings of transnational culture - automobiles, advertising, supermarkets, shopping centers, hotels, fast food chains, credit cards, and Hollywood movies — give the feeling of being at home. Behind these tangible symbols is a corresponding set of values and attitudes about time, consumption, work relations, etc. Some believe global culture has resulted from gradual spontaneous processes that depended solely on technological innovations increased international trade, global mass... Read More
Idols of the Marketplace
In the gospel according to Madison Avenue, what we buy defines who we are. A healthy spirituality can open our hearts to what is real. By John Kavanaugh, SJ
"She said that the only thing she really wanted for Christmas was a pair of Sasson jeans." - a blue-collar worker, speaking of his nine-year-old daughter
"The human person cannot be relinquished. We cannot relinquish the place in the risible world that belongs to us. We cannot become slaves of things, shires of economic systems, slaves of production, slaves of our own products. A civilization purely materialistic in outline condemns the human person to such slavery." - Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominus
If we ask ourselves what values we would like to see illuminating the lives of our... Read More
So I guess it's in my genes to be aware of the power of persuasion. Indeed, for many years I've collected ads and commercials, especially those classic ones like the Volkswagen "lemon" ads that leave you chuckling, even laughing out loud at their amazing insight into human psychology and behavior.
But for the past few years I've struggled with a dilemma: how to admire and appreciate real artistic and creative talent while being suspect about advertising's role in creating a materialistic orientation that I know deep down is shallow and superficial.
Then suddenly books and articles began to... Read More
Advertising is much less powerful than advertisers and critics of advertising claim, and advertising agencies are stabbing in the dark much more than they are practicing precision microsurgery on the public Consciousness.
One of the more striking examples concerns television advertising for the 1984 Olympics and the 1985 Superbowl. The naïve observer must assume that businesses reap extraordinary rewards for their elaborate and expensive sponsorship of these events. But, it turns out, no one really knows if they do.
Video Storyboard Tests, Inc., a market-research firm, found that Olympics... Read More
Since ancient times, the holding of sports events has been linked to religious experience.
In Greece, the Olympics were only one set of athletic contests performed in honor of the gods and goddesses. Among the Mayans in Central America, the stadium, which was adjacent to a temple, was adorned with religious images and reliefs of sacred animals. The ball game started when the high priest threw the ball onto a sacred rock in the middle of the field. The Mayans believed the rock was the center of creation.
Today our sports events are not so explicitly religious. Or are they?
Michael Novak... Read More
When I analyze my feelings towards sports events. I suffer from a degree of ambivalence. On the one hand, the energy and enthusiasm of the spectators, the beauty of the human body in a well-disciplined play of movement, the art of the game and the sheer fun of it all relax and re-create me.
On the other I can't help thinking how the hype and the hoopla of media sports have invaded our homes and holidays, our relationships, our leisure and quiet time. It's an artificiality that has taken over the human spaces of our lives.
This discomfort came upon me gradually. First as a member of a sports... Read More
Do sports figures have a special responsibility to model behavior for others?
Adulation may create a burden for some athletes, but many take seriously the challenge to help youngsters develop appropriate attitudes about life.
Olympic diver Greg Louganis tells the story of a 10-year-old he encountered smoking a cigarette. Surprised, he asked the youngster, Why do you smoke?"
"Because you do," the boy replied.
That was the day Louganis quit.
I remember family 'ball games' on summer Sunday afternoons. Not every Sunday, but once in a while we could talk my father into playing "baseball" with us. We used broken pieces of board for bases, had one bat to fit all sizes and never stopped hunting for the ball hit into the weeds — because we had only one ball! We also learned to catch barehanded.
In this atmosphere of family interaction, I learned to enjoy sports. I was a Yankee fan through high school and college. I braved the snow and rain to watch O.J. Simpson break football's rushing records. I accompanied my sister to numerous... Read More
Here She Comes...Miss America(n Sportswoman)
Women athletes know the score, but their looks still make the headlines By Valerie Jacobs
"A cool braided California blonde… her perfectly tanned, well-formed legs swinging jauntily. The hair on her arms was bleached absolutely white against a milk-chocolate tan. Her platinum hair pulled smartly back in a Viking modem braid..."
No, this is not a description of a movie star or a romance novel heroine. It's a description of a professional golfer, Laura Baugh, that appeared in a 1971 Sports Illustrated article.
While the coverage of women's spoils has greatly improved over the past fifteen years, writers and commentators still tend to focus on the physical characteristics of female... Read More
No Two Countries See the Same Olympics
Do the Olympics divide or unite? In a special interview for Media&Values, researcher Michael Real examines the political and social impact of this worldwide communications event.
Millions of Americans were virtually glued to their TV sets during the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
But the extensive and exclusive coverage provided by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) did not make a hit with one group of viewers — the foreign athletes residing in the official Olympic villages.
Village monitors were turned to the same edited-for-America programming that came into U.S. living rooms, but its tone and selection irritated some athletes so much that they filed a letter of protest.
Unfortunately, what they failed to realize was that only the United States saw what ABC... Read More
Reflections of a Fading Fan
Television has transformed simple coverage of a spontaneous competition into a spectacle, a carefully choreographed show. By Glen Rainsley
It happened gradually. The thrill is not gone. but it's fading. The excitement is still present, but so are other feelings... frustration, sadness, even disgust and anger. The change came as a shock, for watching televised sports events has always been a positive experience for me. Now I am finding myself disturbed by the coverage. My viewing seat is becoming an uneasy chair.
A quick self-examination assures me that my credentials as a fan are still intact. I study The Sporting News with the devotion usually given sacred texts. I memorize statistics with practiced ease. And I participate in... Read More
Making it to first base. Par for the course. Throwing in the towel. You don't have to understand baseball, golf and boxing to use these sports-based idioms which have all become part of common speech. Such is the impact of sports on the psyche that any culture that values sports is apt to use its language — think of "that's not cricket" or "a sticky wicket" in British speech.
Remember also:
Take me out to the ball game... The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat... Playing hardball... It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game... Three strikes and you're out... Know the... Read More