Hemant Shah

Racial Ideology, Model Minorities, and the "Not-So-Silent Partner:" Stereotyping of Asian Americans in U.S. Magazine Advertising

As one of the most visible and powerful media institutions of U.S. popular culture, advertising plays a central role in conveying and disseminating a dominant racial ideology. After establishing an analytical framework based on the relationship between racial ideology and stereotypes of Asian Americans, this study investigates how Asian Americans are represented in American news magazines advertising and how racial ideology is embedded within those depictions. Quantitative analysis found Asian Americans are frequently depicted as highly educated, proficient with technology, and affluent. A textual analysis reinforced these findings and also led to additional insights related to gender dynamics, potential conflicts within the Asian American category, and the relationships between Asian Americans and other minority groups.

Racial ideology in U. S. mainstream news magazine coverage of black‐Latino interaction, 1980–1992

Rapidly changing demographics over the past decade or so have brought blacks and Latinos into political and social conflict over scare resources. Despite the importance and implications of these conflicts for American social relations—and especially for the 52.3 million blacks and Latinos in the United States—there has been little news coverage of the conflicts and almost no research on how black‐Latino interaction is depicted in news media. Because media images of such interaction can influence the formulation of public policy and individuals’ cognition and behavior towards blacks and Latinos, it is important to begin documenting the contours of news coverage of their interaction. This study examined U.S. mainstream news magazine coverage of black‐Latino interaction between January 1980 and October 1992. Using quantitative and textual analysis, the study discovered that the coverage: (1) stereotyped black‐Latino interaction as primordial, (2) homogenized black and Latino characteristics, and (3) differen...

Newspaper coverage of interethnic conflict : competing visions of America

Part I 1. Introduction 2. Miami, 1989 3. Washington, D.C., 1991 Part II 4. Los Angeles, 1992 5. Los Angeles Times Coverage of Los Angeles 6. La Opinion Coverage of Los Angeles 7. African American Newspaper Coverage of Los Angeles 8. Asian American Newspaper Coverage of Los Angeles 9. Conclusions Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C Index About the Authors

Legitimizing Neglect: Race and Rationality in Conservative News Commentary About Hurricane Katrina

This article examines the ways conservative news media, conservative commentators, and conservative leaders talked about the predominantly Black and poor residents of New Orleans who remained in the city as Hurricane Katrina struck. One month of conservative commentary was assembled from (a) the highest circulation daily newspapers that endorsed Bush in 2004; (b) leading conservative magazines; and (c) leading conservative commentators. A close reading of the materials revealed that the words of conservative commentators, even while sometimes condemning Federal government incompetence for failing to assist those stranded in New Orleans, highlighted the cultural boundaries and racial criteria for belonging to and exclusion from the rational, civilized community represented primarily by Whites. Conservative commentary crafted a narrative of irrationality within which Blacks violated norms of sound decision-making and accepted behavior. Thematic elements of this narrative—a “different breed,” socio-cultural flaws, and unworthy victims—were then mobilized using specific strategies of representation.

Long Ago and Far Away: How US Newspapers Construct Racial Oppression

This article examines how US general-circulation newspapers construct and convey the idea of racial oppression. A Nexis database search found 146 news items published between 1990 and 2001 prominently using the phrase ‘racial oppression’. Content analysis numerically coded the ‘facts’ of racial oppression (that is the ‘who, what, when, where, why, and how’) and a number of other structural features of the articles. Interpretive textual analysis considered the use of words and phrases to characterize the process of and those involved in racial oppression. The study found that the US press constructed racial oppression in fairly narrow ways. In the news stories, forms of racial oppression typically occurred in the past. The stories focused on apartheid, slavery and the confederate flag, depicted the process as involving almost exclusively blacks and whites and emphasized narratives related to Mandela as hero, white guilt and absolution, bounded empathy and race and rationality.

US news magazine images of black‐Asian American relationships, 1980–1992

During the past 20 years, primarily Latinos and Asians have immigranted to these shores and settled in urban areas. Media sources assert that this influx created particularly problematic relations between blacks and Asian Americans. Using Frame theory and textual analysis, we explored the images newsmagazines produced of this relationship. We found that one frame predominated: the nature of group relations had to do with each groups “essential”; qualities. Within this frame there also appeared four media packages: 1) the nature of the urban space, 2) the role of culture in the quality of relationships, 3) the essential qualities of urban residents and 4) the preeminence of class over race. Analysis of black‐Asian American relationships, while not strictly hegemonic, rarely deviated from accepted critiques. The nature of the coverage constrained understanding to personal shortcomings, while poverty and racial strife were rarely associated with historical and structural factors.

Color-Blind Racism in Television News and Commentary: The Redemption of Shirley Sherrod

When Andrew Breitbart released a video of Shirley Sherrod seemingly confessing to racism, journalists quickly turned the story into one of transformation in which a purportedly racist African American is redeemed by her embrace of a color-blind society. Guided by the concept of color-blind racism, this analysis of television news and commentary shows that U.S. television network news and commentary constructed a narrative arc involving accusation, rebuttal and redemption. And the moral of the story was that rational actors might overcome racial problems by focusing on personal prejudice rather than institutional racism. Some journalists and commentators advanced alternative themes but they failed to gain much traction. The study is based on a textual analysis of 36 shows broadcast on CNN, FOX News, FOX Business, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS on July 19 and 20, 2010 during the height of the controversy.

Communication and marginal sites: the Chipko movement and the dominant paradigm of development communication

This article uses the Chipko movement in northeastern India to propose an additional way to think alternatively about communication and development. The Chipko movement took place in the 1970s. Movement members demanded better local resource management by the state and for a greater voice in the determining the use of the local forests. Acknowledging that alternatives to the dominant paradigm of communication and development already exist (the participatory communication models and the participatory action research models), this essay shows even these alternatives did not address certain problems associated with the dominant paradigm. After a brief review of the dominant paradigm and the alternatives this article examines certain dimensions of the Chipko movement, such as the role of movement leaders, resource management, and strategies of communication, and argues that a Chipko-based ‘regions in protest’ model should take a place among the various models posed as alternatives to the dominant paradigm.