Sharon Bramlett-Solomon

Images of the Elderly in Life and Ebony, 1978–1987

Despite these frustrations, a majority of reporters expect to be reporting for a t least another 10 years. Photographers are equally committed in the degree to which their job is important compared to what they d o outside of work, but significantly less likely to say they will continue as photographers, despite significantly better self-reports of morale. Part of the reason for this intent to leave television, as Stone has suggested, may be that photographers are much less likely than reporters to advance through the ranks to betterpaying anchor and management positions.10 Future research about TV news should examine the communication potential of television news video, a virtually unexplored area. The results reported here also suggest further research to find out why television reporters and photographers rate their morale so low, and why the newscasts a t their stations fall so far short of their personal standards for how the medium should be used journalistically and visually.

Minority Journalists' Perceptions of the Impact of Minority Executives

Annual newsroom surveys by industry groups show only miniscule progress in the effort to diversify the nations newsrooms or to increase the ranks of minority newsroom managers. This survey explores minority journalists’ perceptions about minority executives’ ability to influence news coverage of minorities, and how career satisfaction relates to these perceptions. The findings suggest that minority journalists— regardless of ethnicity, occupation, or years in the business—believe that a minority executive can make a difference in several key areas, including a news operations sensitivity to racism and how it covers minority groups. Overall, respondents felt that a minority executive could influence how the news media thinks of minorities. Implications of the findings for the hiring, promotion, job satisfaction, and retention of minorities in the newsroom are discussed.

Nowhere Near Picture Perfect: Images of the Elderly in Life and Ebony Magazine Ads, 1990–1997

This content analysis of Life and Ebony, which replicates and updates an earlier study, examines 9,314 advertisements and shows that fewer elderly figures appeared in the magazines than during the previous decade. Further, the figures that did appear more often are associated with aging products and services. A surprising finding was that African-American elderly figures in Life appeared proportionately more than White elderly figures in Ebony. This is the opposite of what was found in a previous study. If magazine advertising is indeed responsive to reader taste, then the elderly are not highly valued consumers in these magazines.

Looking at Race in Children's Television

US children tend to spend about 19 hours per week watching television, or about 1,000 hours per year, and see more than 20,000 commercials yearly (Children Now, 2000). The preferred medium of children, they tend to spend more time with television than in conversation and interaction with people, including family and friends. Among children, television has the greatest socialization potential than any other mass media (Bang & Reece, 2003; Faber, Perloff, & Hawkins, 1982; Li-Vollmer, 2002; Van Evra, 1998). Television advertising is one of the most powerful agents in contemporary US consumer society, manifested largely by its ubiquity and repetition. Advertising also conveys and disseminates racial ideology. As children tend to be heavy television viewers, television commercials are a potentially rich and influential source of messages about racial and social groups. Moreover, children are especially impressionable targets of advertising because they have young minds, limited life experiences, and are more vulnerable to misleading social messages (Li-Vollmer, 2002; Pecora, 1995; Wartella, 1980). This study examines race representation in television commercials aimed at children, exploring the quantity, visibility, and quality of these depictions. It is important to probe the symbolic world that television projects to children, because the society depicted on television is often the society imprinted on our children. As the youngest members of society, children are more likely than adults to believe what they see and hear on television. Moreover, the potential for television commercials to inform children’s perceptions of race warrants study of how social power is depicted through investigation of the visibility, roles, and status of people of different racial groups, which is the focus of this study.

Predictors of Job Satisfaction among Black Journalists

Black journalists, generally, are satisfied with their jobs, especially if they feel their organizations are doing a good job of informing the public, and if they receive positive feedback from those higher in the organization, a 1088 survey of journalists attending the National Association of Black Journalists reveals. Job satisfaction is also related to having some control over the hiring and firing process. The percentage of those not satisfied with their work, however, is about twice the rate of white journalists (other studies reveal), and there seems to be a strong presumption of prejudice, whether “real” or not, that news organizations need to address.

Bringing Cultural Sensitivity into Reporting Classrooms.

The absence of discussion on reporting culture in college journalism classes and in college reporting textbooks belies the significance of the topic to journalism scholars.’ Yet if future journalists are to understand better their culturally diverse society, and if they are to meet the challenge of improved media coverage of minority Americans, training in cultural and racial sensitivity is imperative. A critical goal of journalism and mass communication education is to instill in students a sense of social responsibility for all groups that make u p the society. If instructors are to succeed in fostering such social concern, it is essential that they expose student journalists to reporting approaches that present a pluralistic view of society, that recognize the experiences of racial minorities, and that teach future journalists thevalue of the mass media to all races. At its 1988 convention in Portland, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication presented a teaching panel on “Sensitizing Journalism Students to Covering Persons of Color.” One goal of the teaching panel was to promote adoption of cultural and racial sensitivity training in college journalism curricula. Some journalism educators, albeit far too few, already have recognized the value of incorporating cultural and ethnic reporting into classroom instruction.2 Others, unfortunately, discuss media coverage of minorities only if minority students are in the classroom. The thesis of this article, however, is that cultural sensitivity training is important for all students and that teaching on the topic should not hinge on whether o r not minority students are present. The need for cultural and racial inclusiveness in journalism education was underscored by media scholars Wilson and Gutierrez. They wrote:

Newspaper Editorials Show Few Regional Differences

This content analysis of 109 editorials revealed more similarities than differences in how Southern, Northern and Western newspapers characterized black church burnings. The findings call into question the assumptions that regional differences exist in portrayals of racial conflicts.

Civil Rights Vanguard in the Deep South: Newspaper Portrayal of Fannie Lou Hamer, 1964–1977

At age 45, Fannie Lou Hamer began registering black voters in Mississippi. Before her death in 1977, this courageous black woman—like other under recognized women—played many roles in the civil rights movement. Night visitors riddled her house with bullets; she suffered other dangers and indignities. But she persevered; her comments on national television galvanized many. A content analysis of five leading national newspapers for 1964–1977 shows, however, little recognition of her achievements, until the end of her life. Early coverage often mentioned physical attributes, as often reflected in coverage of other women, but there was some insight into her contributions at the end.

Enhancing Theory Courses with Racially Inclusive Research

Media scholars engaged in research on media, race, and ethnicity have noted that theory is rather elusive in this scholarship area (Poindexter and Stroman, 1981; Liebler, 1989; Perloff, 1995; Bramlett-Solomon, 1996). While many studies have examined media and race concerns and have included race variables, few of these studies are theory based. How to expand theory in media and minorities research through journalism education was the focus of a Minorities and Communication Division panel at the 1996 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference (AEJMC) in Anaheim, Calif. (Revisited, 1996). The panel cited the need for theory in media and race research to form a clear picture of race and ethnicity factors in media processes, contents, and effects. Specifically noted by the panel was the need for theories that might provide prediction and understanding of the roles and experiences of people of color, especially journalists of color. A polling of the panel-session attendees revealed that only two of the 34 audience members recalled discussing race and media concerns in their graduate or undergraduate media-theory courses.’ This was despite the fact that the variable race can be found in the earliest communication research (Blumer, 1933; Peterson and Thurstone, 1933; Holaday and Stoddard, 1933). Contributing to the problem is the fact that media theory texts have been slow to include substantive discussions of media and race.z That is, the scarcity of inclusive research in theory courses is underscored by the paucity of race, ethnicity and culture discussion in media theory texts. This “ s ym b o 1 i c ann i hi 1 at i o n ” seems a1 1 the more surprising given our field’s increased attention to theory in the fields of media sociology and feminist and cultural studies, all of which bring focus to concepts relevant to the discussion of race.

Newspaper Use and Community Ties in a Model Retirement Community

Newspapers play a role in maintaining community identity and cohesiveness. This study, conducted in the nations largest retirement community, found that as readership of the paper increased, people were more involved yet less satisfied living in the community.