Historical Racial Issues of Broadcast Television

Since the beginning of American history, the media have played a massive role in how people perceive certain viewpoints. The media comes in all different shapes, whether it is propaganda, a commercial, advertisements and even newspaper articles can influence and individual minds. It can be even used to change one’s opinion on the way they may think of a particular race. Still today the media influences our mind, however many believe due to media bias and racial profiling will affect how “fair” their trial will be. In fact in today’s society, citizens in the United States are unable to gain a fair trial due to racial profiling, and bias in the media.

Race in the media is a very sensitive issue now a days. When it comes to minorities we can still see that the media portrays us in a bad light. The image of blacks in the American media has changed over the past two decades with the civil rights movement, changes in attitudes towards minority groups, and increased sensitivity on the part of those who and project these images. An examination of the image of Blacks in the articles and advertisements to show attitudes subtly represented, and these attitudes can be linked to historical and social realities of the time.

Over the years television has been known to be one of the major educating and socializing institution in America. Television in today’s society is able to play a powerful key through which individuals can be informed, hold forums, and voice their opinion‘s. Television is also important because it offers us glimpses into minority life and minority figures. When sociologists examine minorities in television they document how minorities are portrayed and how those portrayals have changed over the years. Through time, minorities in television have been able to make moderate gains whether they are in front of or behind cameras. However, they continue to remain significantly underrepresented as leading actors in films, as writers, and as TV show creators. Even though minorities are significantly underrepresented in today’s society the TV industry has been pushing to give an opportunity to many minority groups in succeeding in the media. Several TV shows and commercials have succeeded in the TV industry to try and change how minorities are underrepresented, however, there are also shows that reinforce stereotypes and are prejudice towards minorities.

Author Bell Hooks once said “I will not live my life narrowed down; I will not bow down to someone else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance”. This quote provides the utmost inspiration of my choosing to analyze a TV show entitled “Everybody Hates Chris” in the point of view of a social activist. The show is a comedy that depicts the life of an African- American family during the 1980s. Even though the show’s purpose is to entertain viewers, the messages that are portrayed throughout the illustration displays racial realities. This show proves just how ignorant humanity has become; directors can take ongoing crises such as racism and transform it into a comedy with positive feedbacks from its viewers. I decided to analyze this specific show because it depicts similar ideas that were stated in Bell Hooks’ “Teaching Resistance: The racial politics of mass media”.

Comparatively, we see lots of today's shows feature a lead black actor/actress or of different minority ethnicity. If you go back a few decades there hardly was a show that had minority actor/actress that held a consistent role in the show. Scandal, is an example of a tv show that has a black actress as the main character and has many aspects involving racial relations that would not been acceptable thirty years ago. One such case being an affair between Olivia Pope, a black woman who was formerly a lawyer, and the president of the United States during the pilot episode Sweet Baby. Interracial relationships were virtually nonexistent during the 1970s and therefore unseen in any entertainment. Nowadays it is still uncommon but accepted by the majority of the community.

Racism and discrimination continue to be a prevalent problem in American society. Although minorities have made significant strides toward autonomy and equality, the images in media, specifically television, continue to misrepresent and manipulate the public opinion of blacks. It is no longer a blatant practice upheld by the law and celebrated with hangings and beatings, but instead it is a subtle practice that is perceived in the entertainment and media industries. Whether it’s appearing in disparaging roles or being negatively portrayed in newscasts, blacks continue to be the victims of an industry that relies on old ideas to appeal to the majority. The viscous cycle that is the unconscious racism of the media continues to not only be

The Jeffersons was not just a sitcom for African-Americans, the show touched on a number of topics alcoholism, racism, suicide, gun control and adult illiteracy. The show taught America and African-Americans that through hard work, perseverance anyone can reach and achieve what is considered the American dream.

In many ways technology makes access to academic work, research and employment easier and faster. However, I am concerned that technology is too often chosen over humanity. Historically,representations of African Americans in technological media tend to value "white" bodies at the expense of Black bodies (Stam and Spence, 1983). Further, recent studies show (Zickmund 2000), in fact, the ways in which some World Wide Web sites make it easier for hate groups to spread their misinformation, contributing to the devaluation of black bodies in technological media. Together, these media representations can be understood in terms of a digital devide between technological "haves" and

My group analyzed how African Americans are being portrayed in the media using multiple media sources, but we mainly analyzed television, movies and videos (YouTube segments). As a whole it was determined that there is a negative portrayal of this race in these media sources, and often times it is covered up with the use of comedy. According to the findings of my group members, African American in the news and on criminal shows are usually assumed to be guilty before proving to be innocent, instead of innocent until proven guilty like it should be and there is a lot of negative information reported. For me I was surprised that there wasn't any news stories about African Americans the day I took notes, but I also noticed that there weren't

For years the media has been criticized for their representation of African Americans on television. African Americans have always been treated as second class citizens since the inception of this country. African American men and women have always been stereotyped and they still are till this day.The media presents an image that is skewed and changes how the society is today and how black men and women are being treated in their social and work aspect of life.

African American have been represented in American society for generation in discussion of white realism. The discussion over the representation of African Americans in media have been argumentative for era. One of the most struggles occurring is racism in the media. African Americans are one of the most common racial groups stereotyped against. The stereotypes of African Americans have been around since slavery. The following stereotypes was used to vindicated the enslavement of Africans. The African American stereotyped that been around since slavery are Jim crow, Mammy, uncle tom, jezebel, mulatto and pickaninnies.

BET is an acronym for Black Entertainment Television. The network was established as a result of the lack of culture and diversity in the television industry. The network was launched on January 25, 1980, it was first launched as a programming block on Nickelodeon. On July 1, 1983 the network was introduced as a 24-hour television channel. The purpose of BET was to bring diversity to television and show African American people that they too could make it to television if they worked hard. BET’s network lineup included African American sitcoms and music videos. BET has become a very prominent television network over the years and is the biggest network targeting African American audiences. As of today, about 88,255,000 households

The definition of race is often based on physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture and eye shape. Race is both a set of genetically defined biological characteristics and culturally defined characteristics. One influence on culture is the media and the media have a huge influence on the way different races are viewed by society. The media consists of communication devices and some media forms include television, newspapers, magazines, film and radio. Misrepresent can be defined as to give a false or misleading representation with an intent to deceive or be unfair.

In the late 60’s during a time of segregation and social tension, I was involved in an incident that has changed my life and the way that I viewed race relations; particularly Blacks and Whites.

In today’s society, media representation are constructed, as a “Systems of representation are the means by which the concerns of ideologies are framed to create ways of looking at texts.” (Edwards, 2003). Yet, these represented practices could see as “stereotyping” in questions of power. (Hall, 1997) To discuss how media represent information further, this essay is going to investigate on the transformation of modes of media production in race and ethnicity over a century.