Representation of Women and People of Color in Media

The article discusses the underrepresentation of women, people of color, and Hispanics in the media industry, particularly in TV shows and films. The study found that films and TV shows with women or people of color in important behind-the-scenes roles tend to have better diversity numbers. However, despite making up about 17% of the US population, Hispanics were only 5.8% of characters in analyzed films and TV shows. The authors suggest solutions for improving inclusion, such as setting target goals and creating lists of potential hires that reflect diversity. Additionally, the article highlights differences in audience preferences, with Black audiences preferring content with Black characters and Hispanics preferring Spanish-language content.

Stereotypes in the Media p. 1
Both the reading and module/in-class content can be
structured as:
1. Minority Portrayals in the Media -- Historically
2. Minority Portrayals in the Media --The Current Picture
3. Characteristics of Audiences
4. Gender Portrayals in the Media
5. What are the Effects of Minority and Gender Portrayals in the Media?
There is a lot of interesting content to get through. In the modules this week, we'll start
with some basic, big-picture questions to frame the issues, and then review #1 -- #3
above. In class on Tuesday, we'll talk about Gender and Effects of Portrayals.
1. What are the big questions about race and
minorities and the media?
Since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's and beyond, researchers and the public
have been interested in the nature of the media's under-representation and
misrepresentations of minorities, women, and under-represented groups, and what
effect they may have on individuals and society at large. Media portrayals of minorities
are studied for negative and positive effects, with a focus on under-representation,
negative stereotypes, and exclusion. Surely there are many relevant questions -- entire
university courses on Race and Gender in the Media exist.
We'll focus on three guiding questions in this module.
1. How are minorities and different genders portrayed in
entertainment media? Are these depictions different from real
life?
Are different races and ethnic groups being under-represented in the media? And are
they being misrepresented? Research into portrayals of minorities used to focus almost
exclusively on mere head counts, or how many characters of what races were on TV or
in film, and does that reflect actual numbers in the population? (foreshadowing question
- which racial/ethnic group do you think is the most under-represented on U.S. TV?)
Misrepresentations of minorities are concerned with the context of the portrayals
themselves - Not just if there are proportionate numbers of groups on screen. Issues
looking at misrepresentations of different minority groups explore the significance of
the portrayals - are minority characters more likely to be in criminal justice situations?
Are they more likely to have high or low prestige jobs? And what are there interactions
with other minorities and whites like?
Here's one image depicting noteworthy differences in race and gender proportions just
in broadcast TV and cable TV from a recently available Diversity Report from UCLA.
When reviewing the Infographic, look less at the difference between years, and try to
focus more on the differences across media types: How do minority and gender
presentations differ by broadcast TV and cable TV?

Are men more or less represented in TV? How about behind the scenes, as show
creators?
What patterns do you see regarding race?

So, according to the Infographic above, across cable and broadcast TV:
 Between 77%-81% of characters are white
 Between 10-14% are black
 Between 2-3% are Hispanic
A look at gender reveals:
 Males and Females are relatively equally presented in lead roles on Broadcast TV
 On cable TV, males are leads about 63% of the time, while females are lead
characters 37% of the time
 Show creators are between 71% and 77% male
Are these under-representations?
Let's take a look at what the population of the U.S. actually looks like. That way, we can
make comparison to see if certain groups are being under-represented on TV.
 Females and males each account for roughly 50% of the population (technically,
females are closer to 51%)
Here is a chart with the most recent U.S. census data about race and ethnicity in the
U.S.:

So, according to census data, the largest groups are represented this way in the u.S.
population:
White, Non-Hispanic: 64%
Hispanic: 16%
Black 12%
Asian 5%
2+ Races: 2%
Alaskan/ Native America: 1%
And broadcast roles (first box in the graphic) go to Whites 81% of the time, Blacks 10%
of the time, Asians 4% of the time, and Latinos 2% of the time. So, Whites are clearly
over-represented as lead characters on broadcast TV, while Asians and Blacks are close-
to, but slightly less represented on screen as compared to their numbers in real-life.
Are you surprised to see Hispanics - 16% of the population but just 2% of lead roles on
broadcast TV so severely under-represented?!
2. Characteristics of Audiences - Media Use Differences
This has to do with different audience use patterns - how different minorities and whites
differ in what mediums they use, i.e., who watches more TV? Who has higher
penetration rates of smartphones? What mediums, channels, and companies are
targeting different audiences?
It is also concerned with what types of content different groups are consuming. Do
racial and ethnic groups differ in what types of entertainment, news content, and social
media they use, or are they just watching and interacting with slightly different types of
content that reflect their differences, or differences that have been marketed to them
based on their racial/ethnic group differences?
3. What effect do these portrayals have on individuals?
It should seem like old news to you at this point in the term, but people learn from the
entertainment media they surround themselves with, regardless of it is deemed "real"
or not. Given enough exposure to different minorities and genders painted in a certain
light - or not painted in any light at all because they are relatively invisible on TV - it is
logical that some of that social information colors audiences' beliefs and attitudes. Yet,
is important to not make assumptions, and look at what the empirical data on the topic
and theory have found.
Social information about race and gender can be more subtle than you may first think
of. For instance, in print media, research has demonstrated that readers rate people
more favorably - more competent, more credible, etc. - when images of their face are
simply larger on the page. Controlling for all other elements of a story and
accompanying graphics - the face ratio that people are shown with (here, the more
close-up, the better), the more favorable people are rated by readers. Multiple studies
have demonstrated that men are presented with higher face ratios (larger face face
images) than women, and that Whites are presented with higher face ratios than
minorities. These sorts of subtle differences in portrayals have been shown to be
associated with subtle differences in perceptions among audiences.

We'll spend more time in class talking about several theories related to effects of
portrayals (namely priming, and more cultivation), as well as what empirical research
says. It's likely best to adopt some other modes of thinking from the violence unit. Does
violent media influence people? Sure. But so do a myriad of other things, experiences,
messages, people, interactions, etc. This is likely to be the case when looking at how
portrayals of different groups may influence perceptions of those groups.
Stereotypes in the Media p. 2
2. Minority Portrayals in the Media -- Historically
The 1970's saw the first systematic study of minority portrayals in the media, with a
large focus on TV and film, and to a lesser extent, in advertising. Initial assessments of
race proportions in media characters in TV revealed portrayals fell far below real
levels, i.e., minorities were underrepresented in the TV and film. Percentages of
Black characters increased over the next several decades, although presentations of
other minorities - Hispanics, Asian Americans, Native Americans etc. remain(ed)
practically non-existent.
Historically, television has presented a black and white world - where the percentage
of White characters continues to be higher than their population percentages.
In films, Blacks and other minorities historically were cast only in roles specifically
requiring a minority character - ones in which their minority status was essential to the
part. In the 1990's, films broke new ground – with Black actors beginning to be cast in
starring roles and non-stereotypical roles that "could've gone to anybody." While the
live action 1994 The Flintstones movie may not have been a critically acclaimed
contribution to quality film-making - the casting of Halle Berry was important to note as
a breakthrough in casting that was not dependent upon the race of the actor. Other
examples from this time period include Will Smith in Wild Wild West, and Denzel
Washington in The Pelican Brief. This finding led a researcher on a study reviewed on
the following page to remark, “I realized that white people think that people of color
only have ethnic experiences and not universal experiences.” — Nikesh Shukla.
In advertising, images portrayed nearly exclusively white characters until the 1990's,
which saw a shift where Blacks and Asian Americans are actually over-represented in
advertising, although Hispanics, Native Americans, and the disabled, are largely avoided
in advertising images.
Beyond these basic "head count" studies, much research has investigated the nature
and context of characters who present as part of the White majority as compared to
different minority groups, and among different minority groups. This topic received a
considerable amount of scrutiny in the 1970's and 1980's, and relatively few
studies have been completed since then. It is hard to speculate why research
looking at these types of portrayals and interactions fell out of favor - surely we can all
think of examples where we've seen portrayals in entertainment programming, reality,
or news that rubbed us the wrong way. But without large-scale, systematic studies of
large samples of mediated content, it is difficult-to-impossible to make generalized
statements about whether troublesome portrayals are the rule or the exception.
Some of these findings of TV in the 1970's and 80's include:
 From 1975-1980, Black men in TV acted in minor roles and bit parts, but fewer
leading and supporting roles
 In the 1970's, Hispanics accounted for just 2.5% of major roles on TV

 In 1970s -- 1980s, characters of color were usually in blue-collar/service jobs
 1970s --1980s, females typically were shown as the heads of Black households;
and Black family members had lower education levels and occupational standings
than Whites
 One in six Black family interactions involved conflict versus one in ten in White
family interactions
A commonly discussed example of a positive portrayal of a Black family is The Cosby
Show, which aired from 1984 until 1992, before it spurred several spinoffs. The show
featured the upper-middle class Cliff and Claire Huxtable, an OBGYN and lawyer,
respectively, and their five children. It was largely praised for showing two white
collar Black parents instilling strong values in their children. Also, it was funny.
But now that dozens of serious allegations of Bill Cosby's criminal actions have come to
light, some have wondered if that tarnishes a show that was often held up as the golden
standard of not showing misrepresentaitons of a minority family on TV.
The actor who played Bill Cosby's son, Theo, has publicly pointed this out:
http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Why-Cosby-Show-Reputation-Being-Ruined-Sucks-According-
Malcolm-Jamal-Warner-91337.html (Links to an external site.). He states:
"My biggest concern is when it comes to images of people of color on television and
film, no matter what... negative stereotypes of people of color, we've always had The
Cosby Show to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that, that's the
thing that saddens me the most because in a few generations the Huxtables will have
been just a fairy tale."
Another example of groundbreaking minority portrayals related to interracial
interactions is from the the TV show Star Trek, a show set in outer space. The creator of
the TV show Star Trek aimed to portray a future where humans of all races, along
with aliens, coexisted peacefully. While it may seem sad that outer space was the
only place this could happen (as compared to you know, every day life in America), a
look at the roster of main characters is more diverse than some of the most popular
shows today:
 Mr. Sulu – Asian navigator
 Ensign Chekov – Russian navigator
 Scotty – Scottish engineer
 Mr. Spock – alien first officer
 Captain Kirk – Caucasian captain

 "Bones” McCoy – Caucasian doctor
 Lieutenant Uhura – Black female communications officer
In 1968, Star Trek showed the first interracial kiss on American TV. Please watch this
very cool interview with Nichelle Nichols, the actor who played Uhura discuss the
groundbreaking kiss.
Who does she credit with ensuring the kiss made it on screen?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hKKkGhEDoU (Links to an external site.)
Uhura was a groundbreaking black female in TV - she was the first among black female
portrayals to be something other than a nanny or maid. There has clearly been progress
in showing interracial relationships on TV, which has grown alongside societal
acceptance of interracial relationships. There is a lack of empirical data on just how
prevalent these portrayals are today. here is "The Kiss:"
Stereotypes in the Media p. 3
3. Minority Portrayals in the Media: The Current Picture
We can see that especially in TV and film portrayals of minorities, there was a real
time lag for producers and content creators to include various minorities, and then to

portray them non-stereotypical ways. What does the current picture look like for
minorities in popular media today?
In television,

o Prime-time television characters are 14–17% Black in a society with 12–
13% Black population - an actual slight over-representation.
o Typical Blacks are middle-class professional males in their thirties, and
while among the least aggressive characters, they dress more provocatively than
white characters.
o News depictions are more likely to over-represent the number of
Black juvenile offenders and under-represent the portrayals of white
juvenile offenders.
o Hispanics make up between 16- 27% of the U.S. population, and only 2-6%
of TV characters. Thus making them the most under-represented
racial/ethnic minority on TV. (How being "Hispanic is a much-debated,
changing issue over time. We see a large range in the number of Hispanics in the
U.S. because some measures include Hispanic as a single box to check, vs. a
seperate ethnicity question, alongside an additional race question. It's a little
confusing).
o Hispanics are portrayed as less intelligent, less articulate, and lazier
than Whites
o And Hispanics are portrayed on news as crime perpetrators more
frequently than Whites
o Asian-Americans are about 5% of the U.S. population, and make up about
1–3% of TV characters, making them somewhat under-represented.
o Asian Americans are usually portrayed in important, professional jobs
o Native American characters make up less than .5% of the TV world, and
about 1% of the population, leaving them virtually invisible on TV.
Things don't fare much better in film:
 In U.S. films, 80% have white lead characters, 19% have Black lead characters
and 1% have Hispanic lead characters. Film is lagging behind TV in the current
media landscape in representing any other minority besides Blacks. These
numbers are slightly different that the infographic presented on the first page
of this module - different time frames and methodologies may account for
some differences in numbers. But the pattern is clear: Whites are over-
represented, Hispanics are the most under-represented, and although Blacks
are presented at near-population levels (while Asians are typically somewhat
under-represented) - these characterizations are problematic because they are
often negative, stereotypical portrayals that misrepresent groups.
How do portrayals of different minority groups look in advertising?
(Check out what the reading says, starting on p. 252). Are any of these findings
surprising to you? Which do you think can be the most harmful?

It is interesting to question: At the end of the day, are minorities better served by
under-representation or representations rife with negative stereotypes? Do we have to
settle for either?
What things look like today: A very recent report
From npr, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/22/467665890/hollywood-has-a-major-
diversity-problem-usc-study-finds (Links to an external site.)
Hollywood Has A Major Diversity Problem, USC
Study Finds
A newly released study suggests diversity in TV and film is so bad, the hashtag
#OscarsSoWhite should probably be changed to #HollywoodSoWhite.
In U.S. films, the race/ethnic of characters breakdown found was (on the left). And, it
hasn't changed much over recent years (on the right):

That's because of an "epidemic of invisibility" cited by researchers at the University of
Southern California, who analyzed more than 21,000 characters and behind-the-scenes
workers on more than 400 films and TV shows released from September 2014 through
August 2015. They tabulated representations of gender, race, ethnicity and sexual
status.
"We're seeing that there's not just a diversity problem in Hollywood; there's actually an
inclusion crisis," Stacy L. Smith, one of the study's authors and founding director of the
Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at USC's Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism, said in an interview.
The study, titled "Inclusion or Invisibility? Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in
Entertainment," (Links to an external site.) found just one-third of speaking characters were
female (33.5 percent), despite the fact that women represent just over half the
population in America. Just 28.3 percent of characters with dialogue were from non-
white racial/ethnic groups, though such groups are nearly 40 percent of the U.S.
population.
With less than a week before an Oscars ceremony that has already been criticized for
an all-white slate of acting nominees, the study shows the film industry does worse than
television.
Just 3.4 percent of film directors were female, and only 7 percent of films had a cast
whose balance of race and ethnicity reflected the country's diversity. In broadcast TV,
17 percent of directors were female and 19 percent of programs were ethnically
balanced.
Broadcast TV also saw a number of TV shows featuring characters of color debut during
the study's tabulation period, including Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat on ABC, Jane
the Virgin on The CW, and Empire on Fox.
Still, when researchers looked at all TV shows — including broadcast, cable and
streaming services — they also found underrepresentation, noting that women of color
over 40 were deemed "largely invisible" and just 22 percent of TV series creators were
female.
Overall, the study found half the films and TV shows they analyzed had no Asian
speaking characters and more than one-fifth of them had no black characters with
dialogue. Just 2 percent of speaking characters were identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual
or transsexual, and more than half the LGBT characters in all the films they examined
came from two movies.
"The film industry still functions as a straight, White, boy's club," the study states. In the
interview, Smith says, "I think we're seeing, across the landscape, an erasure of certain
groups; women, people of color, the LGBT community ... this is really [an] epidemic of
invisibility that points to a lack of inclusivity across [film and TV]."
When looking at how women are depicted, the study found female characters were four
times more likely to be shown in sexy attire, three times more likely to show some
nudity and nearly four times as likely to be referred to as physically attractive.
But their results also indicated films and TV shows with women or people of color in the
important jobs behind the scenes — director, producer or writer — tended to have
better diversity numbers.

Across TV and film, the underrepresentation of non-white characters falls mostly on
Hispanics. Among more than 10,000 characters whose race could be identified,
proportions of white, black and Asian characters came close to U.S. population figures.
But Hispanics were just 5.8 percent of characters, despite being about 17 percent of the
U.S. population, according to Census Bureau data.
Researchers examined 109 films and 305 TV series across broadcast, cable and digital
platforms. They also looked at more than 1,500 executives and graded 10 media
companies for their onscreen and behind the scenes representation of women and
people of color.
None of the six film distributors evaluated — 21st Century Fox, NBC Universal, Sony,
The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner or Viacom — received a passing grade for
inclusion. But among the TV companies they examined, Disney and The CW performed
best, at 70 percent.
The study's authors also suggest solutions for the lack of diversity, including creating
target goals for inclusion that would be public and drawing up lists of potential hires for
writing and directing jobs that would be 50 percent female and 38 percent people of
color.
"It's about who is greenlighting those decisions and who is giving the okay for certain
stories to be told," Smith says. "When a very narrow slice of the population is in control
of power and has the ability to greenlight a project, then we are going to see products
and stories that reflect that narrow worldview."

And for Hispanic Audiences:

To summarize: All Audiences (majority White) and Black audiences love football, and all
10 of 10 top-rated shows for Hispanics are Spanish-language shows on Univision, a
Spanish-speaking network.
First, let's think about the ratings related to Hispanic viewers. This last list obviously
looks different than the comparisons above. Your reading notes that Hispanics in the
U.S. who wish to maintain their ethnicity tend to prefer Spanish-speaking TV. Others
have suggested that Hispanics watching primarily Spanish-language media may
be a contributing factor to their status as the most under-represented group
in popular media. At any rate, it is interesting to note such stark differences in lists.
Let's pay closer attention to the differences in All Audiences and Black Audiences. Here
are images of the casts of the shows that showed up on the top-10 most viewed for all
audiences, but not for black audiences:

And the shows that made the Black audiences Top 10, but not the All Audience
(majority White) Top 10:

So, what differences are obvious?
This isn't a scientific study, it's just a snapshot of some differences in shows, but I think
it's safe to say that the casts of the shows more watched by Black audiences as
compared to the audience as a whole look more diverse. There's white dudes in all of
them - but there seem to be more white dudes in the pictures in the first group.
A look at cable programming would find interesting differences by white and black
audiences as well. The last time I looked at that data there were lots of different shows
but similar genres - and the results were generally the same: More diverse audiences
watch more diverse programming; Whiter audiences watch whiter
programming. Mainly, shows viewed more frequently by Black audiences tend to look
more like the audience themselves and present a more diverse set of characters.

As we add more options, cable TV has become largely about audience segmentation.
We see cable channels targeting different races and genders because it is a huge
marketing tool.
Because audience segmentation by race is such a valuable tool to marketers and
those in the industry, we know much more about the audience habits about minorities
than we do about the effects of under representation or negative stereotypes across
audiences. Some interesting differences emerge, as presented in the visual from the
reading. Who has the lowest media exposure? The highest? What about TV exposure?
From the reading, this is hours spent per day:
Research has noted that Blacks and Hispanics are heavier viewers of TV than
Whites.
They've also noted that Black children are more vulnerable to potentially negative
effects if not properly supervised as compared to other groups. Your reading notes that
Black audiences prefer to watch content with Black characters and that many Hispanics
prefer Spanish-language content. This seems to be a universal concept across

minorities and the majority - people like to see some people who look like
they do in the media - but certainly not to the exclusion of all other groups.
Please review Gender and Effects of Portrayals in the reading prior to
class on Tuesday