Media, Images, & Race

The Media as a System of Racialization
Exploring Images of African American Women and the New Racism

by Marci Bounds Littlefield

Historically, the media perpetuate ideas about race and ethnicity that place African American women at a clear disadvantage. Beginning with the welfare queen image during the Reagan administration and moving to the porno chick represented in current videos, society views a daily discourse on race, gender, and class that continues to reproduce dominant and distorted views of African American womanhood and sexuality. The overabundance of this portrayal in popular culture raises serious implications associated with linking sexual promiscuity to the nature and identity of African American women. These popular representations of African American women and men are mostly unchallenged by larger society and the African American community. This article discusses the media as a system of racialization and proposes to challenge this system as a method of social justice and social change. Link

Priming Mammies, Jezebels, and Other Controlling Images: An Examination of the Influence of Mediated Stereotypes on Perceptions of an African American Woman
This study examines how mediated portrayals of African American women influence judgments of African American women in social situations. Participants (N = 182) observed a mammy, jezebel, or nonstereotypic image on video. Participants then observed a mock employment interview involving either an African American or White woman. Participants completed measures of implicit and explicit racial prejudice. As hypothesized, participants associated the African American interviewee more quickly with negative terms (e.g., aggressive) than with positive terms (e.g., sincere). Also as hypothesized, when evaluating the job interviewee, participants who observed the jezebel stereotype video and the African American female interviewee responded more quickly to jezebel-related terms (e.g., sexual) than positive, negative, and mammy (e.g., maternal) terms. These results call for an expansion of the boundaries used in stereotype research and closer investigation of how mediated imagery might influence person perception. Link

Images of Sexual Stereotypes in Rap Videos and the Health of African American Female Adolescents
Objective: This study sought to determine whether perceiving portrayals of sexual stereotypes in rap music videos was associated with adverse health outcomes among African American adolescent females.

Methods: African American female adolescents (n = 522) were recruited from community venues. Adolescents completed a survey consisting of questions on sociodemographic characteristics, rap music video viewing habits, and a scale that assessed the primary predictor variable, portrayal of sexual stereotypes in rap music videos. Adolescents also completed an interview that assessed the health outcomes and provided urine for a marijuana screen.

Results: In logistic regression analyses, adolescents who perceived more portrayals of sexual stereotypes in rap music videos were more likely to engage in binge drinking (OR 3.8, 95% CI 1.32–11.04, p = 0.01), test positive for marijuana (OR 3.4, 95% CI 1.19–9.85, p = 0.02), have multiple sexual partners (OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.01–3.71, p = 0.04), and have a negative body image (OR 1.5, 95% CI 1.02–2.26, p = 0.04). This is one of the first studies quantitatively examining the relationship between cultural images of sexual stereotypes in rap music videos and a spectrum of adverse health outcomes in African American female adolescents.

Conclusions: Greater attention to this social issue may improve the health of all adolescent females.

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Conflicting Paradigms on Gender and Sexuality in Rap Music: A Systematic Review
Rap music has major social and cultural significance for American and global youth audiences and, along with other media, is believed to play a central role in shaping adolescents’ beliefs, attitudes and intentions related to sexuality. However few studies concerned with health issues have explored the  content  of lyrics regarding sex and gender, with most research in this area focused on the  effects  of media portrayals on sexual behavior and problems. Much of the scholarship analyzing sexuality and gender issues in the media comes from disciplines outside of health and the behavioral sciences, such as cultural studies. This paper compares literature related to sexuality and gender in rap music from a variety of perspectives such as feminism, cultural studies, and sociology as well as from health and behavioral research in order to deepen understanding of the lyrical content that may influence sexual attitudes and behavior. The review illustrates that conflicting paradigms, for example of sexual agency or misogyny, emerge in this literature and that few studies are both conceptually rich and empirically strong. Future research should address this challenge as well as explore changes over time in how sexual and gender relationships have been depicted in this musical genre. Link

Music Videos and Sexual Risk in African American Adolescent Girls
Background: Music videos contain sexual content often reflecting women as promiscuous, submissive, or passive. Few studies have examined gender- and sex-related attitudes in African American females, particularly across genres of music videos. Purpose: Using constructs from Cultivation Theory, Theory of Gender and Power and Social Cognitive Theory, this study examined the association of music video viewing, gender roles, self-efficacy for condom use, and condom use among a sample of African American adolescent girls (N = 522). Methods: This study employed a cross-sectional design using baseline survey data collected through a larger study testing an HIV-risk reduction intervention. Results: Viewing frequency was highest for rap (97%) and R&B (80.4%) videos. Negative exposure in videos significantly predicted perceived personal influence and condom use self-efficacy. Girls who watched rap videos held less traditional attitudes toward women than those who watched rap and R&B combined. Discussion: An examination of music videos allows a broader evaluation of factors that may support sexual risk behavior. Further, R&B videos may contain images that romanticize male-female relationships and reinforce unhealthy gender roles. Translation to Health Education Practice: Research should examine media literacy approaches in combination with appropriate HIV prevention education to develop youth as informed, critical consumers of sex-related gendered content in various music video genres. Link

Shake it, Baby, Shake it: Consumption and the New Gender Relation in Hip-Hop
Hip-hop is a popular music genre that has generated a multi-billion dollar industry. Although its gender and race relations have historically been problematic, they have recently transformed in particular ways. This study examines the forty-one best-selling rap videos of 2007–2008. Through a qualitative content analysis of videos and lyrics several themes emerged. Hip-hop's focus on conspicuous consumption, buttressed by the success of entrepreneurial rap moguls, has merged with strip club culture to create a new gender relation based on sexual transaction. The “rap lifestyle,” marketed to consumers through multiple media outlets, focuses on the consumption of designer clothes, jewelry, cars, and liquor, often sold by the rap moguls' companies. Rap music videos advertise these products, as well as the consumption of women of color's sexual performances. The new hip-hop gender relation has also transformed the politics of dancing to fit the strip club themes of consumption and sexual transaction. Link

Imaging Blackness
the complex concept of expressing, recognizing, or assigning specific sets of ideas or values used in the depiction of African Americans