Race/Ethnicity Group 2

Topic:



Popular culture often times sets the stage for how races are viewed by individuals within our society. In order to further examine this issue, our group will take a look at how race is portrayed within children's media. We will study the effects of children's books, television programs, and video games to see how these media portray certain races in our society.



Sources:



Bramlett-Solomon, S., & Roeder, Y. (2008). Looking at Race in Children's Television. Journal of Children & Media, 2(1), 56-66. doi:10.1080/17482790701733187.



This article investigates commercials that were shown on the Nickelodeon television channel. It discusses how viewership of race as portrayed by media content can wrongly teach children racial stereotypes. It reveals in quantifiable numbers the race of children who played major and minor roles within these commercials. It also studies some stereotypes the commericals frequently playedupon.



WILLIAMS, D., MARTINS, N., CONSALVO, M., & IVORY, J. (2009). The virtual census: representations of gender, race and age in video games. New Media & Society, 11(5), 815-834. doi:10.1177/1461444809105354.



This article studied a plethora of popular video games and searched for trends along racial, gender and age lines. Regarding race, the article states (in percentages) the prevalance of certain races within certain game types. It specifically shows how caucasian males outweigh every other race in appearances and roles within most game types.

Dennis, J. (2009). Gazing at the black teen: con artists, cyborgs and sycophants. Media, Culture & Society, 31(2), 179-195. doi:10.1177/0163443708098418.

This article studies popular television shows geared for older children and young adolescents. It looks at programs shown on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and the Disney Channel and searches for trends regarding African American characters. It also examines the relationships between African American characters and their white counterparts. A number of unique trends were found including a "depowering" of the black male regarding athletic roles which resulted in an over-abundance of caucasian atheletic roles.