Documenting Portrayals of Race/Ethnicity on Primetime Television over a 20‐Year Span and Their Association with National‐Level Racial/Ethnic Attitudes

Abstract

The current study content analyzes the 345 most viewed U.S. television shows within 12 separate television seasons spanning the years 1987 to 2009. Using multilevel modeling, the results from this comprehensive content analysis then are used to predict national‐level racial/ethnic perceptions (between the years 1988 and 2008) with data from the American National Election Studies (ANES). Content analysis results reveal severe underrepresentation of Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans, and a tendency to depict ethnic minorities stereotypically (e.g., overrepresentation of hyper‐sexualized Latino characters). Multilevel‐modeling analysis indicates that both the quantity and quality of ethnic media representations contributes to Whites’ racial attitudes.

Wanting to See People Like Me? Racial and Gender Diversity in Popular Adolescent Television

“…Television viewing data for adolescents aged 14–17 was used to examine racial and gender diversity in the most popular programs for adolescents. Consistent with previous research (Tukachinsky et al, 2015), mainstream television shows were fairly proportionate to the population in representation of Black characters. However, female characters were underrepresented.…”

“…Previous research on Black characters in media suggest that television provides a fairly proportionate representation compared to the population of the United States (Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015). In contrast, a recent report on Hollywood diversity finds underrepresentation for ethnic minorities and women (Hunt, Ramon, & Price, 2014).…”

Muslim Americans’ Responses to Social Identity Threats: Effects of Media Representations and Experiences of Discrimination

“…Negative representations of one's ingroup within mainstream media are powerful situational cues indicating to minority members their worth within the mainstream society (Davies et al, 2002;Fujioka, 2005). Indeed, numerous reviews have documented that minority groups tend to be under or negatively represented in mainstream media (Behm-Morawitz & Ortiz, 2013;Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015). This is especially true in regard to media portrayals of Muslims, Arabs, and people from the Middle East (AlSultany, 2013; Dixon & Williams, 2015;Nacos & Torres-Reyna, 2007;Powell, 2011;Saleem & Anderson, 2013;Saleem et al, 2016).…”

The influence of motivation on the unconscious reprocessing of automatic evaluations: the case of prejudice

“…In fact, attitudes can be built from the simple information we acquire from our social environment (Hilton & von Hippel, 1996), from our parents (Castelli et al, 2007(Castelli et al, , 2009) and through mass media (Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015). Based on the type of information conveyed, we start to build a preconceived idea about the characteristics of that group.…”