Title: Media Portrayals and Black Male Outcomes | The Opportunity Agenda
Headings: Media Portrayals and Black Male Outcomes
Media Portrayals and Black Male Outcomes
Distorted patterns of portrayal
Underrepresentation in media portrayals
Negative associations exaggerated
Positive associations limited
The “problem” frame
Missing stories
Causal link between media and public attitudes
Impacts on thinking of black males themselves
Documentations of bias — conscious and unconscious — against black males
Unconscious patterns
Automatic responses
Hostility
General negative evaluation
African Americans’ own implicit biases
Conscious patterns
Practical consequences in lives of black males
Why media patterns are distorted
Bias among producers of media
Audience preferences
Incorrect assumptions about what audiences want
Lack of input from African Americans
Political motivations to traffic in stereotypes
Mistaken understandings

Content: Clawson & Trice, 2000, updated and confirmed in Clawson et al., 2007)
In the entertainment media as well, these and other associations continue to be systematically perpetuated. Analysts have gone into great detail about the way in which negative images of black males continue to be used for entertainment purposes, whether through traditional imagery of black inferiority (Bogle, 2003) or by using black male characters disproportionately to represent both the victims and perpetrators of violence. For example, one study examined music video violence statistically, for its impacts on adolescents: Compared with United States demographics, blacks were overrepresented as aggressors and victims, whereas whites were underrepresented. White females were most frequently victims. Music videos may be reinforcing false stereotypes of aggressive black males and victimized white females. These observations raise concern for the effect of music videos on adolescents’ normative expectations about conflict resolution, race, and male-female relationships. ( Rich et al., 1998)
Positive associations limited
As discussed, even when black males are presented sympathetically, they tend to be absent from some important types of roles, e.g., as fathers in parenting situations that audiences can relate to.