Suchergebnisse

Traces the prevalent stereotypes of African Americans in the US media culture & discusses the antiracist responses. It is contended that the expansion of US popular culture to the global community raises moral questions regarding the spread of US racist stereotypes to the rest of the world. Antiracist activity in film is traced to the organized political pressure & protests by African Americans & progressive whites against the film The Birth of a Nation (1915). Other antiracist activity examined includes: the US government's encouragement to Hollywood to portray blacks in a dignified manner during WWII years; & the call by the American Civil Liberties Union Art Division, led by writers & producers as well as prominent actors, for a boycott of production companies that maintained policies of discrimination. The 1970s produced the advent of "blaxploitation" TV & movies, but also positive antiracist events including Roots & The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. It is argued that the overwhelmingly biased images of African Americans being exported around the globe speaks volumes for what it says about the producers & consumers of such ideas. 87 References. M. Greenberg

Examines the assumptions of the informational model of media that drove most leftist activism during the Persian Gulf War & continues to underlie many activist media strategies. This model is predicated on the assumption that Americans would back activist agenda if they had access to information. It is suggested that this model shares standard assumptions about objectivity & neutrality of the mainstream media & fails to explain underlying factors in public support for government policies. The manipulation model is also described as a popular set of assumptions of leftist media activists that misidentifies the powers of the media. A cultural studies approach to media is favored that stresses the power of the media to rework existing identities, histories, & understandings. It is suggested that the cultural studies focus on the environment of the media, & the metaphors, stories, emotions, & identifications it employs to spin its web of information, are preferable to the unidimensional approach of the information & manipulation models. D. M. Smith

Discusses the role of the media in shaping perceptions of quality of life, & thereby, civil society. Including political parties, the media, & citizen organizations, civil society mediates between the state & the private realm & partly determines definitions & attitudes of quality of life. Productive civil society requires informed & realistic perceptions of quality of life at both the individual & societal levels, & it is argued that these perceptions are established & transformed through three channels: (1) statistical facts & figures, (2) authoritative expert opinions & insights, & (3) personal experiences. The media plays a fundamental role in the nature & dissemination of the first two channels, & it is suggested that its influence also alters individuals' judgments of their own personal experiences. Inconsistency between multiple voices & discourses complicates understanding of quality of life, thus undermining civil society. Therefore, it is suggested that citizens must reach some form of underlying consensus through a broad-based understanding of society to facilitate meaningful debate & the creation of productive civil society. Since the media plays a key role in providing the information necessary for understanding, it is concluded that productive civil society requires a responsible & intellectual media presence. 8 References. T. Sevier

Investigates (1) specific social structure & contexts that condition opportunities for social movements to frame their efforts & (2) the repertoires of tactics that emerge in these context structures, drawing on the concept of arena as discussed by Dieter Rucht (1996 [see abstract in this issue]). It is suggested that different processes of agenda setting are characteristic of the public, media, electoral politics, & government arenas. These are shown to contain distinct sets of competitors, audiences, & gatekeepers whose interaction shapes the evolving agenda. It is argued that social movement efforts at cultural framing are strongly conditioned by the competitive agenda-setting logics of these different arenas. Social movements seeking to compete in these arenas are taken to have available different tactical repertoires. It is contended that, in the agenda-setting environment of different arenas, movements are also limited by their own capacities for developing strategic frame dissemination repertoires or tactical combinations aimed at communicating their frames to audiences & gatekeepers. Thus social movement framing is demonstrated to be a complex, multilayered process of linking framing, tactics, & arenas. 2 Tables. D. M. Smith

Drawing on the experiences of young people in Kathmandu, Nepal, the symbolic & structural impact of rapid modernization on youth identity is examined. As a result of Kathmandu's rapid entrance into the international market, youth in this region have been subjected to a number of transforming & conflicting forces: changing perceptions of reality, the tension between traditional & Western identities, competition between multiple & diverse systems of meaning, & the erosion of the parent generation's value system. Although the new middle class has been able to establish local power & class identity through the utilization of foreign resources & aid, this process has made Kathmandu's residents simultaneously dependent on & marginalized from Western mainstream society. In addition to the passive consumption of Western ideals & meanings, the middle class is able to produce its own unique form of consumer identity through investment in & manipulation of local media & consumer resources. For Kathmandu youth, the experience of modernity is characterized by the distance between their imagined ideals created through Western media & the reality of their social situations. Although their dreams & aspirations are increasingly Westernized, their incorporation of local & traditional values creates a unique vision of modernity. 40 References. T. Sevier

Investigates the change in popular perception of the issue of toxic waste brought on by political activism during the 1980s, though this change actually began with the intense media coverage of the Love Canal (NY) incident in 1978. Analysis of the incident's network coverage indicates that it was framed early on as a disaster for human health, particularly that of children, & this frame was accompanied by hazardous waste images, eg, contaminated patches of earth, piles of rusted industrial drums, disrupted homes, & common folk victimized & angry. Opinion polls are consulted to demonstrate that hazardous waste was formed as a new issue at this time. It is suggested that popular perception today is driven less by personal experience than by media spectatorship & media-led witnessing of others' experience. Decision-making theory is consulted as a possible explanation for this new attitude-formation process, but it is contended that this theory does not focus enough on the relation of images to issue creation. Notions of icon formation & display put forward by postmodern perspectives on mass attitude formation are described as more suitable, though the political implications of postmodern theory's approach to meaning are questioned. 1 Table, 1 Figure. D. M. Smith

Describes the controversy in the Netherlands over the 1968 Disability Insurance Act as a clash of two competing icons -- disability allowance as an entitlement vs disability allowance as a problem -- focusing on the generation of collective action frames in unions. It is noted that before government consultations on the act took place in 1990, most citizens & social actors did not view disability insurance as a problem. However, after the government released a series of reports, & various social actors began to take positions in the national debate, the two competing icons emerged. From a social cognitive perspective, it is shown that social actors developed collective action frames oriented around one of these frames. In particular, unions developed an injustice frame centered on the idea that disability insurance was an entitlement. Analysis of 45 articles published in two national newspapers in 1991 indicate that news discourse played a small role in this process in that it composed a very limited narrative that signaled little beyond the fact that a conflict existed. Instead, the generation of a strong collective action frame is explained as a result of internal dynamics & communication systems in unions themselves. It is argued that news discourse was effective only to the extent that it placed the unions in opposition to the government, thus helping to develop an adversarial frame. 7 Tables, 2 Figures, 3 Schemas. D. M. Smith

Article on the use of the media of religious propaganda as newsworthy to attract the attention of readers. The author analyzes the goals, objectives and directions of state regulation of the media for the socialization of religious propaganda. Religion is considered in the article as an instrument of social control of citizen's behavior.

Discusses the role of US smart bombs & their associated TV coverage in the Gulf War. It is argued that the bomb's-eye view offered by the military became the fundamental icon & validation of the Gulf War. These images implied that military force was a necessary feature of the new world order & simultaneously enlisted the complicity of every viewer. It is suggested that the bomb's-eye view created a form of sympathy with the bomb; the viewers themselves became part of the bomb & thereby became accomplices in the bombing process. Further, despite the predominant reality of saturation bombing, the US emphasized the use of smart bombs & granted civilians the luxury of justifying the war by believing that it was hygenic & only focused on military targets. By these means, the war was projected as a scientific & rational assault in which missiles were actually saving lives. It is concluded that the Gulf War was a means of projecting US problems & chaos on a foreign enemy, & that the violence of the war was employed as a symbolic means of destroying past problems & facilitating rebirth. 4 Photographs, 112 References. T. Sevier

Investigates the discrepancy between popular media accounts of the black superwoman in the UK & the sociological reality, drawing on popular press accounts & a variety of empirical data. The black superwoman represents black women as strong, single, independent, central to black family life, ambitious, & successful. It is shown that this figure has circulated widely in the British popular press & has been adopted by both the public & the academic community alike. However, this image has little to do with the reality of black women's lives. Because the image is consturcted in essentialist & reductionist terms, it is particularly harmful to black women, & it deflects attention away from issues of concern to them. Only by discarding such stereotypical imagery can British society begin to produce a more constructive discourse of the black female experience. 35 References. D. Ryfe