Media Analysis: June 2007 Archives

Online social networks are under scrutiny these days. Primarily because they boast millions of users, many young, who willingly post very personal information about their lives online. Most recently, two of the largest networks, MySpace and Facebook, have been accused of replicating class divides in America.

Victor Corral, an intern at the Applied Research Center and senior at UC-Berkeley, reported for RaceWire:

This week, Danah Boyd, a PhD candidate at UC-Berkeley posted an essay, “Viewing American Class Divisions through Facebook and MySpace.” In it, she presents her research findings on the different types of kids populating the two well-known Social Network Sites (SNS).

She finds that while some teens primarily use MySpace, others primarily use Facebook, and that this social “fragmentation” she sees occurring among teens over the past six months, is motivated by, get this…socio-economic class differences.

This, she concludes, after analyzing 10,000 MySpace profiles, interviews with 90 teens in 7 states, and research into users’ high school data.

According to Boyd, MySpace has solidified itself as an SNS for Latino teens, alternative kids, punks, gangstas, queer kids, and even those from the enlisted ranks of the military. This group of users is characterized primarily by “kids whose parents didn’t go to college, [and] who are expected to get a job when they finish high school.”

Facebook on the other hand -- which was originally created for college students -- has become a platform for high school students with college aspirations to join the “in” crowd. These kids tend to be primarily white, and with families who emphasized going to college, or in high school terms, “preps and jocks.” Boyd discovers that a lot of teens chose either MySpace or Facebook as a rejection of each other’s groups’ values.

So Boyd uses college-education and whiteness as indicators of class because class is about who you have access to, she writes, not necessarily income. So she lumps colored people and queers with MySpace because apparently these groups have to make more alternative networks.

This study is interesting, though I'm skeptical, because Boyd's class theory doesn't go far enough to describe how race is a tool of agency or dis-agency. But it's worth a read. What do you think?

It also reminds me of a friend's report about racism and online dating sites. Read Wendi Muse in, "Craigslist Personals: Desperately Seeking Diversity Training," where she finds:

Though politicians, institutions of higher learning, and Ward Connerly would like for us to believe that the United States is on its way to becoming a colorblind utopia, a simple examination of Craigslist personal ads proves quite the opposite.

Elizabeth Smart. Lacie Peterson. Natalee Holloway. Kelsey Smith. Given the constant media coverage of these women, you don't have to monitor the news to correctly identify them as those reported missing by their loved ones. But what else do these women have in common? They are young, white and attractive.

This month's round-the-clock news coverage of Jessie Smith, a 26-year-old pregnant mother who shares the same qualities, brings to mind the disproportionate attention the media seems to dedicate to missing young white women who happen to be good-looking.

There are colored people – some attractive, others maybe less photogenic – whose whereabouts are unknown, but why is it that their equally compelling stories are given minimal airtime at best?

My guess is this disparity in news coverage is due to the lack of people of color in newsrooms. According to a 2005 survey conducted by Radio-Television News Directors Association, non-whites and Hispanics make up less than a quarter of the television news workforce. However, the U.S. Census reported that same year that slightly more than 33 percent of the nation's population consists of people of color.

Most of the news we consume is delivered to us by white journalists. But why are whites less likely to cover missing cases in communities of color? I'm afraid that answer lies not in the newsroom but in the consciousness of America that is slow to view people of color as victims or perceive racial bias.

Ms. Smart is lucky. She is alive today and can actually peruse through news coverage on her disappearance that was in-part responsible for her safe recovery.

However, race and age discrimination, coupled with the agenda-setting nature of news, has unfairly deprived many unaccounted individuals some potentially-life saving attention.

Last December, many Americans polled by Opinion Research Corp. said they don't even recognize this racial bias or at least thought that racial bias in the United States "is not serious at all." Perhaps they weren't watching enough TV.

--Sheeba Raj, raised in the Bronx, New York, earned her master’s in sociology from St. John’s University and will begin studying environmental law at Pace Law School in New York this fall. A researcher and journalist, Sheeba has also worked in the business section of the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

"Stung by racism, Brazilian entertainer launches TV, network", McClatchy newspaper reported. But the man is struggling to keep his more progressive and Brazilian version of BET alive:

A look of raw hurt filled Jose de Paula Neto's eyes as he talked about the pain of growing up black in Brazil.

First came the sad childhood selling candy to support his poor family, then his mother's death when he was 11 years old. He spent his teens raising his siblings alone and married at age 15.

Fast forward two decades later, after he had overcome the odds and became a successful singer and TV personality. He was leaving a fancy restaurant, where he'd just received an award, when a white man mistook him for a valet and handed him a set of car keys.

"`I'm waiting for my car, too,' I told him. After I got into my car, I cried; I couldn't hold it back."

One doesn't have to travel far to find these type of stories. But in Brazil, the idea that Afro-Brazilians would need or want their own TV station is a distant region of understanding.

His many critics have accused him of aggravating the country's racial divisions by focusing on black audiences. The row over TV da Gente may have cost de Paula his long-running variety show on the Record network, canceled last summer.

"Television shouldn't be for whites or for blacks," said Ali Kamel, executive director of news for the media giant Globo's broadcasting wing. "If in a country like this he can't find success, it shows there is no interest in a black channel."

Such skepticism has haunted the channel since its start.

(Singer Rihanna)

What Do Straight Man Mag Maxim and Lesbian Website AfterEllen Have in Common?, asked Too Sense.

They each have only one black woman in the top ten of their top 100 hottest women lists. Both women are lightskinned.

In the case of Maxim, the token beauty is R&B Chanteuse Rihanna.

In the case of AfterEllen, it's L-Word star Jennifer Beals. Of course, I'm guessing many of their readers don't even know Jennifer Beals is black.

I guess cultural standards of beauty biased against dark skin transcend sexual orientation.

Senior editor of AfterEllen Scribegrrrl writes:

Clearly, what straight men and lesbians find sexy in a woman is a little bit different.

Sadly, "a little bit" seems fairly accurate.

God Bless America. I mean it's not like they're not both gorgeous, but you see my point. Hat tip to the Dailykos.

Too Sense wrote this after a study this week revealed that Black students preferred light skin over dark.
See here.

A Newsweek story that ran in late May asked why media coverage of a poll arguing that Muslims were "moderate with respect to many of the issues"skewed negative.

But when I picked up the story, I thought: well come on! The headline read "Media Coverage of Muslims Bombs".

"Muslims Bombs" ? While the story concludes that media coverage is bent on demonizing Muslims, the headline replicates this violation--spinning the language of war to talk about Muslims.

Guess we can't have it all, can we? Coverage of people of color and fair headlines. Now that's asking for too much.Luckily Hussein Ibish had some interesting things to say in the piece:

So why, amid all the other encouraging data, would such a large number of media outlets mine the poll for evidence that Muslims—even the ones next door—are dangerous?

Hussein Ibish, executive director of the Foundation for Arab American Leadership, says the answer is as disturbing as it is predictable. “It suggests there is an appetite for negativity about U.S. Muslims in the American media,” he says. “There’s two templates post-9/11 for coverage about American Muslims.

One is they are scary—be very afraid. The other template is the sorry, poor pathetic victims of hate crimes. It’s villain or victim—a ridiculous set of choices—and coverage of this poll has fallen into the villain category. It’s irrational, because if you read the poll, it is actually quite positive.”

Most of you know. Bono's latest save-Africa campaign involves less music, concert-going, and (RED).

Instead, the music legend decided to take on a media empire by becoming guest-editor of Vanity Fair and dedicating its July issue to Africa. Its 20 covers are being circulated now.

The good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful of Africa is on display people! Africa, Africa, Read all about It!

Whether this is good for Africa or better for Vanity Fair's bottom line, time may tell...

But you tell me...

Two months after Imus, a Free Press study came out today showing how big media organization are stripping communities of color and women of radio that reflects their culture, their values, and their music.

In addition, a lack of ownership of local radio stations by people of color and women has led to a hostile radio environment that is increasingly anti-woman, anti-diversity, and anti-immigrant, according to speakers on an telephone conference including Gloria Steinem of GreenStone Media, Mark Lloyd, chair of Media and Communications Task Force, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and S. Derek Turner, a research director at Free Press.

In 1996, Congress passed a Telecommunications Act that allowed big media companies to "obliterate" small radio-owners,Turner said, by supporting economies of scale. This describes the expansion of business while diminishing its related costs. Apparently, centralizing local radio ownership in the hands of a few is better for big business. But not for communities.

FreePress.net producing the study, reported:

Reacting to a new Free Press study on radio ownership released today, national women's rights and civil rights leaders joined two Federal Communications Commissioners in condemning the FCC for its failure to address the low number of female and minority media owners.

"We found that women and people of color control just one-eighth of the country's full-power radio stations despite comprising two-thirds of the population," said S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press and author of Off the Dial: How Media Consolidation Diminishes Diversity on the Radio. "These results are stark and a cause for alarm. The FCC should be aware of the consequences before enacting any policies that could further media concentration."

The full report can be downloaded here.

As the FCC considers eliminating longstanding media ownership limits, Off the Dial exposes how these changes could hasten the disappearance of the few female- and minority-controlled stations on the radio. On a national teleconference today, FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps blasted the agency's pro-consolidation policies for pushing out female and minority owners.

"This study presents fresh and challenging evidence about the lack of female and minority ownership in the radio industry," Commissioner Copps said. "My fervent hope is that we can harness the shame of our failures and recommit ourselves to creating a media that reflects the diversity of the American people."

The news is out: Black Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson has been indicted today on 16 counts of public corruption for decades of bribery and shady business dealings in Africa. With an attorney general under serious fire for his own misdeeds, the dramatic indictment isn't without your typical Washington icky-ness. I mean, who in that town is really fit to judge ethics? Nonetheless, it's looking BAD for Jefferson.

From RawStory:

The public corruption charges that were contained in the 95 page indictment against Jefferson, including conspiracy, solicitation of bribes, wire fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and RICO violations. Jefferson could face up to 255 years in prison if convicted of all the charges and receiving the maximum penalty, and be forced to turn over slightly less than $400,000 in bribes he received as he allegedly worked to broker a business deal between a Kentucky-based telecommunciations firm and a Nigerian company.

With the egregious, international and generally dastardly nature of the accusations, one would think the story sufficient for a sexy news story. But Fox "News" upped the ante by implicating not one, but two Black Congressmen in an act of subtle trickery that is shocking, if not unfamiliar. Check out this video from Talking Points Memo where Fox reports the JEFFERSON indictment story using footage of.....JOHN CONYERS, chair of the House Judiciary Committee and one of the senior members of the Democratic delegation. What the...?!? TPM thinks they couldn't tell two Black men apart... I'm taking the position that a)The EPA should make Fox News illegal because it is a brain contaminating agent that significantly impairs good judgment and b) this was SO not an accident: