The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America

TLDR: The Black Image In the White Mind: Media and Race in America by Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki as mentioned in this paper explores the effect of media on race relations as media help to shape and re-shape the culture we live in.

Abstract: The Black Image In the White Mind: Media and Race in America, Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001. 320 pp. $15 pbk. What exactly is the injury suffered when "television news, entertainment and advertising, as well as Hollywood films, register and help both to alter and to perpetuate White America's racial disquiet?" The answer to this query is the subject of the book The Black Image In the White Mind: Media and Race in America by Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki, The authors focus on African Americans because of their consistent visibility, their long history of discrimination and oppression in America, the availability of research tools where ready identification of subjects' race is used, and the authors' wish to narrow the study to one manageable group. The literature on media effects generally falls into one of two categories: some focus on esoteric issues of interest to the academic/ scholarly arena, while others target the general populous. This study offers the rare "blended" perspective, somewhat accessible to both groups of readers. Entman and Rojecki attempt to demonstrate the powerful effect media have on race relations as media help to shape and re-shape the culture we live in. The authors also want to influence media practitioners and viewers and hope to contribute to improvements in relations between Black and White racial groups in America. The book spans the fields of critical/ cultural studies as well as political science and other social sciences. The authors carefully and succinctly review cases and theoretical arguments about race relations, while they, in some instances, propose solutions for problems under review. Related and powerful insights animate the authors' analyses. First, they review and assess White attitudes and the new forms of racial differentiation present in the minds of White Americans and throughout media that reinforce White perceptions. Second, their use of national survey data and studies of White racial opinions help readers understand how Blacks came to occupy a "limbo" status in America and how that status affects both Blacks and Whites. Third, the authors show how media "content" actually leads to public ignorance about race relations and about social conditions. They argue, for example, that the public policy issue of affirmative action was distorted by media decisions and political concerns unrelated to the perceived value of affirmative action that, in reality, cut across racial lines. The authors focus not just on the content of television news and public affairs, but they probe television entertainment (networks and cable), the broad effects of media advertising, and the content of Hollywood's movie hits. …