Underrepresentation and Symbolic Annihilation of Socially Disenfranchised Groups (“Out Groups”) in Animated Cartoons

Abstract

For many years, the mass media have been accused of providing negative and potentially-damaging messages to viewers. Some have complained that the media are replete with too much violence while others have lamented on media stereotyping of various groups. In this article, the authors examine the issues of underrepresentation and symbolic annihilation as they apply to one particular medium–namely, animated cartoons–to which people are exposed early in life, typically on a regular basis for many years. Our principal research questions are (a) To what extent do cartoons underrepresent and/or symbolically annihilate social groups that are not considered desirable in society-at-large? (b) Has underrepresentation and/or symbolic annihilation changed over time? and (c) When social “out groups” are shown, how are they depicted vis-a-vis “in groups”? To examine these questions, the authors examine portrayals based on gender, age, race, and sexual orientation. The data revealed that animated cartoons have a long history of underrepresenting and symbolically annihilating socially devalued “out groups” and that little has changed over the course of the past 65+ years. When “out group” members are included in cartoons, however, their portrayals tend not to be dramatically different–not better and not much worse–than those typical of their “in group” counterparts.

KEYTERMS:

• animated cartoons
• mass media
• media content
• out groups
• symbolic annihilation
• underrepresentation

This research was supported by a grant by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (R03-AA09885). We acknowledge, with gratitude, Denise Welka Lewis, Scott Desmond, Lisa Gervase, and Thomas Lambing for their contributions to this study's data collection efforts. We thank Kenneth Ossman for his input regarding this article's conceptualization as well.

Notes

The best way to understand the concept of “camera cut” is to think of looking through the lens of a camcorder, as if one were filming. Whatever is seen through the lens is in the field of vision. If someone moved outside of the field of vision and then returned to it, either because of his/her own movement or because of the movement of the camcorder's field of vision, that would constitute two camera cuts by this study's definition—one when he/she was initially in the picture, and a second one when he/she returned to view again after the temporary disappearance.

Time increments for these computations were based in much the same manner that parking garage fees are based. If someone stays for 1 hour and 15 minutes, that person is charged for two hours. Likewise, in this study, if a cartoon had a running time of 8 minutes and 10 seconds, the computations for major/minor character are based on a 9-minute-long cartoon rule.

Many dialogs and verbal exchanges or utterances do not involve complete sentences, but instead, are based on “shorthand” responses that take the place of complete sentences. For instance, if someone asked “How are you doing today?” and the response given was “Fine,” in this study, the “fine” reply would be considered one phrase counting as a sentence, because it is the functional equivalent of a “I am doing fine” complete-sentence response.

All American population figures reported here were derived from Gibson and Jung's (2002) work synthesizing historical census figures for the United States.