Media Influences on Public Perceptions of Ethnic Groups, Generations, and Individuals

Abstract

America's pluralistic society is growing increasingly diverse as groups compete for media representation. This article focuses on people's perceptions of how their ethnic group is portrayed in the media, as well as the issue of media influence on the values portrayed. A cross-sectional survey in a major Midwest metro area measured perceived importance of values and their portrayal in the media, finding that TV viewing is correlated with perceived media representativeness of one's own values and TV news viewing is associated with perceptions of media portrayals of the values of one's ethnic group. Results indicate that several dimensions of values recognized in the media are linked to people's perceptions of how the media portray people like them, their generation, and their ethnic group.

KEYTERMS:

• cultivation
• media effects
• media images
• selective exposure
• socialization

Notes

Note. 1 = individualism, self direction, and personal ties; 2 = arts, nature, and neighborhood community; 3 = affiliative and achievement values; 4 = comfort and friends; 5 = religion and order; 6 = competition and modernity; 7 = fitness and tolerance; 8 = politics and involvement. The value, “being a good American,” did not load on any single factor.

Notes. 1 = youth-oriented portrayal of values: health, wealth, and gender; 2 = aesthetic values: arts, benevolence, and community; 3 = traditional values: family, freedom, and authority; 4 = politics and public awareness; 5 = friendship and ties; 6 = independence and equality.

^# p < .10, one-tailed. *p < .05, one-tailed. **p < .01, one-tailed.

Summarizing a recent Brandeis University Institute on Assets and Social Policy study, C. Tan (2010, p. A4) notes “(Y)ears of deregulation that lead to an increase in high-cost loans is indirectly responsible for quadrupling the wealth gap between it and black Americans from 1984 to 2007 … ”

Goonasekera (1990) argues that the introduction of modern communication technology to Third World countries has led to the emergence of a heightened individual self-identity that helps one understand and give meaning to new and unfamiliar situations created by the media. The link occurs through the increased “social density” created by the technology. Social density is the “consequence of social relationships becoming more numerous and extending on all sides beyond their traditional limits” (p. 35).

Busselle (2001) found that mere exposure did not predict social judgments and suggests that perceived realism of television may play a role.

In Europe, for instance, a series of attempts have been made to use television to foster a European identity in audiences (Theiler, 1999). Such targeting, however, is limited by the constraints of creativity and the fact that people also seek novelty as well as certainty, the new as well as the familiar, the exciting as well as the comfortable.