Media Use, Gender, and African American College Attendance: The Cosby Effect

Abstract

African American youth spend more time with media than other groups, thereby enhancing media contributions to their values and behavior. Most research focuses on negative effects of media consumption on Black viewers through racial stereotyping. We examined pro-social effects of Black media content positively depicting black colleges (HBCUs) on Black students' college choice. Through an empirical survey of 265 HBCU students we tested relationships between viewing Black media content and needs associated with college choice, demographics, and reliance on social networks.

Stepwise regressions showed The Cosby Show and A Different World made significant contributions to females' HBCU choices. Feature films made significant contributions to males' choices. In college choice, males were more social network reliant, females were more media reliant. Results show need to consider pro social effects in media and race research, and examine impact of gender and digital viewing on media contributions to youths' values and behavior.

KEYTERMS:

• A Different World
• African Americans and media
• blacks and television
• college attendance choice
• Cosby Show
• gender and media
• HBCUs
• media effects
• social learning