Representation In Media

Contemporary media exists to function as an accurate representation of an American cultural landscape that we all experience. Flipping through television channels, surfing on the internet, or scrolling through an app can vicariously take you into the homes and lives of people from all backgrounds. This is because American culture is truly diverse. Our culture is only fruitful because of the races, ethnicities, religions, and sexual identities that comprise it. We wouldn’t have the sitcoms and memes we enjoy without people of these varying identities and orientations. Yet, for years the people in control of these stories and content do not reflect that diversity. Even worse, some intentionally work to quell the expression of narratives and opportunities that represent the experiences of members of marginalized and oppressed communities. When taking a critical look at these factors we ask the question, is there parity and equal representation within American media? In this paper I will address how structural and economic powers constrain agency and contribute to the suppression of diverse narratives from marginalized and oppressed members of American culture.

Diversity is defined as being composed of different elements. While America is a diverse society, it isn’t fully reflected in the media we consume through character representation and narratives. Going back to radio, one of the earlier forms of mass media that ushered in entertainment through character creation and storytelling, the portrayal of American culture came from one perspective. Most radio shows, and stations, were owned and operated by white men. These men, in association with media producers of the time who were also predominantly white men, created stories that related to their identities from their perspectives. Their ideations and stories did not reflect or contribute to all Americans who discovered media as an outlet for validation of their experiences. In “Inventing American Broadcasting” Susan Douglas wrote on this “This technology produced aurality allowed listeners to reformulate their identities as individuals and as members of a nation by listening in to signs of unity and signs of difference.” (Douglas, 1989) Douglas was referencing American radio broadcasting in the 1920s, a time when the majority of Americans with access to radio creation and consumption were white. Though the sentiment of forming identities from radio shows extends to all humans, in that time it was presented to one demographic. Even though this era of media creation was dominated by white men, it also resided within an era that included the second wave of immigration, women’s suffrage, and the Harlem Renaissance (Douglas, 1989). On this Douglas writes “many Americans wanted to cling to, even restore, life as it had been in the alledgely “Gay Nineties”, before cars, movies…the 1920s were also characterized by reaction, some of it vicious. Violent race riots…and the subsequent epidemic of lynchings and rise of the Ku Klux Klan, revealed pathological racial fissures in the culture.” (Douglas, 1989) This exemplifies attempts from white men to remain in control of an American narrative that only they identify with through their structural power and their willingness to use violence to continue the oppression of black Americans, women, and other marginalized and oppressed groups. They were conscious in their efforts to hide the racial oppression of the era by controlling the media that was produced and broadcast. Even in contemporary American culture we witness examples of this in the way the media portrays social movements and civil unrest in reaction to white supremacy. FM and AM radio are forms of media that are still consumed daily, and their power and influence in our lives has existed for decades. The political polarization of media personalities and outlets that has been cultivated on radio and television by white supremacist and capitalist interests is evident in these forms of media. We’ve also seen the rise of podcasts, who can easily trace their origins to radio. Yet Television is the first form of media that provided a wide array of diverse media content and characters to American homes.

Television in contemporary American culture has been enhanced over decades through VHS, Satellite and Cable Television, DVDS and Blu-Rays, and internet streaming sites. Television brought theaters into the home, and with that it brought storytellers the ability to influence American audiences through varying narratives. Early television from the late 1950s and 1960s introduced Americans to the first televised sitcoms. These were shows like “Father Knows Best” and “Leave it To Beaver ‘’. These shows portrayed a white American middle class that was led by a white collar white father and a stay at home white mother. They also portrayed white children as seemingly innocent and inquisitive. It reflects the privilege of their identities, but it also indoctrinated Americans with the idea of heteronormativity and white superiority. In their book “Media/Society” David Croteau and William Hoynes address this when stating “…it is also easy to see that such a structure limited the options of many people. It constrained their behavior by encouraging or coercing them to conform to the accepted standards of family-related behavior.” (Croteau/Hoynes, 2019) This asserts that not only does this representation encourage women to conform to heteropatriarchal family roles, but it’s also dismissive of the household roles of single parents as well as members of the LGBTQ communities. We witness this in the media today, where most sitcoms feature heternormative households, and when characters from the LGBTQ community are portrayed it is usually as comic relief or as a sidekick where they are also portrayed by heterosexual actors. There are rarely households represented by LGBTQ families and their identities are often implied rather than being explicit. Their representation today, from narratives written and portrayed by mostly white and heterosexual Americans, is similar to that of black Americans in early television.

During the rise of television in the 1950s and 1960s, members of the black community were beginning to shift into lower and middle class backgrounds as they returned from war and also fought for their civil rights. All this while they experienced extreme oppression, discrimination, and violence as a result of the white supremacist political structure. The film “Color Adjustment’’ addresses how in early radio and television black characters were portrayed by white actors. In television, these white actors wore blackface and portrayed black Americans in stereotypical roles. (Riggs, 1991) When black Americans were introduced on television, the roles of black men were stereotypes that portrayed them as dim witted, manipulative, and uncivilized. Black women portrayed single mothers who were often employed as housemaids. This is a result of white men in creating these narratives and roles projecting the power they had in influencing millions of Americans through the media by portraying black Americans as subservient. This reflects the role of white supremacy in the media where white men position black Americans in roles they condescendingly believed were accurate and appropriate. When white men began to become conscious of this, after being called out by civil rights groups, those who attempted to change their portrayal of black Americans in the Media pivoted towards portraying black Americans in roles they deemed safe or acceptable to white audiences. (Riggs, 1991) An example of this is “The Cosby Show”, which portrays the Huxtables as an average black middle class American family. This family, while representative of a small percentage of black Americans of that era, did not represent the lives of most black Americans and especially not of those in the 1980s during the Reagan administration. The Huxtables were deemed safe by white men because they portrayed black Americans that appealed to white audiences. Their stories were relatable to white audiences and didn’t make them feel threatened by their presence. When black shows were introduced, that were written by and for black Americans with narratives that were critical of their subjugation to white Americans, they were often underfunded and unable to land a home on network television. One example of this was the show “Frank’s Place” which was referenced in the film “Color Adjustment” for “…displaying a broader range of Black characters but was killed by ratings.” (Riggs, 1991) We still witness this with shows like “Black-ish” today, which is catered towards the black middle class because it is representative of an ideal assimilated black middle class. Another show, “The Get Down” on Netflix, was popular amongst black Americans and other marginalized audiences. “The Get Down” was based in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was centered around lower middle class, project housing dwelling black and brown families in the Bronx. It focused on the evolution of Disco, Hip Hop and Graffiti, and also portrayed a popular black American actor as a gay teen. While it was the only Netflix show that turned a profit in its first season, it was canceled for lack of viewership. This is reflective of the white gaze, and how the corporate media structure uses white audiences critiques as a standard to measure what media and content is presented to Americans. Though not all members of corporate media today are white or heterosexual, a majority of them are and this has had major consequences. One area of media that is growing, and growing diversely, is internet media.

The internet and social media has taken American culture by storm over the last twenty years. These forms of media are accessible through television, computers, cellphones, and tablets. It has introduced new forms of media creation and has created hundreds of new media outlets. It enabled independent media creators to present their stories and narratives, and in this process has elevated the voices of members of marginalized and oppressed groups. But as always in a capitalist society, the major media conglomerates eventually weigh in with their power and influence. In American culture today, many of the narratives that are presented from independent media creators hold their roots in social activism. Mainstream media doesn’t always present these narratives in a positive portrayal because it would go against the conservative stance of their owners and funders. In “New Media Power: The Internet and Global Activism” W. Lance Bennet writes “When networks are not decisively controlled by particular organizational centers, they embody the internet’s potential as relatively open public sphere in which the ideas and plans of protest can be exchanged with relative ease, speed and global scope — all without having to depend on mass media channels for information or (at least, to some extent) for recognition.” (Bennett, 2003) This speaks to the influence of independent media outlets on the internet and social media, and how they are able to circumvent the major media conglomerates control of mass media in an effort to disseminate information and media that empowers and portrays the experiences of members of marginalized and oppressed communities. This reflects a shift and potential challenge in the power of major media conglomerates. Bennett states “The long term picture of new media/mass media information flows is hard to project with much precision. Mass media news outlets are struggling mightily with changing gatekeeping standards due to demands for interactive content produced by audiences themselves.” (Bennett, 2003) This is indicative of contemporary American cultures, and specifically millennials and Gen Z, efforts to take control of the narratives presented to them so they better reflect the diverse society we reside in.

In the “The New Media Monopoly’’ Ben Bagdikian exclaims “By 2003, five men controlled all these media once run by the fifty corporations of twenty years earlier.” (Bagdikian, 2004) As media evolved in our society, growing bigger and wider both technologically and demographically, the owners and operators remain the same racially and grew smaller in terms of who controls the power and economics. Though society has made some major strides in terms of media representation and portrayal, members of marginalized and oppressed communities have not advanced to the helm of these networks. Through structural power, working in tandem with capitalism, their agency on major platforms is still suppressed by members of identities and classes who don’t represent them. The heteronormative, white supremacist, and patriarchal stance of early American media still exists and permeates within the culture today. The idea of representation in the media as subversive does not hold true in this context. Yet through new media, and with the support of various agents within media, individuals of marginalized communities are not completely handicapped. Their influence and creativity is gaining traction in the American collective consciousness, though not at a pace which matches their due justice.

Sources:

Douglas, Susan J., 1950, Inventing American broadcasting, 1899–1922. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, c1987.

Croteau, David, Hoynes, Willian, 2019, Media/Society Sixth Edition, Thousand Oaks, CA, SAGE Publications, 2019

Riggs, Marlon, Riggs, Marlon, 1991, Color Adjustment, United States of America, California Newsreel, 1991

W. Lance Bennett, 2003, New Media Power: The Internet and Global Activism, Lanham, MD, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003

Bagdikian, Ben, 2004, The New Media Monopoly, Beacon Press, Boston, Ma, 2004