The Children Are Watching How The Media Teach About Diversity by Carlos E. Cortes

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The Children Are WatchingHow The Media Teach
AboutDiversityby Carlos E. Cortes

• Group 1
• Shannon Rae Sollars
• Lisa Hakenjos-Jones
• Chad Lindeen
• Kendra Nelson
• Shaad Ahmed

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The Children Are WatchingHow The Media Teach
About Diversity

• The initial slides will briefly show how the
  author dealt with the issues of the clarification
  and the enriched understanding of history, the
  development of a personal multicultural
  perspective and curricular or policy issues in
  education.
• The subsequent slides will go into more detail
  and will further describe how the book deals with
  various multicultural issues and will concentrate
  on specific aspects of how the media operate
  within the above topics and different contexts.

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The Clarification and the Enriched Understanding
of History

• The author through out the book mentioned that
  the media strongly determines how one views
  events in history concerning multiculturalism.
  The author stated the media has the ability
  enhance ones beliefs or to even alter ones
  beliefs about diversity.
• Movies like Malcolm X describing recent
  historical events have even showed to influence
  members of a jury in a trial involving a White
  police officer and an African American man.
• This issue will be further dealt with in the
  ensuing slides.

4
The Development of a Personal Multicultural
Perspective and Curricular or Policy Issues in
Education

• Whether educators like it or not, students with
  school systems are affected by what the various
  media transmit. Therefore students are educated
  through what they see, read, and hear through the
  media. An effective school system will
  acknowledge the presence of the media and design
  their curriculum with this mind.
• This issue is dealt with through out the book and
  will be mentioned in many of the upcoming slides.

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Holly and Melissas (Authors Grandchildren)
Multicultural Curriculum

• The author made observations of his grandchildren
  and their responses to different forms of media,
  especially television shows and videos. The
  observations made were not shaped by questioning
  by the observer, but was kept pure and authentic
  to gather realistic data.
• The point is made that viewers are learning
  regardless of whether they know it or if it was
  the intention of the creators of the program.
• Many groups have criticized programs on the
  grounds of being racist, homophobic, and sexist.
  In addition, the programs often times paint a
  picture of gender roles for society and classify
  groups based on physical characteristics such as
  gender, skin color, ethnic dimensions, and the
  adult language of racial labeling.
• The encompassing idea is that children are
  learning although it is not always when, where,
  and what we want them to learn. Children learn
  outside the school through media.

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What are children learning?

• Children learn about good and evil, right and
  wrong, life and death, villainy and heroism.
  They learn about family values from The Lion
  King, physical disabilities from Dumbo,
  interpersonal, intergroup, and intercultural
  relations from Pocahontas, and gender relations
  from just about every other show.
• Cortes observed that his granddaughter was
  practicing crying, like Shirley Temple because
  when she cries in the movie, people will come to
  her help.
• The Lion King had sparked questions regarding
  moral dilemmas such as the issue of volition.
  Why did the wildebeests want to kill Mufassa?
  Why did Scar want to kill his own brother?
• One of the theme songs, The Circle of Life
  dealing with death. On the lighter side as
  stated by the author, the song, Hakuna Matata,
  song by Simba was uplifting and made one of his
  granddaughters feel better after a negative
  experience.

• The movie Pocahontas elicited the question of
  why are Pocahontas boobs so bigger than others
  and even compared them to Barbie. Pocahontas
  also brought about the question skin color while
  comparing the characters of John Smith and
  Pocahontas.
• A news report regarding O.J. Simpson elevated a
  question about the N word.
• Observations of romance and interracial
  relationships were made within the context of
  Pocahontas, the remake of Cinderella with
  Whitney Houston and the death of Princess Diana.
  This lead Cortes granddaughters to want to be
  princesses when they grew up. In addition, one
  of Cortes granddaughters seemed to feel
  uncomfortable with having her grandparents in the
  room during John Smith and Pocahontass first
  affection toward one another in the movie.

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Criticisms of the Media

• The Lion King, was considered by some to be
  racist due to the portrayal of villains and
  hyenas as possessing a nearly ebonic language.
  These groups considered this language spoken by
  these characters to be negative. Basically
  saying that black is bad.
• The Lion King was also criticized as being
  sexist due to the role of Simba being the lead
  with just a small support role for Nala. Simbas
  role is one of dominance, leadership, and power.
  The portrayal seemed to be one of male dominance.
• The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
  criticized The Lion King as being homophobic
  because a main character, Scar, was played as
  gay regarding his speech being feminine in tone.

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Children Are Learning from the Media

• Media has any criticisms from a variety of groups
  for their portrayal of race, gender, and sexual
  orientation. Observations by Cortes and other
  related studies show that media has an impact on
  childrens feelings about race, gender, sexual
  orientation, family, society and the groups it
  represents, violence, death, and countless other
  factors. We do not have complete control of
  when, where and what children learn through the
  varieties of media, but we know that they are
  learning from it.

9
The Societal Curriculum

• A mass media curriculum exists, and young people
  will learn from it. Due to this dilemma, schools
  face the choice of whether to participate
  effectively and constructively multicultural
  education or not to participate and leave up to
  the mass media and societal curriculum.
• Education happens whether we want it to or not
  and in places that we do not always expect.
  Often times, we do not even realize that it is
  happening.
• More public education is taking place through the
  media and societal curriculum than through
  teachers, professors, or any one else.
• Mass media functions much like school curriculum
  in that it is chaotic, inconsistent and often
  times laden with conflicting messages, however,
  not all perspectives enjoy equal exposure or
  equitable access to dissemination.
• One problem with curriculum regardless of its
  source is when it is hidden or sometimes even
  unconscious.

• Mass media sometimes highlight intergroup
  misunderstandings through repeated presentation
  of derogatory stereotypes or overemphasize
  demeaning themes about select groups.
• Misunderstanding of multicultural material comes
  in the form of fiction and non-fiction. The
  non-fiction can be very difficult for children to
  understand the differences.
• Many television programs and Hollywood films
  create unsettled feelings among ethnic groups
  when they portray groups of people with certain
  generalizations or stereotypes. These portrayals
  have made the concern global in scope.
• There are many gatekeepers in regards to mass
  media, stemming from parents, peers, teachers,
  and in some cases local and state government.
• There are also many individuals acting as spin
  doctors within the realm of mass media. These
  are often times the same people as the
  gatekeepers, however, it adds news anchors
  columnists, and talk show hosts

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Effects of Mass Media and Societal Curriculum

• At times Societal curriculum and teaching work
  parallel to one another, however, often times
  they work with conflicting interest.
• The societal curriculum includes four broad
  categories. The immediate, institutional,
  serendipitous, and the media curriculum. The
  immediate, includes family, peers, and the
  neighborhood. Institutional are made up of the
  organizations and institutions in which people
  interact with including religion and voluntary
  associations. The serendipitous forms around
  random personal experiences and lastly the media
  curriculum composed of the many forms of mass
  media.
• Mass media has a huge effect because of the
  massive exposure due to its ability to
  disseminate material to an audience.
• Mass media sometimes offer insightful images and
  examinations of multicultural groups, but many
  times it will be just the opposite.
• Children and adults construct knowledge based on
  the many forms of mass media regardless of
  whether it offered intentionally or
  unintentionally from the providers.
• Images of a variety of groups are often times
  generalized thus fitting a stereotype of a
  particular group. These images can be very
  damaging in the construction of labeling by its
  viewers.

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Effects of Gatekeepers

• Parents offer the possibility of controlling to
  some degree the forms of mass media that enter
  their home.
• Religious groups also offer guidance of what they
  deem to be appropriate media for their members.
• At times state and local government will control
  some forms of mass media in their area.
• These gatekeepers, can have a positive or
  negative effect on the media that is present in
  some situations, however, societal and media
  curriculum is abundant and often finds its way
  to the learner. The addition of spin doctors may
  be equally or more effective than the gatekeepers
  on the holistic impact these curriculums have on
  children and others.

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Effect of Spin Doctors

• Parents influence not only what media is present,
  but perhaps more importantly they may impact the
  processing, interpretation, and internalization
  of information brought on by societal and mass
  media curriculum. The attitudes that parents
  bring to the media curriculum can have a huge
  effect in shaping the views of their children.
• Mass media spin doctors offer what they feel or
  interpret from what they have seen, heard, or
  read. The problem with this is that many viewers
  have not seen, heard, or read that same material
  and so take the spin doctors opinion to be the
  correct one. These spin doctors are in a
  position of power and can have a great impression
  on others who are not familiar with the issues at
  hand.
• Teachers may take the position of spin doctors as
  well to place their view on the topics that reach
  many children through the mass media curriculum.

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Controlling of Curriculum

• Mass media and societal curriculum is present and
  children construct knowledge from this
  information whether it is fiction or non-fiction.
  The content of this curriculum can be controlled
  to a point by gatekeepers such as, parents,
  teachers, religious groups and at times, local
  government. Spin doctors have an impact on the
  processing and interpretation of information.
  These spin doctors include parents, teachers,
  community leaders, and the ever present and vast
  mass media. The way, in which the information is
  spun, highly effects the processing of
  information and can leave lasting impressions on
  children whether it is for good or bad. Schools
  have a choice to make in regards to societal and
  mass media curriculum. Should we participate
  actively in multicultural education or leave it
  up to societal and mass media to do it alone?

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Mediamakers as Multicultural Curriculum Developers

• Media Creation Mediamakers are intentional or
  unintentional multicultural teachers, textbook
  writers and curriculum developers.
• Each individual has culturally influenced
  perceptions of a particular media product and how
  it will affect the audience. Every person should
  be careful not to make assumptions that others
  must mirror their views on a specific media
  product.
• Media teaching has two dimensions, Input and
  Output.
• Input -
• Publishers and school boards media producers and
  educational bureaucrats work with finances, and
  make broad decisions about content and delivery
  systems.
• Media directors and school superintendents, media
  editors and school principals attempt to
  coordinate respective systems.
• Operating within industry, governmental pressure
  groups and other types of constraints,
  screenwriters and textbook writers, journalists
  and curriculum developers create texts to be
  delivered.
• Newscasters and teachers, actors and professors
  involved in actual delivery of content.
• Output -
• The content itself. Once created and delivered,
  content exists in various forms.

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Content Creators

• Content Creators The Media Writ at Large
• Dissemination of multicultural media content
  Some media makers intentionally try to teach
  about race, ethnicity and other aspects of
  diversity, e.g. Schindlers List, Guess Whos
  Coming to Dinner, etc. Others teach incidentally,
  such as publishing news stories that happen to
  have multicultural dimensions or by including
  ethnic characters in movie or TV narratives
  without any particular goal of ethnic image
  making or message sending.
• Media may be greatly impacted by the societal
  context within which it is operating. Individuals
  varying beliefs about diversity related matters
  come up with a set of reigning ideology.
• Content Creator Media Industries
• Industry wide content codes serve as revealing
  sources of evidence. Yet even here it is
  difficult to separate the degree to which these
  codes reflect true industry beliefs from the
  degree to which they reflect defensive responses
  to external political or economic pressuresor
  fears of pressures. In this respect, such codes
  can be likened to textbook guidelines or
  curriculum frameworks adopted by educational
  agencies, often under pressure from different
  publics or interest groups.
• Content Creator Individual Media makers
• Over the years, individual media makers have
  consciously tried to influence societal attitudes
  about diversity or toward specific ethnic groups
  through their media textbooks. For example, some
  makers of films and TV shows have tried to
  combine entertainment with an effort to reduce
  bigotry by challenging ethnic prejudice.
• Some media makers have emphasized movie
  exploration of their own ethnic groups. Spike
  Lee, Woody Allen, Edward James Olmos, Wayne Wang,
  Martin Scorsese, Paul Mazursky, etc.
• Some media makers have used their products to try
  to deliver broader multicultural messages, such
  as celebrating ethnic diversity as an element of
  American society or presenting cultural diversity
  as an integral part of American national
  character, culture and values. In contrast, other
  media makers have consciously traded on
  anti-ethnic bigotry.

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Limits on Mediamakers

• Internal Constraints Neither media makers nor
  school textbook writers operate with full
  autonomy within their respective industries.
  Textbook authors often find that their original
  concepts become severely modified, undermined or
  drastically distorted in the development and
  production process. As a result, images,
  depictions, and messages including those
  dealing with diversity that ultimately appear
  in media or school textbooks may or may not
  represent the best expression of a creators
  intent.
• Audiences Media makers sometimes base their
  product on multi-cultural assumptions about
  audiences. In doing so they draw upon presumed
  audience dispositions in order to elicit
  media-conditioned emotional responses. I.e.,
  manipulating viewer or reader fears by providing
  an ethnic menace based on existent societal
  stereotypes, including media-ingrained icons of
  ethnic threats. While trading on and manipulating
  presumed audience predispositions, media makers
  simultaneously teach multiculturally by
  reinforcing such audience beliefs (such as
  stereotypes.)
• Pressure Groups The media function in a world
  of external pressure groups, including both
  government and private entities. The latter
  watchdog groups, ratings groups, protest groups,
  ethnic, religious, womens, and sexual
  orientation organizations, and multi-group
  coalitions have often tried and sometimes
  succeeded in influencing media treatment of
  diversity.
• Ideological Conflicts Both the media industry
  and the individual media makers have embodied
  reigning or at least competing societal beliefs
  and ideologies concerning diversity. Some media
  makers support affirmative action some oppose
  it. Some champion immigration and others want to
  raise barriers. Media makers have taken varying
  positions on such multicultural subjects as
  homosexuality, sexual harassment, interracial
  marriage, the intersection of church and state,
  and making English the official language. These
  divisions reflect, refract, reframe and influence
  larger societal clashes and inter-group tensions.
  Contrary to the idea of media as a pedagogical
  monolith, the U.S. media is so diverse that
  virtually any critic can find myriad examples to
  support a personal interpretive position.

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Commercialism, Tradition, and Convention

• Commercialism
• Most media makers are in the business of selling
  a product and will repeat themes or approaches
  that they believe audiences want or at least will
  accept. Conversely, they tend to avoid themes
  that they believe audiences will not accept and,
  therefore, will not pay money to read, listen to
  or view. Media makers will alter and create
  products that are appealing to the greatest
  number audience members. Diversity makes it into
  the media curriculum primarily when media makers
  decide that diversity sells. In these respects,
  media makers closely resemble textbook creators.
• Tradition
• If media makers believe that certain traditions
  or formulae attract audiences, they will continue
  to follow them, usually disregarding their social
  or pedagogical ramifications. (I.e. the Prince
  Charming tradition juxtaposed with feminism.)
  Revisionism and innovation within the constraints
  of tradition are considered acceptable.
• Convention
• Convention could be described as tradition at
  large, or tradition internalized to the point of
  mental laziness. This can be exemplified by
  instances where American linguistic comfort zone
  categorizes people as a single race, when they
  are, in fact, multiracial. Simultaneously, those
  media makers reinforced the traditional American
  construction of racial categories. Also
  destructive to the multicultural being is the
  both sides default convention used by media
  makers and often by schoolteachers.

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Media Products as Multicultural Textbooks

• What has the mass media curriculum taught about
  diversity? Responses are varied but most have
  displayed three general characteristics single
  group focus, absence of comparative context, and
  limited temporal coverage.
• Single Group Analysis Most content analyses
  deal with treatment of individual groups,
  including women, gays, persons with disabilities,
  racial, religious, etc. Tight single group
  studies serve a purpose. We need to know how the
  media depict specific groups. We need to know how
  the media depict specific groups. Moreover, such
  knowledge provides the building blocks for larger
  generalizations about the media multicultural
  curriculum.
• Absence of Comparative Context Because most
  studies focus on particular subject groups or
  areas, only sporadically are efforts made to
  place such uni-group content analysis in
  comparative context. Comparative multicultural
  analysis may reveal that such treatment was not
  group-specific and that, during a particular era,
  the media were giving similar treatment to some
  or many other ethnic groups or cultures or, for
  that matter, to Americans in general. But the
  reverse can also occur. A comparative analysis
  may reveal unique patterns of single group
  treatment that might not obtrude in a uni-group
  analysis.
• Short-term Analysis Most media content analyses
  provide highly selective, temporally limited
  snapshots of media treatment. Most studies avoid
  the extended, sometimes tedious work that goes
  into such a longitudinal analysis. They have
  value in providing provocative and revealing if
  time-constrained insights. They may also
  provide building blocks for developing and
  testing hypotheses about long-range media
  treatment. However, there is a tendency toward
  overgeneralization on the basis of one or several
  snapshots.

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Over Time, the mass media have provided five
distinct but interrelated types of multicultural
content

• Information The mass media deluge readers,
  viewers, and listeners with information,
  including multicultural information. Most people
  are inundated with more data than they can even
  digest. Mediated information may be inaccurate or
  accurate. It may be presented within a context
  that facilitates comprehensibility or misleads
  the audience. It may be multifaceted or
  simplistic, nuanced or stereotypical. It may be
  packaged as news or presented in the form of
  entertainment. Audiences tend to consider
  newspapers, magazines, nonfiction books, radio
  and television news and documentary films as
  information providers. That information of
  course, has been edited and filtered in ways that
  contribute to its varying degree of accuracy and
  quality. The factor of repetition is also
  something to be factored in. In news, even if
  each and every story about a group and its
  members were accurate in and of itself, the
  constant reiteration of certain themes might
  contribute to a group public image. So it can
  become an issue of frequency instead of accuracy.
• Organization of ideas the mass media also help
  organize and disseminate ideas about information
  it sends out. Through this process, they
  influence audiences cognitive structures the
  ways that media consumers process and organize
  media-disseminated multicultural information and
  ideas. Diverse subjects are explored and the
  media try to organize these topics for the
  audience.
• Values Media also disseminate values about
  diversity and diverse groups. In that respect,
  media share a pedagogical space with school
  textbooks. These values accompany societal value
  systems and simultaneously push the envelope of
  norm acceptance in the public.
• Expectations Repeated exposure to media images
  serves to alter our perceptions of the society in
  which we live and to gradually shape what we
  accept and expect from our fellow citizens.
• Models for behavior Mass media provide models
  for behavior. They influence vernacular (Go
  ahead. Make my day. Hasta la vista, baby.)
  They also have an affect on personal behavior,
  aggression or love toward others, expectations of
  our own behavior as well as those around us.

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Mass Media Curriculum as a Message System

• The mass media multicultural curriculum involves
  far more than simply the creation and
  dissemination of group images. It involves the
  transmission of information (correct or
  incorrect, balanced or distorted, contextualized
  or stereotypical). It involves the organization
  of information and ideas. It involves the shaping
  and reinforcing of expectation. And it involves
  the providing of models for action and the
  disinhibiting of other actions. In short, through
  multicultural content, the mass media have
  contributed significantly to the corpus of
  American thinking, feeling and acting in the
  realm of diversity.
• The mass media is not the cause or single
  culprit for many of societys ills, but it makes
  contributions.

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Mass Media and Multicultural Learning

• What have peopleparticularly students and young
  students to belearned from this media
  curriculum?

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News vs. Entertainment

• Consumers are more likely to be aware that they
  are learning (or supposed to be learning) from
  news media
• Encountering a lot of information
• Consumers use entertainment media to be diverted,
  not informed (like news media)
• Consumers are less aware that learning may be
  taking place when consuming entertainment media
• According to some scholars, media consumers learn
  more from background information and images then
  from those details that attract their conscious
  attention.
• Entertainment media serves as a multicultural
  textbook (intentionally or unintentionally)
• The Author states that we may never know the
  broad-scale impact of the mass media on
  multicultural or any other type of learning
• However, research does show that media does
  contribute to stereotypes and other types of
  multicultural learning

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The Media Impact Debate Polarization and
Pomposity

• Analyses of the societal impact have become
  polarized
• Media determinism
• Media is all-powerful and directly affects
  audiences with its values
• Also referred to as hypodermic needle and
  magic bullet effect
• Limited Impact
• Downplay media influence on audiences
• Media reflects social consensus, it does not
  forge it
• Media satisfies audiences desires
• Consists of 2 groups
• Mediamakers
• Proponents of certain varieties of reception
  theory
• Media consumers control the teaching-learning
  equation
• Audiences consciously select and modify what they
  consume

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Media-based Learning An Empirical Perspective

• There has been sporadic empirical scholarship on
  the multicultural impact of media
• Conclusions
• Media do influence intergroup, intragroup, and
  self-perceptions
• Consumers also learn about diversity from the
  media
• The nature of that influence varies
• Some people are influenced by some media, at
  some point
• Its hard for research studies to have exact,
  concrete findings
• Types of research done about the media
• Uses and Gratificationsemphasizes the conscious
  volition of media consumers, who select specific
  media because they serve useful functions for
  them or provide certain personal gratifications
• Agenda-settingmedia may not be able to tell
  audiences what to think, but it can tell
  audiences what to think about
• Reception Analysisexamine the variability of
  learner responses to the media
• How different audiences have or may have
  interpreted and drawn meaning from varieties of
  media
• Examples of the TV show, All in the Family, and
  TV miniseries, Roots.
• Reception Analysis studies address the role of
  the media in multicultural learning by analyzing
  media interaction by consumers from specific
  groups (2 categories)
• Studies of the ramifications of media for
  different cultural groups
• The medias role in fostering interracial,
  interethnic, and intercultural learning

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Media-based Learning A Projective Perspective

• Projective Studiesassess/suggest how different
  audiences may or are likely to draw ideas and
  construct personal knowledge by drawing upon
  specific media
• The Cosby Showshows an affluent African American
  family but fail to address racism and/or the fact
  that most African American families face social
  and economic problems
• The Godfather DisclaimerWhen the Godfather saga
  first aired on TV, a short disclaimer was issued
  prior to its start stating, The Godfather is a
  fictional account of the activities of a small
  group of ruthless criminals. It would be
  erroneous and unfair to suggest that they are
  representative for any ethnic group.
• The author feels that such disclaimers do nothing
  to mitigate the teaching potential of such movie
  textbook that portrays certain ethnic groups.

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Media-based learning A Theoretical Perspective

• Theories of audience reception to address the
  process of media-based learning
• Schema Theory
• Each learner develops operational mental and
  emotional schemasometimes referred to as
  ideational scaffolding, cognitive maps, or
  anticipatory schemes. These schema are based on
  each individuals personal learning experiences
  and then become the basis for making sense of the
  world.
• Gestalt Psychology
• Viewers and readers encounter a piece of
  communication and alter it by selectively
  remembering and omitting information and ideas,
  while supplementing or contextualizing that
  content based on their own beliefs and biases,
  thereby altering its meaning for them.
• Cognitive Dissonance
• Once an individuals cognitive structure takes
  firm shape, it tends to repel those ideas that
  seem too dissonant.
• Drench Hypothesis
• Learning will more likely occur when audiences
  watch programs that drench consumers with ideas
  and portrayals that are out of the ordinary
• Sleeper Effect
• Ideas, often clothed as entertainment, can
  subconsciously enter and become part of a
  viewers unrecognized cognitive or affective
  storehouse. The ideas can then be provoked by
  some external stimuli.
• Examples of the sleeper effect the movie
  Airplane and the television game show, The
  25,000 Pyramid.

27
A Personal Multicultural Media Journal

• There is too much media to identify and describe
  the entire curricular context.
• The goal is to help gain insight by examining our
  own personal media multicultural curricular which
  we each create through choice, accident, and
  habit.

28
Journal Model to Monitor Media

• The author provides a multicultural media journal
  model, which can be used by anyone to develop a
  greater self-awareness of personal media
  multicultural curricular exposure.
• Journal model
• Keep journal to record reactions to the
  multicultural teaching encountered during normal
  media consumption
• To begin write a brief description of your
  general media consumption habits
  (self-assessment)
• Next keep an annotated record of the
  multicultural dimensions of one months (or one
  weeks) media consumption
• The author then gives his own day-by-day journal
  of multicultural media consumption for the month
  of October
• Includes examples from various types of media
  newspapers, TV, movies, documentaries, talk
  radio, etc.

29
The Contemporary Media Curriculum as School
Context

• The media teaches preschool 12th grade
  students, students, teachers, administrators, and
  even parents about multiculturalism whether they
  know it or not.
• They do so in many different ways which are
  outlined in the following slides.

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How Diversity is Presented in the Media

• Pervasiveness How the media exposes us to
  diversity even when we are not expecting it to do
  so. This is applicable to the radio, magazine,
  TV, and even movies.
• Themes Themes about diversity often fall into
  the following four categories
• Ongoing Diversity related themes which appear
  with regularity.
• Recurring Diversity related themes which appear
  often but not on an ongoing basis. Examples
  include when Louis Farrakhan organizes an event
  or when people protest the use of Native American
  mascots.
• Transitory A diversity related theme which
  appears heavily for a period of time then fades
  away. Examples of this are the Confederate Flag
  issue and Paula Jones.
• Single-shot A diversity related theme which
  only gets one day of attention.
• Patterns Spins that the media put on diversity
  topics. They do this by choosing what or what
  does not make it to the public.

• Perspectives This is broken down into four
  different categories
• Internal Multiple Perspectives Getting more
  than one perspective on a diversity issue within
  one show or media outlet. Examples of this are
  shows like CNNs Crossfire and ABCs former show
  Politically Incorrect.
• External Dueling Perspectives Getting
  conflicting arguments about the same diversity
  issue from different sources. An example of this
  is when Newsweek ran three perspectives on one
  single issue.
• Mainstream versus Niche Media The mainstream
  usually offers general interest diversity topics
  to the audience while the niche media usually
  offers one single perspective on diversity
  issues. An example of this might be of Time
  compared to Ebony magazine.
• Intertextuality This when different media
  sources (TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, etc.)
  draw their information on diversity issues from
  one another. For example, a TV show might
  comment on an editorial in the newspaper.

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Ideology

• This describes the particular media outlets
  viewpoint (i.e. Conservative or Liberal). This
  is further broken down into three categories
• Multiculturalist This where the media at least
  recognize multiculturalism.
• Desegregationist The media usually promotes
  noncontroversial positions promoting unity such
  as Rodney Kings famous Cant we all get along?
  This is also true for TV shows such as ER and
  movies such as Lethal Weapon.
• Americanist Most media in the United States
  claim they are pro-American but offer a different
  spin on what that means.

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Media and Learning, Limits of Content Analysis,
The Children Now Report, and a Potential Impact
Paradigm

• Media and Learning By knowing what the media is
  presenting to the best of our abilities, schools
  can try to respond to that by what education they
  offer to students.
• Limits of Content Analysis Different minority
  groups are viewed in a different way by people.
  For example, people may not always differentiate
  Cuban Americans for other Hispanic Americans.
  The same is true for people born in America who
  come from non-European backgrounds such as the
  Japanese Americans or other Asian Americans.
• The Children Now Report This report of 300
  Blacks, 300 Anglos, 300 Latinos, and 300 Asian
  Americans aged 10-17 showed how children viewed
  the treatment of different racial groups on
  television. The answers varied from Whites being
  the most represented to often showing minorities
  as less well to do.
• A Potential Impact Paradigm This is an
  interpretive framework for hypothesizing the
  potential multicultural learning impact of the
  mass media.
• Coincidence This when the treatment of a social
  group coincides with ones own views.
• Conflict This is when ones views are in
  conflict with that of the media. This will
  either cause rejection, modification, or to
  totally mute it out.
• Marginalism This is when the medias portrayal
  is marginally outside ones views, but not in
  direct conflict of ones beliefs. This could
  mean that one adds that portrayal to their
  knowledge pool and might influence their personal
  organizational schema.
• Novelty This is when the media portrays
  something that one has little or no knowledge of.
  This could be received as unchallenged
  information and be accepted by the receiver of
  that information.

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Mass Media, Multiculturalism, and Schools

• With the mass media the way it is, multicultural
  learning will occur, and schools do not have the
  power to decide whether or not it will occur.
  This means the schools need to decide if they
  will participate within this context of
  multicultural education and if they do how they
  will participate.
• Scholarly Relationships Media and Education
  scholars tend to work separately and not jointly.
  Sometimes the media and education scholars
  works compliment one another, sometimes they
  contradict one another, and others times they
  promote the others work.
• Premises These are the premises needed for the
  author to establish his new educational paradigm.
• Exposure Virtually everybody is exposed to the
  media in some sense.
• Influence People do learn about diversity from
  the media and are influenced by that.
• Interaction The mass media leads to educators
  interacting with students about the knowledge
  learned from it.

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School Educator Reponses

• There are four basic patterns of school educator
  responses
• Level One Recognition Recognizing that media
  based multicultural education is taking place,
  and students will bring some of this knowledge to
  school. For example, the oil crisis led to
  people unfairly depicting Arabs as greedy
  sheikhs. Once the Senior Weekly Reporter
  depicted an American Indian on a camel with gas,
  oil, and coal. Such images lead to unfair images
  of both Arabs and American Indians and schools
  have to combat these images.
• Level Two Attention The schools need to pay
  attention to what the mass media is teaching
  about multiculturalism. Students may learn about
  twentieth century race relations from movies such
  as Mississippi Burning, etc.
• Level Three Exploration The schools need to
  try to read about what the media is saying about
  multicultural issues, and how they think students
  are learning from the media.
• Level Four Investigation Educators could
  investigate the medias claims about how the
  media itself depicts certain minorities. For
  example, Karen Grigsby Bates of the Los Angeles
  Times on September 19, 1997 argued that some
  shows like Frasier, Friends, and Seinfeld did not
  have much if any racial representation. This
  would be something for educators to further
  investigate.

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Areas of School Engagement

• There are eight areas where schools could be
  involved in integrating the mass media into
  policies and practices
• Assessing ones own media multicultural learning
  Schools should assess how the media deals with
  topics such as race, ethnicity, and religion.
  Educators need to consider how the media may be
  influencing their perceptions and interactions.
  For example, educators should know how an Arab
  American might feel if they get joked about the
  violence in their native region.
• Dealing with student multicultural learning
  Educators should know what the students know
  about multicultural learning and teach them on
  that basis.
• Using the mass media as a curricular resource
  Educators can use made for school media videos,
  etc. and also incorporate current events
  portrayed in the media in their curriculum.
• Developing student analytical thinking about
  media Students should be pushed to critically
  think about issues portrayed in the media.
• Professional development concerning the media
  Educators should continue to develop their media
  literacy and try to better understand the
  multicultural dimensions of the media.
• Working with parents as multicultural co-teachers
  with the mass media curriculum Educators should
  incorporate the parents of students to assist
  with how they deal with the mass media. This can
  be done through conferences and workshops.
• Working directly with the media Educators
  should work with the media, whether that be
  through positive public relations or pointing out
  mistakes in the medias coverage. This can also
  involve students.
• Combating stereotypes and stereotyping.

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Struggling with Stereotypes Uses and Abuses of
a Critical Concept

• Everyone uses generalities to make clarity of
  various concepts. For example you learn to drive
  one car and then you can transfer that knowledge
  to driving another car.
• Generalities develop from personal observation
  and experience. The media can use generalities
  when discussing how a particular disease can
  affect women differently from men.
• Stereotyping differs from generalities due to the
  frequency and selectivity that the media use such
  as stating only crime statistics for perpetrators
  who are African American.
• Schools need to instruct children on using
  generalities and the difference between a
  generality and a stereotype.
• Generalities are flexible, intragroup
  heterogeneity, and subtle while Stereotypes are
  inflexible, homogeneity, and unsubtle.
• Labels can be used as nouns but if not used
  appropriately can become slurs and lead to
  stereotypes when they offend others. The media
  needs to use labels carefully.
• Depictions become stereotypes when they are use
  the same type of portrayals frequently and
  consistently to bombard the public.

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Clarification of History/Development of Personal
Multicultural Perspective

• Acknowledge that consumers learn multiculturally
  from the media. Media treatments of societal
  groups and their members have some basis in
  reality even though that reality is not true for
  every member of the group. Some Native Americans
  work at casinos (not all).
• Acknowledge that some media-based multicultural
  learning does take the form of internalizing
  stereotypes. The media can establish a pattern or
  a model such as some Italians are in organized
  crime and then have the movies with Godfather and
  television with The Sopranos leading the public
  to believe that everyone who is Italian is in
  organized crime.
• The media does occasionally use stereotypes to
  meet consumer expectations (especially in
  advertising) and manipulate those stereotypes to
  provoke desired reactions from the public. Using
  stereotypes for parody and humor such as the film
  Prizzis Honor.

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Curricular or Policy Issues for Education

• Schools cannot avoid the issue of stereotyping.
• Schools should not solve the issue by having
  students merely look for examples of stereotyping
  in the media.
• Schools should carefully and systematically teach
  students the differences between generalizations
  and stereotypes through simple exercises.
• Have students select one radio talk show to
  listen to two weeks and determine if there is a
  pattern of treatment when discussing a particular
  ethnic group.
• Collect all articles about women from one
  newspaper for two week to see if there is a
  pattern of topic selection.
• Watch TV network national news shows for a
  pattern of treatment in regards to religion.
• Read and collect movie reviews in regards to one
  ethnic group.
• Look at magazines to see if there is a pattern of
  adjectives to describe one ethnic group.

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Multicultural Education in the Cyberspace Era

• Cyberspace is more democratic since it allows
  students more of an opportunity to decide what
  and when to learn in regards to multicultural
  content.
• Cyberspace can be more effective than other media
  in fostering both intergroup and intragroup
  discussions of ideas.
• Cyberspace can be used to communicate across
  national, ethnic, cultural, and religious line to
  learn about people who are different from us.

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Clarification of History/Development of Personal
Multicultural Perspective

• Cyberspace has greatly expanded the number and
  variety of people who can participate in the
  media and add to its content.
• Cyberspace is not equitably distributed through
  all ethnic groups, so information can be biased
  in favor of those who are access.
• Cyberspace can be more selective by creating
  niche-oriented sites through Web pages and
  on-line magazines.
• More difficult to specify the group identities of
  the authors of sites than television, radio, and
  the print media.
• Difficult to assess and analyze the cyberspace
  multicultural media content.

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Curricular or Policy Issues for Education

• Using the Internet to promote intercultural
  conversations and building a global common
  ground.
• Using the Internet to explore intragroup
  differences, clarify issues, and mobilize group
  action.
• Concerns for promoting polarization and foster
  bigotry through hate-based Web pages.
• Providing access for all students to use the
  Internet equally.
• Deciding how to use gatekeepers on the Internet
  in regards to inappropriate sites for students.
• Evaluating and analyzing if information on a site
  is authentic.
• How to deal with underground student newspapers
  that may promote bigotry.
• How does the Internet influence students in terms
  of advertising, and bias?

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Conclusion

• The author used relevant sources from the media
  to cite how all people and especially children
  are influenced by it, and how they are either
  consciously or subconsciously learning about
  diversity from it.
• The media portrays the information in various
  ways, and often times put their own 'spin' on
  their takes. Sometimes they show multiple views
  and other times they choose only one.
• It is up to educators to determine how they will
  take what students learn about multiculturalism
  from the media and incorporate it into their
  teachings.
• End of Presentation
• Thank You!