Stereotyping as a Form of Rationalization

Why do media institutions use stereotypes?

How are stereotypes useful in the production and marketing of media content?

Ø Ash Corea, “Racism and the American Way of Media”

The limited number of African Americans in media management positions is a major contributing factor in the perpetuation of racial stereotyping in the media.

Ø What does it mean to be “rational”?

s Being reasonable

s Our focus: Streamlining; instrumentalizing

Ø Why rationalize media production and marketing?

To cope with risk (Joseph Turow)

Ø Methods of coping with risk in media production and marketing:

s Administrative techniques

Þ Hiring and employee development

Þ Market research/Audience surveillance

Example: Oscar Gandy, “Tracking the Audience” – pursuit of efficiency in market segmentation and analysis – data mining and sorting (“the Panoptic sort”)

s Content-based techniques

Þ News routines (selection; presentation/framing*)

* “Framing” – Media frames are persistent patterns of interpretation, presentation, emphasis, inclusion and exclusion, by which symbol handlers routinely organize verbal and/or visual discourse.

Þ Plot formulas and narrative genres

Þ Character stereotypes (e.g., racial, ethnic, gender)

Success in media production and marketing is often the result of “strategic risk-taking,” which involves violating one or more of these forms of rationalization (Turow).

Ø Liesbet van Zoonen, “Gender, Representation, and the Media

s Under-representation of women in the media:

Þ In production

Þ In content

s “Gendered subject positions” – Emphasis:

Þ “Dominant identities”

Þ Gender identity as social, cultural, political construction, rather than a representation of what is “authentic” or “natural”:

Van Zoonen: We don’t discover “true” gender identities. Rather, we invest in constructing particular gendered:

» Subjectivities

» Identities

» Subject positions