what is representation media

Why Representation Matters and Why It’s Still Not Enough

Reflections on growing up brown, queer, and asian american..

Posted December 27, 2021 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

• Positive media representation can be helpful in increasing self-esteem for people of marginalized groups (especially youth).
• Interpersonal contact and exposure through media representation can assist in reducing stereotypes of underrepresented groups.
• Representation in educational curricula and social media can provide validation and support, especially for youth of marginalized groups.

Growing up as a Brown Asian American child of immigrants, I never really saw anyone who looked like me in the media. The TV shows and movies I watched mostly concentrated on blonde-haired, white, or light-skinned protagonists. They also normalized western and heterosexist ideals and behaviors, while hardly ever depicting things that reflected my everyday life. For example, it was equally odd and fascinating that people on TV didn’t eat rice at every meal; that their parents didn’t speak with accents; or that no one seemed to navigate a world of daily microaggressions . Despite these observations, I continued to absorb this mass media—internalizing messages of what my life should be like or what I should aspire to be like.

Because there were so few media images of people who looked like me, I distinctly remember the joy and validation that emerged when I did see those representations. Filipino American actors like Ernie Reyes, Nia Peeples, Dante Basco, and Tia Carrere looked like they could be my cousins. Each time they sporadically appeared in films and television series throughout my youth, their mere presence brought a sense of pride. However, because they never played Filipino characters (e.g., Carrere was Chinese American in Wayne's World ) or their racial identities remained unaddressed (e.g., Basco as Rufio in Hook ), I did not know for certain that they were Filipino American like me. And because the internet was not readily accessible (nor fully informational) until my late adolescence , I could not easily find out.

Through my Ethnic Studies classes as an undergraduate student (and my later research on Asian American and Filipino American experiences with microaggressions), I discovered that my perspectives were not that unique. Many Asian Americans and other people of color often struggle with their racial and ethnic identity development —with many citing how a lack of media representation negatively impacts their self-esteem and overall views of their racial or cultural groups. Scholars and community leaders have declared mottos like how it's "hard to be what you can’t see," asserting that people from marginalized groups do not pursue career or academic opportunities when they are not exposed to such possibilities. For example, when women (and women of color specifically) don’t see themselves represented in STEM fields , they may internalize that such careers are not made for them. When people of color don’t see themselves in the arts or in government positions, they likely learn similar messages too.

Complicating these messages are my intersectional identities as a queer person of color. In my teens, it was heartbreakingly lonely to witness everyday homophobia (especially unnecessary homophobic language) in almost all television programming. The few visual examples I saw of anyone LGBTQ involved mostly white, gay, cisgender people. While there was some comfort in seeing them navigate their coming out processes or overcome heterosexism on screen, their storylines often appeared unrealistic—at least in comparison to the nuanced homophobia I observed in my religious, immigrant family. In some ways, not seeing LGBTQ people of color in the media kept me in the closet for years.

How representation can help

Representation can serve as opportunities for minoritized people to find community support and validation. For example, recent studies have found that social media has given LGBTQ young people the outlets to connect with others—especially when the COVID-19 pandemic has limited in-person opportunities. Given the increased suicidal ideation, depression , and other mental health issues among LGBTQ youth amidst this global pandemic, visibility via social media can possibly save lives. Relatedly, taking Ethnic Studies courses can be valuable in helping students to develop a critical consciousness that is culturally relevant to their lives. In this way, representation can allow students of color to personally connect to school, potentially making their educational pursuits more meaningful.

Further, representation can be helpful in reducing negative stereotypes about other groups. Initially discussed by psychologist Dr. Gordon Allport as Intergroup Contact Theory, researchers believed that the more exposure or contact that people had to groups who were different from them, the less likely they would maintain prejudice . Literature has supported how positive LGBTQ media representation helped transform public opinions about LGBTQ people and their rights. In 2019, the Pew Research Center reported that the general US population significantly changed their views of same-sex marriage in just 15 years—with 60% of the population being opposed in 2004 to 61% in favor in 2019. While there are many other factors that likely influenced these perspective shifts, studies suggest that positive LGBTQ media depictions played a significant role.

For Asian Americans and other groups who have been historically underrepresented in the media, any visibility can feel like a win. For example, Gold House recently featured an article in Vanity Fair , highlighting the power of Asian American visibility in the media—citing blockbuster films like Crazy Rich Asians and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings . Asian American producers like Mindy Kaling of Never Have I Ever and The Sex Lives of College Girls demonstrate how influential creators of color can initiate their own projects and write their own storylines, in order to directly increase representation (and indirectly increase mental health and positive esteem for its audiences of color).

When representation is not enough

However, representation simply is not enough—especially when it is one-dimensional, superficial, or not actually representative. Some scholars describe how Asian American media depictions still tend to reinforce stereotypes, which may negatively impact identity development for Asian American youth. Asian American Studies is still needed to teach about oppression and to combat hate violence. Further, representation might also fail to reflect the true diversity of communities; historically, Brown Asian Americans have been underrepresented in Asian American media, resulting in marginalization within marginalized groups. For example, Filipino Americans—despite being the first Asian American group to settle in the US and one of the largest immigrant groups—remain underrepresented across many sectors, including academia, arts, and government.

Representation should never be the final goal; instead, it should merely be one step toward equity. Having a diverse cast on a television show is meaningless if those storylines promote harmful stereotypes or fail to address societal inequities. Being the “first” at anything is pointless if there aren’t efforts to address the systemic obstacles that prevent people from certain groups from succeeding in the first place.

Instead, representation should be intentional. People in power should aim for their content to reflect their audiences—especially if they know that doing so could assist in increasing people's self-esteem and wellness. People who have the opportunity to represent their identity groups in any sector may make conscious efforts to use their influence to teach (or remind) others that their communities exist. Finally, parents and teachers can be more intentional in ensuring that their children and students always feel seen and validated. By providing youth with visual representations of people they can relate to, they can potentially save future generations from a lifetime of feeling underrepresented or misunderstood.

Kevin Leo Yabut Nadal, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the City University of New York and the author of books including Microaggressions and Traumatic Stress .

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Media Representations: What Are They and Why Do They Matter?

I grew up in Mexico City, Mexico. When I was younger, I would watch telenovelas with my friend Fernanda after school. We would both sit on her white, fur rug, our backpacks flung across the room.

For an hour every day, I saw all the women I could be: a ranchera keeping my land safe from a dastardly uncle, a time traveler, a queen. All the possibilities were in front of me.

I moved back to the United States in middle school. I watched television, but it lacked the color and excitement of the telenovelas I was used to in Mexico. The only Latinas that showed up in the shows I watched were gardeners or maids. I felt invisible and lost. It wasn’t until recently when I saw shows like “One Day at a Time” and “Jane the Virgin” that I felt like that kid watching telenovelas again.

Media representations are when people see themselves reflected in the things they watch, read, listen to and engage with every day. This is the experience I missed when I moved from Mexico to the United States. It’s also something Keah Brown, a writer from New York, experienced as a child watching "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella" with Brandy and Whitney Houston.

“It meant a lot to me see black women being treated like princesses and being desirable and worthwhile enough to fall in love,” said Brown. “And I think that's very important but at the same time we have a long way to go. I don't know any proper representation of disabled black women. I haven't seen that yet.”

Media representations are the main focus of Lisa Behm-Morowitz’s research at the University of Missouri. She is an associate professor of communication and is involved in the Media and Diversity Center on campus.

“(At the Media and Diversity Center), we’re interested in studying the ways that mediated portrayals may influence people’s perceptions of certain social groups,” said Behm-Morowitz.

Behm-Morowitz said seeing certain groups in media help people form their thoughts and ideas about those groups.

“If you think about it, you have limited contact with diverse groups in maybe your daily activities. And a lot of our contact, if you want to call it that, comes from media representations,” said Behm-Morowitz.

The researchers at the Media and Diversity Center help people with media literacy, to be more critical consumers of the things they watch. Behm-Morowitz said it’s important to seek out characters and stories that aren’t easy or stereotypical.

“An example of this might be ABC’s show Blackish, where I think there is a fairly nuanced portrayal of different types of issues--social issues, economic issues--that black Americans might experience,” said Behm-Morowitz.

Network executives and film producers are understanding the need for a more diverse set of characters, she said, but there’s still a long way to go.

In the meantime, people are creating their own media to see themselves represented. That’s what inspired RJ Lackie, a writer and web series creator from Toronto.

“I can't say I've saw any, really, depictions of gay characters that felt like real representation,” Lackie said. “It may not have even been until 2014 when HBO's "Looking" came out that I really saw a character that really resonated with that part of my identity and made me feel seen.”

He said this lack of representation made him dedicated to writing gay characters into his work.

“It's one of the reasons why as a screenwriter I want to make stories that have specifically gay main characters because we deserve to be at the center of things once and awhile,” Lackie said. “All marginalized people do.”

This week's show was produced by Erin McKinstry. Music for this week's episode comes from Blue Dot Sessions  (Tuck and Point, available under CC BY-NC 4.0).

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Representation of Diversity in Media – Overview

Media representation issues

What we see – and don’t see – in media affects how we view reality. Media works can be imagined either as mirrors that reflect an audience’s own experience, windows that give them access to experiences they otherwise wouldn’t have known, or in some cases both. Rosemary Truglio, Senior Vice President of Sesame Workshop, described the diverse cast of Sesame Street as giving children “a mirror for them to see themselves, and (…) a window for them to learn about others." [1]

Sesame Street was a milestone in representation of race and disability in children’s media.

Media portrayals may provide different audiences with mirrors but not windows, or vice-versa, and a lack of either can have a negative impact. For members of historically under-represented groups, “when you have never seen yourself in books or movies or music, the first time you do is stunning.” [2] Similarly, “for children from dominant groups, window moments in stories come when the children realize they hold a powerful place in society and that there is something unjust about this.” [3] Unfortunately, fewer than half of Canadians feel that “Canadian media is a mirror in which all Canadians can see themselves.” [4]

In mass media, these issues typically play out in three ways:

Under-representation : Many groups have historically been under-represented in media. Even today, we are less likely to encounter many forms of diversity in mass media than we are in real life – and diverse communities are typically even less well-represented behind the scenes than onscreen. Under-representation can also make other representation issues worse because less representation means fewer opportunities for authentic representations of diversity within a group.

Besides being simply under-represented, groups may also be de-centred. That means making them or their culture a backdrop for more “mainstream” (e.g. White, abled, cisgender, etc.) protagonists. In some cases this may take the form of having a White character that excels in skills associated with a non-White culture, such as martial arts; stories where characters from under-represented groups need a White or other majority-culture character to “save” them; [5] and cases where aspects of an under-represented culture literally act as a prop. [6]

Stereotyping : This means portraying members of a particular group in just one or a small number of roles. This is particularly worrying when the stereotype is a negative one, but stereotyping can also do harm by only portraying a group in a narrow way. Even so-called “positive stereotypes” can have a negative effect because they limit how we see members of that group, as well as how we see ourselves. For example, if you belong to a group that is stereotyped as being good at sports, but are not particularly athletic, you may feel inadequate for being bad at something you’re “supposed” to be good at.

Another form of stereotyping is exoticizing , emphasizing the ways in which a character or culture are different from the (presumed) audience’s: for instance by overemphasizing aspects of a culture that mainstream audiences are most likely to find strange or disturbing, or by relying on things like accents or stereotyped characteristics for humour. Its most extreme form is othering , in which groups are shown as being fundamentally different from the audience and, in some cases, even as not being fully human.

Stereotyping can also happen when diverse identities always play the same role in the story. Author Corinne Duyvis identifies three ways that a character’s identity may be part of a work: “issue” stories where the identity and the challenges that come with it are what the story is about; “incidental” stories where a character’s identity is apparent but not relevant to the story, such as the main character’s sexual orientation in the Disney film Strange World, which provides a romantic subplot but is never specifically commented on; and “middle ground” stories where the identity is not the focus of the story but is recognized as always being relevant . As Duyvis puts it, “ableism, homophobia, and racism influence countless aspects of people’s everyday lives.” None of these is necessarily better than the other: what is most important is that audiences see all three kinds of stories, so that while marginalized communities’ specific issues and challenges are reflected in media they are also allowed to simply be . [7]

Whitewashing : While it has become rare for White actors to play Black or Asian characters, it remains common for disabled people, 2SLGBTQ+ people and other groups to be played by actors from outside those communities. Similarly, when works are adapted from one medium to another – such as when a book or comic is made into a movie or TV show – it is still fairly common for diverse characters to be changed into White ones, or for characters’ sexual orientation or disabilities to be downplayed or altered.

It’s important to point out that whitewashing only occurs when a character from a historically under-represented group is changed or recast so they are no longer part of that group, leading to reduced representation for that group and less diversity overall. For instance, the casting of a White actor to play an Asian character in the film Doctor Strange would count as whitewashing, while the casting of a Black actor to play a White character in the same film would not. [8]

These three issues are related, of course. Whitewashing contributes to both under-representation and stereotyping, as there are both fewer representations of historically under-represented groups in general and, in particular, fewer authentic representations. Similarly, under-representation contributes to and increases the impact of stereotypes because having fewer characters representing a particular group means fewer opportunities to show members of that group playing different roles in stories and in society.

For more examples of how these apply to different communities, see the specific articles on how each group is represented.

Impacts of media representation

All of these representation issues can have significant effects, both on audiences who are members of historically under-represented groups and those who aren’t. Seeing one’s own group stereotyped can lead to stress, negative self-image [9] and impaired academic achievement, [10] while being exposed to stereotyped portrayals of others can contribute to implicit or explicit prejudice. [11] Even more than changing individual attitudes, media portrayals – because they are seen as representing how others view a group – can have an impact on broader social attitudes towards different groups. [12] At the same time, exposure to authentic portrayals of oneself can improve self-esteem and promote a more positive view of one’s identity [13] or even improve academic performance, [14] while seeing authentic portrayals of other groups – which do not have to be uniformly positive ones [15] – can actually reduce prejudice. [16]

“Works of art are the only silver bullet we have against racism and sexism and hatred […] Art engenders empathy in a way that politics doesn’t, and in a way that nothing else really does. Art creates change in people’s hearts. But it happens slowly.” [17]   Lin-Manuel Miranda

There can be significant impacts if different groups are not represented behind the scenes, as well. In mass media, under-representation behind the scenes generally results in under-representation on the screen, but it can also contribute to stereotyping as the portrayals are less likely to be authentic. [18] In digital media, not having historically under-represented groups involved at the design and management levels can lead to their experiences and concerns being ignored or treated as afterthoughts.

For more examples of how these affect different communities, see the specific articles on how each group is represented.

Intersectionality

While the other articles in this section address media portrayals of different groups separately, it’s important to point out that for many people they are not experienced that way. Many people identify with more than one historically marginalized or under-represented group, particularly when gender is added to the equation. Legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” to conceptualize “the way that different identity markers, such as race, gender, sexuality, and class, interact and affect each other.” [19]

Intersectionality does not mean that the impacts of different identities (including stereotyping) simply add on to one another, but that they transform and sometimes conflict with one another. East Asian women are frequently hypersexualized in media, [20] for example, while for East Asian men the stereotype is often the reverse. [21] However, audiences tend to consider just one aspect of intersectional identities. [22] When the stereotypes associated with two identities conflict with one another, people who identify with both may face confusion [23] or even hostility [24] from others.

It’s important to consider intersectionality both when making media and when critiquing it. For media makers, “shows and movies that attempt to lift up marginalized communities without thinking about intersectionality are only perpetuating different systems of prejudice and oppression.” [25] As well, some intersections may be an easier “sell” than others, both to audiences and the media industry. While the title character of House M.D. (2004-2012) both had a physical disability and was an outspoken atheist, he was also White; conversely, the showrunner of the currently running (2022) series Abbott Elementary said of one character’s canonical but unseen agnosticism “I honestly don’t know if we would be able to present that on ABC. It may not seem a big deal, but for a Black girl in Philadelphia — there are very few agnostic people.” [26]

When critiquing media, we should consider not just whether individual characters are stereotyped but whether a broad range of diversity, including intersecting identities, is represented. [27] As well, we should make a point of recognizing authentic portrayals of intersectionality in media, such as Reservation Dogs and Hawkeye. Finally, taking an intersectional approach to media education means considering other digital media issues – from cyberbullying to advertising to digital access and privacy – through an intersectional lens: not assuming, for example, that only White youth suffer from body image issues, and giving all young people a chance to confront the distinct ways that those issues affect them. [28]

Maya Lopez from the Disney Plus series Hawkeye is Deaf and Indigenous, as is the actor who plays her, Alaqua Cox.

The importance of media education

Young people’s attitudes towards media representation changes over time. Children under nine don’t generally question whether what they see in media reflects their reality unless they are prompted to by parents or teachers. Tween and teens typically begin to become aware of media representation issues, especially if they are members of under-represented or stereotyped groups. By their later teens many actively seek out works with better representation. [29]

Media education can help young people put current images and messages into perspective by helping them understand how the media work, why stereotyping exists, how decisions are made and why it matters who is involved in making media works. Digital media literacy, especially if it explicitly addresses stereotyping and other media representation issues, can correct misperceptions of and prejudices towards other groups. [30] For young people who see stereotyped depictions of themselves in media works, media literacy can also mitigate negative effects on their self-esteem. [31]

Media education has also been shown to be an effective way of approaching issues like racism, providing a way of discussing difficult topics that feels safer while still challenging students’ assumptions and preconceptions [32] and can also help students affected by stereotyping deal with its effects. [33] Talking about media portrayals of diversity, especially positive ones, can also be a way of affirming students’ identities and encouraging them to create works that reflect those identities.

Positive portrayals don’t just avoid stereotyping, under-representation and the other issues identified above. They also:

• take the extra step of authentically portraying the challenges that members of under-represented communities face, such as racism or accessibility issues;
• tell stories of characters’ accommodations, resilience and agency in the face of those challenges; and
• show characters in the context of, and connected to, their communities. [34]

Media education is not about learning the right answers; it’s about consuming media images with an active, critical mind and asking the right questions.

Here are a few examples of the types of questions that could lead to a better understanding of how different groups are represented depicted in media:

Who selected or created these images and stories? Why does it matter who made these selections?

The first principle in media education is that nothing is objective—each and every media production is created with a viewpoint and for a purpose. The “reality” depicted in film or television productions is the result of many choices and each of these choices is based on the experience, knowledge and bias of the producers involved. More important than any conscious choices are the questions media makers don’t ask – the things they believe they already know. When members of historically marginalized groups are not involved in making shows, movies, news coverage or other media featuring them, it shows.

It’s also important to understand that media can have very different meanings depending on who made them, and that marginalized groups may “reclaim” stereotyped portrayals for their own purposes.

Whose voices are being heard? Whose voices are absent? Why?

Who is interviewed on a current affairs program? Which “experts” are chosen for sound bites on an issue? Whose perspectives are ignored completely? If characters or cultures representing a historically marginalized group are represented in a media text, have the creators of that text made significant efforts to consult with those communities, as Disney did when making Frozen II and Moana ? [35]

The question of whose voices are heard isn’t just important in mass media. While digital technology has made it easier than ever for people to make and share their own media, the online platforms where they share their work – whose ownership and workforce remain overwhelmingly White [36] – do not provide sufficient moderation and tools to push back against hate speech, they may fall silent in the face of online harassment. [37]

Why are certain stories selected or privileged and others not? Are some groups only represented in a small number of frames or contexts? Are characters representing diverse communities shown as real human beings in media, or are they defined exclusively by their identity? Do depictions respect differences and diversity within these communities?

Media producers, especially those in Hollywood, have used members of historically marginalized groups to tell mainstream cultures’ stories for generations. Rarely are diverse characters given complex personalities or autonomous roles. Rarely do they rely on their own values and judgements, or act upon their own motivations. Although efforts have been made to undo this tradition, old stereotypes die hard. [38]

This question highlights why it’s important not to look just as specific media works, but at the bigger picture. Each individual game, movie, or TV show with a White, non-disabled, cisgender, heterosexual, non-denominational Christian protagonist does not necessarily matter by itself, but when all of these are seen as the default identity for a main character it sends a powerful message about who can be the “main character” and who cannot.

How do commercial considerations, including the “conventional wisdom” in the industry, lead to issues around stereotyping and representation?

Commercial considerations are often given as a reason for excluding members of historically under-represented communities, whether explicitly (such as the assumption that White audiences won’t see movies with non-White leads) [39] or implicitly (by saying, for instance, that a movie needs a “big-name” lead to be successful – without saying out loud that most of those big names are White, non-disabled, heterosexual and cisgender). [40] While this industry conventional wisdom has been proven to be false, it’s still widely held. [41]

Characteristics of different media industries, in different countries, can also have an impact on whether diversity is represented. The Canadian television industry is often described as highly risk-averse, with licensing American shows seen as a safer bet than developing Canadian ones. As a result, when diversity does appear on private Canadian channels such as Global and CTV, it more often reflects the population of the United States than Canada’s. When private broadcasters do make original programming, they tend to play it safe – which usually means making shows aimed at White audiences. [42] As the report Deciding on Diversity puts it, “Risk narratives about equity-seeking stories and storytellers persist to preserve the status quo.” [43] Nathalie Younglai, founder of BIPOC TV and Film, paraphrases TV executives’ attitudes more bluntly: “How is this Canadian? How does someone in Saskatchewan relate to this?” [44]

Similarly, digital technology companies claim to be motivated by market pressures in deciding things like which languages digital assistants should be able to speak; this, too, often fails to hold true in the light of accurate data – Apple’s Siri, for instance, is offered in Finnish (which has about five million native speakers) but not Swahili (which has nearly a hundred million). [45]  

How can different audiences “read against” or negotiate the meaning of a work with representation issues?

Some audiences, especially those from groups that have traditionally been marginalized in media industries, may engage in “resistant reading,” interpreting works in ways that are directly contrary to the generally received meaning. Nevertheless, it is true that, as bell hooks put it, “While audiences are clearly not passive and are able to pick and choose, it is simultaneously true that there are certain ‘received’ messages that are rarely mediated by the will of the audience.” [46]

In other words, while we don’t automatically accept the surface meaning of media works, most of us will take away a meaning that is fairly close to it. Only a small number of people, mostly those whose identity or experience lead them to a resistant reading, will have a significantly different interpretation. Until members of these groups have more meaningful participation in the media industries, however, neither the portrayals nor the mainstream audience’s interpretation of them are likely to change.

Resistant reading is also easier in some media than others: in most video games, for instance, ‘resistant play’ – choosing actions other than the ones the designers assume you will take – will prevent you from progressing very far in the game. [47]

How may the codes and conventions of the medium and genre perpetuate stereotyping and representation issues?

Both different media (such as TV, film or video games) and different genres (science fiction, advertising, animation, et cetera) have their own codes and conventions that may lead media makers to fall into stereotyping or under-representation, often unconsciously. For example, both advertising and news (especially headlines) have to grab the audience’s attention right away and communicate information in a small amount of time. As a result they often use stereotypes as a kind of “shorthand” that allows the audience to fill in what they already know (or think they know). Similarly, animation and comics – and works in other media that are based on comic or cartoon characters – often have characters whose racist origins are still apparent, or for whom traits like facial scarring, prosthetic limbs or stereotypically Jewish features serve as visual markers of villainy.

Even when media works try to confront racism, homophobia and other issues, there may be fundamental features of certain media, like the episodic nature of news and the focus in fictional media on individual characters, that lead them to portray these primarily as something perpetrated by individuals and downplay their systemic qualities. [48]

How can digital tools and platforms give voice to historically marginalized communities? How may they contribute to marginalization?

Unlike traditional media, there are no one-way connections in digital media. You can share content with other people as easily as a producer or distributor shares it with you. As a result, the barriers to participation are much lower than in traditional media and anyone can publish content and find an audience. But while power in networks is not hierarchical, neither is it evenly distributed: it rests in the nodes with the most links. This means that those who had gatekeeping power in the old media environment have had their influence reduced, but not eliminated.

For instance, while online publishing has made it possible for historically under-represented groups to “restory themselves” by making versions of popular culture works that include and even centre their own experiences, [49] online platforms also have tremendous power to either promote or suppress the same voices through the algorithms that determine what is shown or recommended to users. [50] As the historian of science Melvin Kranzberg put it, different technologies are neither inherently good nor inherently bad, but neither are they neutral: [51] like mass media, they reflect the beliefs, unconscious biases and unquestioned assumptions of their creators.

As a result, the impacts that networked technology have had on historically under-represented groups are complex. Online spaces can provide diverse communities, especially those that are geographically far-flung, with an ‘ecosystem’ that would not be possible with traditional media; [52] at the same time, content moderation systems can apply censorship that is more absolute than was ever found in film and television, limiting the ability of marginalized youth to access relevant health information, [53] to monetize content that reflects their community [54] and even to speak the name of their identity. [55]

Technical tools have an impact on how we use them not just through their affordances (what can be done with them) but also their defaults (what we are expected to do with them). For example, one study of video games found that while 23 percent had affordances that allowed players to choose their character’s race, 60 percent of those defaulted to a White character unless the player actively changed it. [56] Whether or not members of diverse communities were involved in the design of those affordances and defaults may determine whether they work successfully when used in or by those communities: a review of facial algorithms found that they were at least ten times as likely to mis-identify a Black or East Asian face as a White one, [57] for example, and many digital assistants such as Siri and Alexa routinely misunderstand Black users. [58]

Networked media can also make it possible, or easier, for marginalized groups to experience harms that were not possible or less likely with traditional media. One of these is amplification: [59] for example, the frictionless quality of networked media allows hate groups to broadcast their messages more widely and to tailor them to potential audiences at different levels of the “radicalization pyramid.” Amplification does not only apply to intentional acts, though. It can also reflect a harm that already exists and make it more widespread by embedding it in the operation of a networked tool – for example, for many years Google searches for terms such as “Asian girls” and “Black girls” returned primarily pornographic results, reflecting how they were most often used in the wider internet, while “White girls” did not. [60] Questions as simple as who appears in an image search for “doctor” or “happy family” can have a huge impact on how different groups are perceived. [61]

A Google image search for “happy family” conducted in March 2022.

As with the other search terms mentioned above, Google has taken some positive steps in this regard as a result of consumer pressure. [62] This demonstrates why a key part of media education is empowering young people to make their voices heard through making and publishing their own media, as well as to push back against stereotypes and other misrepresentations in media and to use digital tools to make a difference in their online and offline communities.

• MediaSmarts lessons that teach students to make their voices heard through media making include Representing Ourselves Online , Avatars and Body Image , Bias in News Sources , First Person and Art Exchange .
• MediaSmarts’ guide Talk Back! How to Take Action on Media Issues explains the rules and codes that apply to different media industries on issues such as stereotyping and representation and includes some advice on how to use social networks to speak out on a media issue.
• Speak Up! Your Guide to Changing the World, Online and Off explains how to use digital tools like social networks to share your views and organize others in making change.

How can educators limit resistance and backlash when addressing diversity in media?

Two of the most common risks of addressing diversity representation in media are resistance – in which students challenge the validity of media education as practice, such as by dismissing the work under study as “just an ad” or suggesting that the teacher is reading meaning into a work that isn’t there – and backlash , in which students feel the teacher is pushing their own views or interpretations, rather than encouraging students to articulate and argue their own.

One way of minimizing these is having young people explore questions, such as the ones listed above, rather than leading them towards a pre-ordained conclusion. While it is important to make them aware of the facts of representation in media, conclusions about the implications of those facts – and appropriate responses – should emerge from critical thinking and discussion.

Another important approach is to help students understand the key concept that all media have social and political implications – and that when they appear not to, it’s because they reinforce how you already see the world. Similarly, while we may be tempted to dismiss the importance of entertainment media relative to things like news, we are actually more likely to be persuaded by works that “transport” us and bypass our critical minds. [63]

As well, highlight to students that it is possible for a media work to be problematic in some aspects of its portrayal of diversity but successful in others. The 2016 film Doctor Strange , for instance, had many problematic elements in its portrayal of cultural diversity but also a fairly nuanced representation of the main character’s disability and his efforts to accommodate it. [64]

Perhaps most importantly, it’s important to teach students from early on that critiquing a part of something doesn’t mean you don’t like it, nor does critiquing a work mean that you’re criticizing anyone who likes it. Criticizing our children’s media choices can easily make them feel we’re criticizing them. There is a difference between a media work that was motivated by racism or sexism and one where it’s the result of the media-maker not questioning their assumptions or the “conventional wisdom” of their industry. Most of the time, the messages in the things they make aren’t on purpose but because of things they assumed or questions they didn’t think to ask. (It’s important to understand that the people who make media aren’t necessarily media literate in the critical sense.)

As Turner Classic Movies host Jacqueline Stewart points out, this is a distinction that people in historically under-represented groups often learn early. Describing a childhood viewing of Gone With the Wind, Stewart notes that “Black audiences have always juggled the pleasures and problems of mainstream media. I was learning that you can enjoy a film even as you are critiquing it." [65] Of course, we also have to make a habit of studying accurate representations as well as critiquing negative ones – and recognize that a work may be positive in some aspects but problematic in others.

There may also be backlash from students relating specifically to the topic of diversity representation. This can be a result of a belief in the value of colour-blindness; though generally well-meaning, this attitude has been shown to contribute to prejudice, rather than reducing it, because it denies the identities and experiences of historically under-represented groups and prevents us from addressing the challenges and injustices they face. [66] Instead, stereotypes need to be acknowledged and faced head-on. As Jeffrey Adam Smith, author of Are We Born Racist? , puts it, “When we encounter a ‘slant-eyed, Oriental mastermind’ (to quote one old comic of mine), I stop, close the book, and tell [my son] that image is a product of prejudice, and that I think prejudice is wrong. I try to answer any questions he has. Then I re-open the book… and keep reading.” [67]

Young people may also want to distance themselves from a sense that they are accused of being prejudiced, or that they benefit from a prejudiced system. To explore different ways of addressing this, see our article on Privilege in the Media and our guide to Complicated Conversations in the Classroom .     

For more tips on how to approach digital media literacy, see our article on Digital Media Literacy Fundamentals .

[1] Fried, A. (2019) “50 years of ‘Sesame Street’ diversity.” Axios. Retrieved from https://www.axios.com/sesame-street-50-years-diversity-fbf12f39-3e48-4c07-9eb3-d43d9ed3ec43.html

[2] Laughlin, A. (2017) “Why it’s so powerful to see yourself represented in pop culture.” The Washington Post.

[3] Cunningham, K. (2013) “‘What does this book have to do with me?’ Why mirror and window books are important for all readers.” The Open Book Blog. Retrieved from  https://blog.leeandlow.com/2013/02/04/what-does-this-book-have-to-do-with-me-why-mirror-and-window-books-are-important-for-all-readers/

[4] (2017) “Cultural Diversity in Canadian Media.” Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Retrieved from https://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/301/pwgsc-tpsgc/por-ef/crtc/2017/063-16-e/report.html

[5] Hughey, M. (2015) The Whiteness of Oscar Night. Contexts . Retrieved from https://contexts.org/blog/the-whiteness-of-oscar-night/

[6] Szeto, W. (2022) Cultural faux pas in Netflix show draws ire from Japanese people in Canada and beyond. CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/netflix-cobra-kai-japanese-culture-misrepresentation-1.6362229

[7] Duyvis, C. (2014) Diverse characters: Corinne Duyvis on the decline of “issue” books. The Guardian . Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/oct/17/decline-of-issue-books-incidental-diversity

[8] Yee, L. (2016) “Asian American Media Group Blasts Tilda Swinton Casting in ‘Doctor Strange.’” Variety . Retrieved from  https://variety.com/2016/film/news/doctor-strange-whitewashing-ancient-one-tilda-swinton-manaa-1201908555/

[9] Appel, M., & Weber, S. (2021). Do mass mediated stereotypes harm members of negatively stereotyped groups? A meta-analytical review on media-generated stereotype threat and stereotype lift. Communication Research , 48 (2), 151-179.

[10] Appel, M., & Weber, S. (2021). Do mass mediated stereotypes harm members of negatively stereotyped groups? A meta-analytical review on media-generated stereotype threat and stereotype lift. Communication Research , 48 (2), 151-179.

[11] Mastro, D., & Stamps, D. (2018). An examination of racial/ethnic inclusion in the media and the implications of exposure on audiences. Mediated communication , 341-358.

[12] Charlesworth, T. E., & Banaji, M. R. (2019). Patterns of implicit and explicit attitudes II. Long-term change and stability, regardless of group membership. American Psychologist .

[13] Mastro, D., & Stamps, D. (2018). An examination of racial/ethnic inclusion in the media and the implications of exposure on audiences. Mediated communication , 341-358.

[14] Riley, E. (2018). Role models in movies: the impact of Queen of Katwe on students' educational attainment. The Review of Economics and Statistics , 1-48.

[15] Schiappa, E., Gregg, P. B., & Hewes, D. E. (2005). The parasocial contact hypothesis. Communication monographs , 72 (1), 92-115.

[16] Alrababah, A., Marble, W., Mousa, S., & Siegel, A. (2019). Can exposure to celebrities reduce prejudice? The effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic behaviors and attitudes.

[17] DiGiacomo, F. (2015) “‘Hamilton’’s Lin-Manuel Miranda on Finding Originality, Racial Politics (and Why Trump Should See His Show.)” The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved from  https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/hamiltons-lin-manuel-miranda-finding-814657/

[18] World Economic Forum. (2021) Reflecting Society: The State of Diverse Representation in Media and Entertainment. Retrieved from  http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_State_of_Diverse_Representation_in_Media_and_Entertainment_2021.pdf

[19] Baten, J. (2021) “More Than an Afterthought: Authentically Representing Intersectionality in Media.” Center for Scholars and Storytellers. Retrieved from  https://www.scholarsandstorytellers.com/blog-main/diversity-in-hollywood-the-importance-of-representing-intersectional-identities

[20] Ramirez, R. (2021) “The history of fetishizing Asian women.” Vox. Retrieved from  https://www.vox.com/22338807/asian-fetish-racism-atlanta-shooting

[21] Kung, A. (2020) “The desexualization of the Asian American male.” CNN. Retrieved from  https://www.cnn.com/style/article/andrew-kung-asian-american-men/index.html

[22] Petsko, C. D., Rosette, A. S., & Bodenhausen, G. V. Through the Looking Glass: A Lens-Based Account of Intersectional Stereotyping.

[23] Roese, K., et al. (2021) How to Diversity Autism Representation in the Media and Why Intersectionality Matters. Center for Scholars and Storytellers. Retrieved from  https://www.scholarsandstorytellers.com/blog-main/how-to-diversify-autism-representation-in-the-media-and-why-intersectionality-matters

[24] Burkett, C. (2020) “’Autistic while black’: How autism amplifies stereotypes.” Spectrum News. Retrieved from  https://www.spectrumnews.org/opinion/viewpoint/autistic-while-black-how-autism-amplifies-stereotypes/

[25] Baten, J. (2021) “More Than an Afterthought: Authentically Representing Intersectionality in Media.” Center for Scholars and Storytellers. Retrieved from  https://www.scholarsandstorytellers.com/blog-main/diversity-in-hollywood-the-importance-of-representing-intersectional-identities

[26] Marchese, D. (2022) “Quinta Brunson Knows Why America Was Ready for Abbott Elementary. ” The New York Times .

[27] Pemberton, L. (2020) “Inclusion – ‘Wakanda forever!’ NurseryWorld. Retrieved from  https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/features/article/inclusion-wakanda-forever

[28] Tate, A. (2021) “‘Eating disorders are for white girls.’” Culture Study. Retrieved from  https://annehelen.substack.com/p/eating-disorders-are-for-white-girls

[29] Dickson, J. (2022) Kids talk representation and authenticity in Being Seen report. Kidscreen.

[30] Erba, J., Chen, Y., & Kang, H. (2019). Using media literacy to counter stereotypical images of blacks and Latinos at a predominantly White University. Howard Journal of Communications , 30 (1), 1-22.

[31] Stamps, D. (2021). Media literacy as liberator: Black audiences’ adoption of media literacy, news media consumption, and perceptions of self and group members. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication , 14 (3), 240-257.

[32] Cho, H., & Johnson, P. (2020). Racism and Sexism in Superhero Movies: Critical Race Media Literacy in the Korean High School Classroom. International Journal of Multicultural Education , 22 (2), 66–86. https://doi.org/10.18251/ijme.v22i2.2427

[33] Volpe, V. V., Willis, H. A., Joseph, P., & Tynes, B. M. (2021). Liberatory media literacy as protective against posttraumatic stress for emerging adults of color. Journal of traumatic stress , 34 (5), 1045-1055.

[34] Pineau, M.G., & Handt J. (2022) Reckoning with Race in Adolescent Stories. Center for Scholars & Storytellers. Retrieved from https://www.scholarsandstorytellers.com/blog-main/reframing-adolescence-race-in-teen-stories-in-film-and-tv

[35] Simonpillai, R. (2019) “Disney signed a contract with Indigenous people before making Frozen II.” Now Toronto. Retrieved from https://nowtoronto.com/movies/news-features/disney-frozen-2-indigenous-culture-sami

[36] Dirksen, A. (2020) “Decolonizing Digital Spaces.” Published in Citizenship in a Connected Canada: A Research and Policy Agenda , Dubois and Martin-Barieteau, eds. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3620179

[37] Kassam, A. (2017, July 27). First Nations leader urges Canada to prosecute “out of hand” hate speech. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www. theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/27/canada-first-nations-hate-speech- bobby-cameron

[38] Burke, S. E. (2015). A comparative content analysis of African American and Caucasian role portrayals in broadcast television entertainment programming . Wayne State University.

[39] Jagernauth, K. (2014) “Ridley Scott Says ‘Exodus’ Would Never Get Financed Starring ‘Mohammad So-and-So From Such-And-Such’.” IndieWire . Retrieved from  https://www.indiewire.com/2014/11/ridley-scott-says-exodus-would-never-get-financed-starring-mohammad-so-and-so-from-such-and-such-269706/

[40] Han, Angie. (2017) “The 8 main excuses Hollywood uses for racially insensitive casting – and why they're BS.” Mashable. Retrieved from  https://mashable.com/article/movie-whitewashing-excuses

[41] Higginbotham, G.D., et al. (2020) Beyond Checking a Box: A Lack of Authentically Inclusive Representation Has Costs at the Box Office. Center for Scholars & Storytellers. Retrieved rom https://www.scholarsandstorytellers.com/s/CSS-AIR-Final-Research-Report-9bch.pdf

[42] Roberts, S. (2022) “The Superficial Diversity of Canadian TV.” The Walrus . Retrieved from https://thewalrus.ca/canadian-television/

[43] Coales, A., & Verhoeven D. (2021) Deciding on Diversity: COVID-19, Risk and Intersectional Inequality in the Canadian Film and Television Industry. Retrieved from https://wiftcanadacoalition.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DOD-Report_English_September30-2021-1.pdf

[44] Roberts, S. (2022) “The Superficial Diversity of Canadian TV.” The Walrus . Retrieved from https://thewalrus.ca/canadian-television/

[45] Rangarajan, S. (2021) “Hey, Siri: Why Don’t You Understand More People Like Me?” Mother Jones .

[46] hooks, b. (1996). Reel to reel: Race, sex, and class at the movies. New York: Routledge

[47] Barr, P., Khaled, R., Noble, J., & Biddle, R. (2006, May). Feeling strangely fine: the well-being economy in popular games. In International Conference on Persuasive Technology (pp. 60-71). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

[48] Behnken, B. D., & Smithers, G. D. (2015). Racism in American Popular Media: From Aunt Jemima to the Frito Bandito. ABC-CLIO.

[49] Thomas, E. E., & Stornaiuolo, A. (2016). Restorying the self: Bending toward textual justice. Harvard Educational Review , 86 (3), 313-338.

[50] Botella, E. (2019) “TikTok Admits It Suppressed Videos by Disabled, Queer, and Fat Creators.” Slate. Retrieved from https://slate.com/technology/2019/12/tiktok-disabled-users-videos-suppressed.html

[51] Kranzberg, M. (1986). “Technology and History: Kranzberg's Laws". Technology and culture, 27(3), 544-560.

[52] Robards, B., et al. (2017) “Is there something queer about Tumblr?” Scrolling Beyond Binaries. Retrieved from https://scrollingbeyondbinaries.com/2017/01/23/is-there-something-queer-about-tumblr/

[53] Feathers, T. (2021) “Schools Use Software That Blocks LGBTQ+ Content, But Not White Supremacists.” Vice. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7em39/schools-use-software-that-blocks-lgbtq-content-but-not-white-supremacists

[54] Yin, L., & Sankin A. “Google Blocks Advertisers from Targeting Black Lives Matter YouTube Videos.” The Markup. Retrieved from https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2021/04/09/google-blocks-advertisers-from-targeting-black-lives-matter-youtube-videos

[55] Orland, K. “Blizzard, trans clans, and the evolution of online harassment policy.” Ars Technica. Retrieved from https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/blizzard-trans-clans-and-the-evolution-of-online-harassment-policy/

[56] (n.d.) “Ethnicity in Games.” Diversity in Gaming. Retrieved from https://techtalk.currys.co.uk/tv-gaming/gaming/diversity-in-gaming/ethnicity-in-games.html

[57] Bushwick, S. (2019) “How NIST Tested Facial Recognition Algorithms for Racial Bias.” Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-nist-tested-facial-recognition-algorithms-for-racial-bias/

[58] Metz, C. (2020) “There Is a Racial Divide in Speech-Recognition Systems, Researchers Say.” The New York Times . Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/technology/speech-recognition-bias-apple-amazon-google.html

[59] Ko., A.J., et al. (2021) Critically Conscious Computing: Methods for Secondary Education. Retrieved from https://criticallyconsciouscomputing.org/

[60] Yin, L., & Sankin A. “Google Ad Portal Equated Black Girls with Porn.” The Markup. Retrieved from https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2020/07/23/google-advertising-keywords-black-girls

[61] Grant, N. (2021) “Google quietly tweaks image search for racially diverse results.” Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/google-quietly-tweaks-image-search-for-racially-diverse-results-1.1668661

[62] Grant, N. (2021) “Google quietly tweaks image search for racially diverse results.” Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/google-quietly-tweaks-image-search-for-racially-diverse-results-1.1668661

[63] Green, M. C., & Clark, J. L. (2013). Transportation into narrative worlds: implications for entertainment media influences on tobacco use. Addiction , 108 (3), 477-484.

[64] Radillo, R. (2021) Orientalism (And Disability) In Scott Derrickson’s ‘Doctor Strange’ (2016). The Daily Fandom. Retrieved from https://thedailyfandom.org/orientalism-and-disability-doctor-strange/

[65] Keegan, R. (2021) “Racist, Sexist … Classic? How Hollywood Is Dealing With Its Problematic Content.” The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved from  https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/racist-sexist-classic-how-hollywood-is-dealing-with-its-problematic-content-4141665/

[66] Blais, D. (2010) “The Perils of Colorblindness.” Greater Good Magazine . Retrieved from  https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_perils_of_colorblindness

[67] Smith, J.A. (2012) “How to Really Read Racist Books to Your Kids.” Greater Good Magazine. Retrieved from  https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_really_read_racist_books_to_your_kids

Media & News Literacy

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Research & data, media representation: videos.

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Teaching Resources

• Media Representation of Race & Ethnicity Overviews and lesson plan from the Critical Media Project
• "Representation in Media and Information" Learning Module From UNESCO's Media Literacy Information for Teachers resource

Media Representation in the News

• "New CAA study says diverse casting increases box office potential across all budgets" Los Angeles Times, 21 Jun. 2017
• "Starting in 2019, if Your Film Isn’t Diverse, It Won’t Be Eligible for a BAFTA Award" Slate, 19 Dec 2016

Media representation refers to how the media portrays particular groups, communities, and experiences.

• Media Representations of Disability Information and resources from the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
• Re-Search Browser extension makes image searching gender-balanced
• The Representation Project Founded by filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who has directed two films on media representation of gender
• Sociological Images on Pinterest Collections of images around specific themes, such as Women vs People and Racial Objectification
• Race in the Writers Room From Color of Change, Nov. 2017
• Where We Are on TV Report From GLAAD, Nov. 2017
• Film Dialogue from 2,000 Screenplays, Broekn Down by Gender and Age From The Pudding, April 2016
• Annual Hollywood Diversity Report From the Bunche Center at UCLA

Some films below are available via  Kanopy .

• The Try Guys Get Photoshopped Like Women From Buzzfeed video, July 2016
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• Last Updated: May 12, 2022 2:19 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.jmu.edu/medialiteracy

Media uses representations to engage us, and students can benefit from learning how

By Jo Flack

• X (formerly Twitter)

Representations in media engage audiences in order to communicate ideas, information, knowledge or emotions.

Some media goals are simple: sell products and services, such as a movie ticket, a burger or insurance. Other goals are more complex, such as constructing meaning and suggesting points of view around complex issues like global warming, race or gender.

The media industry is built on the assumption that representations that appeal to media consumers will attract bigger audiences.

Representations in media products influence both beliefs and behaviours, which in turn results in greater income for content creators and those who employ them.

Representations have become more sophisticated

The idea of representation is not new. The first cave paintings were representations as are the latest images in an Instagram feed.

A heart has long been a representation of love, but today we’re less likely to send a Valentine’s Day card than click on a ❤ emoji or share a #love TikTok.

This is, in part, due to the way we think of love these days and partly due to the ease of expressing this emotion online.

Once a largely private and romantic experience, today social media allows us to construct a representation of love to share with a range of audiences.

We might ❤ a football team, a cup of coffee or an image of a friend’s cat. We understand both the emotion and the ways it can be represented as we read media messages in context.

Over time, representations have become increasingly sophisticated, building on each other and what has come before, morphing and developing as audiences evolve and technologies allow greater user participation.

Everyone makes media

Today we all create media content, representing ideas for personal audiences such our friends and family. As a result the nature of audience engagement has also changed as we move between media forms and platforms. Sometimes we are part of a mass audience, at other times we are an audience of individuals.

Regardless of the size and type of audience, representations still suggest ideas and sell products as they inform and entertain.

Media success can be measured by both corporations and individuals as they measure the number of views, likes, retweets or comments.

But the line between audience and creator has shifted. With the shift to interactivity, we are all still audiences, but at different times we are also users, members, subscribers, consumers, viewers, listeners, buyers, players, gamers, contributors, commentators, lurkers, influencers and creators.

The proliferation of this terminology reveals much about the changing relationship between the media, its audiences and creators —and about changes in society.

Audiences are primed to prioritise engagement over analysis

Media creators produce works that are designed to influence us in a particular way. This is termed their “preferred reading”.

As audiences, we respond to media representations based on both our understanding of them and the context in which we consume them. Media experts call this process “making a reading”.

We almost never think about the differences between a media creator’s preferred reading and our own. Our readings are mostly instantaneous and subconscious. We accept or reject media representations in the moment based on our understanding of them, which is in turn based on our culture, experience and the emotions they generate.

The media is good at its job and so are its audiences. As experienced and expert instantaneous decoders we laugh, cry, yell, hide our faces or click as we read and respond to media messages.

We’re usually not so interested in thinking about how and why representations are constructed, and we almost never interrogate our reactions and emotions.

But with a bit of practice, it’s possible to engage and analyse simultaneously. Believe it or not this makes the media even more entertaining.

Who is making and promoting this media product? How is it constructed and distributed? Why has it been constructed in this way, and what is its impact?

When thinking about the media’s impact on audiences, begin with yourself and then think of others.

Analysing our own readings can help us think more clearly about how others may react. This method helps us become more analytical and less judgy.

Big picture and fine detail

Get in the habit of asking both the big questions about the role of representations in the media and the small ones about how individual representations have been constructed.

Big picture questions might include:

• Who is the market for this content?
• Why was this media product created?
• Who stands to gain from the production and consumption of this media product?
• What is the preferred reading of representations in this product?
• What do these media representations say about the society in which they were created or distributed?
• How would this content be received and read in different societies?

Fine-detail questions will vary and be specific to individual representations but might include:

• How did the creator structure the message?
• Why is that font so dominant?
• Why is the character costumed in that way?
• What does the use of colour reveal?
• What is the impact of that camera angle and movement?
• What does the use of sound such as dialogue, music and effects contribute?
• How does a particular editing technique make me feel?

New business models and ethical challenges

Audiences have embraced social media — it fits our busy lives, creating connections that are not possible through mainstream media. But like anything new, social media has also created issues and dilemmas that couldn’t have been foreseen.

Every click is harvested, analysed and sold to creators and advertisers who use your tastes, preferences and media-usage patterns to direct your attention to content that is formulated to appeal to you.

It’s no longer possible for parents and teachers to monitor the media use of the young people in their care as was once the case, and while the world is now in our pockets, social media content and industry practices are not always safe or ethical.

The greatest challenge is to balance the positives and negatives by keeping the lines of communication open and educating all stakeholders — parents, teachers, young people and legislators — about its possibilities and problems while celebrating all that social media has to offer.

One thing is certain: it is our future.

Jo Flack is a teacher of over 40 years, specialising in the relationship between media and society. She is an author, a curriculum developer and an assessor, passionate about the possibilities new media offers individuals, communities and the world while being realistic and analytical about the challenges it creates.

Visit ABC Education for more media literacy resources, including classroom activities that explore representations in social media.

It’s all about the socials: classroom activities that explore representations in social media

A guide to statistical literacy in the classroom

Activity: Could we live in a world without news?

Use The News: In media arts or across the curriculum

The News Diet Challenge toolkit

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Introduction: What is Representation?

Asian american representation in the media, human/non-human relationships in media, queer representation in media.

• Other Features
• Indigenous Heritage & History Month
• Defining Representation
• Academic Books
• Scholarly Articles

Welcome! This is our series on representations in media, highlighting how creators have portrayed various communities in the past and present, and where we hope to move in the future. On this page you will find features highlighting the portrayal of Asian American communities, Queer communities, and Animal/non-human species in film and television. These features contain resources for further research along with information on some of the common stereotypes/tropes associated with portrayals of these groups. We will continue to add new features periodically. This box serves as an introduction to the concept of representation in media featuring academic texts and scholarly articles on the topic.

In the broadest stokes, representation refers to the portrayal of people, groups, and communities in the media (including television, film, and books). Recently, audiences have asked for increased representation of underrepresented groups in media including of women, people of color, the queer community, transgender/nonbinary people, disabled people, and others. Audiences have also called for a greater diversity of religions, body types, nationality, and more to be portrayed on screen.

In trying to increase representation, however characters and plot lines can often fall into stereotypical depictions or tired tropes , especially when stories and characters are written or portrayed by members who are not part of a given group. According to Maja Hardikar, "the line between stereotype and representation is thin...it may be tempting to view the difference between “stereotype” and “representation” as the simple difference between good and bad; “representation” is when we see ourselves reflected up onscreen and feel empowered, “stereotype” is when the representation fails to represent us" (6). The features on this page discuss the histories of various stereotypes, which often originated from the first appearances members of a said group on screen (take, for example, The Dragon Lady or The Gay Best Friend).

Though representation might seem trivial, studies have shown that in some instances, the dissemination of diverse media is actually a transformative action . For example, a 2015 study found that when straight people are more exposed to gay characters on TV they become more accepting of gay equality, with a 2020 survey by GLAAD and P&G finding that queer representation increased queer acceptance by up to 45% (Bond and Compton; GLAAD).

Representation is only the beginning of a more equitable world for people whose identities do not afford them safety in the societies in which they live. Systemic, liberatory change requires deeper, more sustained movement, political activism, and community building. It is important to remember, however, that diverse representation can have dramatic, empowering , and beneficial effects on people's lives, especially when those representations depict complex characters in robust, nuanced stories.

Sources: Bond, B. J., & Compton, B. L. (2015). Gay On-Screen: The Relationship Between Exposure to Gay Characters on Television and Heterosexual Audiences’ Endorsement of Gay Equality. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media , 59 (4), 717–732. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2015.1093485; GLAAD. (2020, May 27). Procter & Gamble and GLAAD Study: Exposure to LGBTQ Representation in Media and Advertising Leads to Greater Acceptance of the LGBTQ Community . https://glaad.org/releases/procter-gamble-and-glaad-study-exposure-lgbtq-representation-media-and-advertising-leads/ ;  Hardikar, M. (2023). A Real Gay Person: Representation and Stereotypes in Queer Romantic Comedies . Georgetown University.

• Cross-cultural representation of ‘otherness’ in media discourse Caldas-Coulthard, C. R. (2003). Cross-cultural representation of ‘otherness’ in media discourse. In Critical discourse analysis: Theory and interdisciplinarity (pp. 272-296). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
• Gender, race, and media representation Brooks, D. E., & Hébert, L. P. (2006). Gender, race, and media representation. Handbook of gender and communication , 16, 297-317.
• Media and the representation of Others Fürsich, E. (2010). Media and the representation of Others. International social science journal , 61(199), 113-130.
• Diaspora in the digital era: Minorities and media representation Georgiou, M. (2013). Diaspora in the digital era: Minorities and media representation. Jemie , 12, 80.
• Media constructions of culture, race, and ethnicity Dixon, T. L., Weeks, K. R., & Smith, M. A. (2019). Media constructions of culture, race, and ethnicity. In Oxford research encyclopedia of communication .
• Media beyond representation Angus, I. H. (2022). Media beyond representation. In Cultural politics in contemporary America (pp. 333-346). Routledge.
• Introduction
• Academic Texts

The Model Minority Myth

• The "Dragon Lady"
• Techno-Orientalism

Images: Films (from left to right),  Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Bitter Melon (2018), PEN15 (2019-), Minari (2020).

Welcome to the Asian American Representation in the Media LibGuide. This guide will discuss the history of Asian American representation in the media—primarily in Hollywood—and examine some common tropes/stereotypes applied to Asian characters in film and television. Here, you will find brief discussions of the Model Minority Myth, the Dragon Lady trope, techno-orientalism, and whitewashing/yellowface, along with a selections of books and films written/created by Asian Americans featuring nuanced characters and portrayals of Asian experiences, including the movies and films in the above images.

In a recent study, “ I Am Not a Fetish or Model Minority ” (2021) from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, researchers found that Asian and Pacific Islanders (API) actors made up only 4.5% of leads or co-leads in the top 10 grossing domestic films from 2010-2019. In films featuring API characters in the main cast, about a third of API characters "embody at least one common API trope or stereotype (35.2%)" such as the “Martial Artist,” the “Model Minority,” or the “Exotic Woman.” There is a long and continuing history of the whitewashing and stereotyping of Asian characters in Hollywood films. In 1935, MGM refused to consider Anna May Wong for the leading role O-Lan in the The Good Earth— instead casting Luise Rainer to play O-Lan in yellowface. In the 2023 biography Tetris ,  Taron Egerton, a Welsh actor was been cast to play video game publisher Henk Rogers, who is Dutch-Indonesian.

The guide serves only as an introduction and highlights texts in our collection that focus on Asian American representation in the media. For more information, see our companion guides including our Feminist Media Studies guid e which features brief explanations of stereotypes inflicted on women in the media:

• Asian American, Native Hawaiian, & Pacific Islander Heritage Month    (Media Studies)
• Asian American Representation in the Media    (Media Studies)
• Korea Remixed    (Media Studies)
• Spotlight on Queer & Trans* Asian Literature and Poetics    (Gender Studies)
• Asian American and Pacific Islander Philosophies    (Philosophy)
• Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Media Resources    (Media Services)
• Asian American Artists, Architects, and Designers    (Art, Art History, & Architecture)
• AAPI Identity - Recommended Reads from the Children's Collection    (Education Library)

Video:  The History of Asian Representation in Film . VICE News (2021).

Citations: Almost Half of All Asian Roles Serve as a Punchline, Study Finds . Sakshi Venkatraman, NBC News, 5 Aug. 2021.

Video:  Why Do We Call Asian Americans The Model Minority? AJ+ (2017).

The Model Minority Myth is a stereotype of certain minority groups, particularly Asian Americans, as successful, well-adjusted, and therefore requiring little or no social and economic assistance. The phrase "model minority" originated in a 1966 New York Times article  by William Peterson who used the phrase to describe the economic prosperity of Japanese Americans after WWII. Since then, the term has been applied to many other groups including Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, and Korean Americans. The model minority stereotype is not only harmful to Asian Americans because it groups them into a monolith but also in that it perpetuates the idea that other minority groups should be able to achieve model minority status not through the removal of systemic barriers but through hard work alone. This stereotype can be found in media, journalism, academia, popular culture, and more. For example, in 1987 TIME published their magazine with a cover photo of " Those Asian-American Whiz Kids ." 

Images: (Left) Success Story, Japanese-American Style: Success Story, Japanese-American Style. William Peterson, New York Times, (1966) .  (Right) Those Asian-American Whiz Kids. TIME Magazine (1987).

The Term "Asian American"

Scholars and activists have long critiqued the terms AAPI and Asian American as "masking differences in histories and needs among communities, as well as supporting the myth that Asian Americans are a monolithic group" ( Connie Hanzhang Jin, 2021 ). This monolithic mindset contributes society often overlooking diversity in the Asian American community in terms of ethnic groups, experience, immigration status, and economic circumstances . In fact, contrary to the Model Minority Myth which states that Asian Americans are an economically prosperous demographic that does not require financial assistance or investment, Asian Americans are actually the most economically divided racial group in America :

Graph:  Key disparities in income and education among Asian American groups . Connie Hanzhang Jin, NPR (2021).

The perception of Asian Americans being economically and academically successful hides the fact that many Asian American communities experience high rates of poverty  and Asian American students often feel intense academic pressure which leads to heightened rates of anxiety and stress.  While the release of films and shows such as "Crazy Rich Asians" (the first film by a major Hollywood studio to feature a majority cast of Chinese descent in a modern setting since The Joy Luck Club in 1993) and Netflix's "Bling Empire " have undoubtedly increased Asian American representation in Hollywood, it is important to note that these films do play into stereotypes about the prevalence of extremely rich and successful Asian Americans. Of course, if there were more representation of Asian Americans in Hollywood, this would not be a concern—all communities deserve to be represented in a multitude of nuanced ways—but it is important to consider which portrayals of Asian Americans receive studio/Hollywood funding, win prestigious awards, and draw large audiences.

Video: The Complicated Discussion Surrounding Crazy Rich Asians . Quality Culture (2022).

The model minority myth manifests in television and film characters who are portrayed as one-dimensional nerds, high-achievers, and stoic, diligent workers. To keep learning about this myth, explore some the resources listed below:

• Video:  Adam Ruins Everything—How America Created the “Model Minority” Myth (truTV)
• Video:  Asian Americans: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver   (HBO)
• Video:  The Model Minority Trope, Explained   (The Take)
• Video:  The Origins of the Model Minority Myth   (Project Lotus)
• Website:  Deconstructing the Model Minority at UM   (University of Michigan)
• Confronting Asian-American Stereotypes   (Adeel Hassan, The New York Times)

Peterson, W. " Success Story, Japanese-American Style: Success Story, Japanese-American Style. "  New York Times (1923-) , Jan 09, 1966, pp. 180 . ProQuest.

“ TIME Magazine Cover: Asian-American Whiz Kids - Aug. 31, 1987.” TIME.Com . Accessed 10 May 2023.

The Dragon Lady is a stereotype of Asian women, particularly East Asian women, as strong, deceitful, domineering, mysterious, and sexually alluring. The Dragon Lady might be seen wearing 'traditional' dress when no one else around her is, speaking in cryptic/flowery metaphors, or utilizing Asian fighting styles. The term comes from the U.S. comic strip "Terry and the Pirates," which featured a character called Dragon Lady, also known as Madam Deal . 

Image: Terry and the Pirates: Enter the Dragon Lady . Milton Caniff (1975). Featuring the Dragon Lady, a character based on  Lai Choi San , a 1900s Chinese pirate.

Inspired by the characters played by actress Anna May Wong , the term is often applied in opposition to the "Lotus Blossom" stereotype of an overly submissive and hyper-sexualized Asian woman. The Dragon Lady has often been used to refer to powerful Asian women—such as  Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek) and  Devika Rani —in a derogatory fashion. The term dragon lady is applied to Asian women and not to their non-Asian counterparts as Lucy Liu highlights in her discussion of Kill Bill: Volume I:  

"Kill Bill' features three other female professional killers in addition to Ishii. Why not call Uma Thurman, Vivica A. Fox or Daryl Hannah a dragon lady? I can only conclude that it's because they are not Asian, I could have been wearing a tuxedo and a blond wig, but I still would have been labeled a dragon lady because of my ethnicity.

"Kill Bill," includes many female assassins but shows Liu's character committing her assassinations in traditional Japanese costume.

Images:  Poster for Daughter of the Dragon (1931) and Anna May Wong as Princess Ling Moy.

The Dragon Lady trope has its roots in the Page Act of 1875 , a United States law which prohibited the immigration of “Oriental” laborers brought against their will or for “lewd and immoral purposes.” In practice, this law banned all East Asian women from entering the US. On the perception of Asian women during this time, Nancy Wang Yuen states: “They were characterized as potentially carrying sexual diseases. They were also characterized as being temptations for white men” ( qtd. in Pham 2021 ). The Dragon Lady is a result of centuries of Anti-Asian bias, yellow peril, and racist assumptions about Asian women. It is important to note that until recently, these were some of the only roles that Asian women in Hollywood were allowed to play—actors needed to take these positions lest they not be cast at all. The problem with the Dragon Lady stereotype is not that it depicts Asian women as strong, attractive, and mysterious, but that media would often refuse to show Asian women as anything else ( Pham, 2021 ). For more on the nuanced reality of this stereotype see  Sarah Kuhn's article "Enter the Dragon Lady"  and explore the resources listed below: 

• Hollywood Played a Role in Hypersexualizing Asian Women    (India Roby, Teen Vogue)
• Here's how pop culture has perpetuated harmful stereotypes of Asian women    (Elise Pham, Today.com)
• Twitter thread    (CAPE—Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment)

Video:   Virtually Asian (English subtitles) . Astria Suparak,  Berkeley Art Center  (2021).

In 2020, Astria Suparak launched the " Asian futures, without Asians " series, a "a visual analysis of over half a century of American science fiction cinema. A multipart research project, it draws from the histories of art, architecture, design, fashion, film, food, and weaponry." In this series, Suparak analyzes how science fiction utilizes stereotypical Asian signifiers that serve as the backdrop for an almost exclusively white cast.

“The piece is part of a larger project examining 40 years of sci-fi films and how white filmmakers envision a future that is inflected by Asian culture but devoid of actual Asian people."

—Astria Suparak qtd, in " Asian-American Artists, Now Activists, Push Back Against Hate " 

Learn more about Suparak's ongoing project and explore additional resources below:

• How Sci-Fi Films Use Asian Characters to Telegraph the Future While Also Dehumanizing Them  (Evan Nicole Brown, The Hollywood Reporter).
• Orientalism, Cyberpunk 2077, and Yellow Peril in Science Fiction   (George Yang, Wired). Cyberpunk as a genre, and Cyberpunk 2077 the game, are both rooted in a type of other-ization that can’t be ignored—but it can be examined.
• After Yang   (Anna Maitland)
• Video:  Techno-Orientalism with Dr. Terry K. Park   (IU East)

Video:  Yellowface is a bad look, Hollywood. Vox (2016).

Whitewashing is a casting practice in the film industry in which white actors are cast in non-white roles. Yellowface is a form of whitewashing where non-Asian actors are cast to play Asian characters. The practice of yellowface extends from the beginning of Hollywood to today. Famous early examples include Warner Oland playing Charlie Chan in "Charlie Chan Carries On" (1931) and Dr. Fu Manchu in "The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu" (1929). In the 1960s, Mickey Rooney wore yellowface to portray I. Y. Yunioshi in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961). More recently, you might recall Scarlett Johansson , Pilou Asbæk, and Michael Pitt playing Japanese animated characters in "Ghost in the Shell" (2017),  Emma Stone as Allison Ng in "Aloha" (2015), and white actors playing Asian and Inuit characters in the film adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Images:  (Left to right)  Scarlett Johansson in "Ghost in a Shell" , Emma Stone in "Aloha" , and the cast of "The Last Airbender"

Whitewashing is prominent in Hollywood for Asian characters as well as any non-white characters. For an extensive list, check out this Wikipedia page.  Many directors and producers are pressured by Hollywood executives to cast non-Asian actors in Asian roles. For example. Lulu Wang, the director of The Farewell (a film about here Chinese American family), has stated that many American financiers wanted to include a " prominent white character into the narrative, and punch up the nuanced drama to turn it into a broad comedy ."

To learn more about the history of whitewashing and yellowface, explore the resources below:

• Is a Disappointing Ghost in the Shell the Nail in the Coffin of Hollywood Whitewashing?    (Joanna Robinson, Vanity Fair)
• When white actors play other races    (Tom Brook, BBC)
• Yellowface, Whitewashing, and the History of White People Playing Asian Characters    (Jenn Fang, TeenVogue)
• Video: The History of Yellowface    (Teen Vogue)

The following are films by and featuring Asian directors, writers, and actors. For additional lists, see below:

• 11 Films by Asian American and Pacific Islander Directors to Fill Your May Days   (Sundance Institute)
• Five AAPI Directors Who Are Refiguring American Cinema   (Focus Features)
• 57 Asian Actors and Actresses in Hollywood You Should Know   (Isis Briones, Tommy Taso, Kristi Kellogg, and Sara Li, Teen Vogue)

Content Warning: Gore

Video:  Happy (Official Music Video) . Mitski (2016).

Asian Americans have been exploring media representation through their writing, music, cinema, and essays. Below is a small selection of books written by Asian Americans about the Asian American experience.

The Center for Asian American Media  (CAAM)

is a nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting stories that convey the richness and diversity of Asian American experiences to the broadest audience possible. We do this by funding, producing, distributing and exhibiting works in film, television and digital media. For 40 years, CAAM has exposed audiences to new voices and communities, advancing our collective understanding of the American experience through programs specifically designed to engage the Asian American community and the public at large. CAAM has put together a collection titled "Memories to Light," a project to collect and digitize home movies and to share them–and the stories they tell—to a broad public. 

Video:   Memories to Light 2.0: The Bohulano Family . CAAMChannel (2014).

Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAAJ)

"Asian Americans have been part of the American story since its earliest days, and are now the U.S.'s fastest-growing racial group with the potential and power to shape our nation and the policies that affect us. Our mission is to advance civil and human rights for Asian Americans and to build and promote a fair and equitable society for all." Explore their  Media Diversity Page .

Asian Film Archive:  The Asian Film Archive was founded in January 2005 as a non-profit organisation to preserve the rich film heritage of Singapore and Asian Cinema, to encourage scholarly research on film, and to promote a wider critical appreciation of this art form.

• Introductory Texts
• Animals in Literature
• Animals in the Media
• Music, Podcasts, Miscellany
• Organizations & Movements

During April, we celebrate both Earth Month and Earth Day (April 26th). Earth Day has been celebrated since 1970 and marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement . In celebration of this month and day, we have developed a guide focusing on human relationships with the non-human world. This feature will center on representation of animals in the media, literature, and culture. You will find poetry, nonfiction, and novels that allow you to witness how writers and creatives are thinking, and have been thinking, about human/non-human relations.

Image:  Still from Hayao Miyazaki's  My Neighbor Totoro (1988).

If you are looking to learn more about the history of a specific animal, look into  The Animal Series from Reaktion Books which explores the natural history of animals alongside their historical and cultural impact on humankind. Each short book is a wonderful introduction to an animal with which you are probably familiar and maybe even encounter daily!

Image:  The Animal Series from Reaktion Books. Moth , Hare , Nightingale , Lizard .

Check out our companion feature in the Philosophy guide for more information on the scholarly fields of Animal Studies and Critical Animal Studies, as well as other philosophies of the non-human. 

If you'd like to explore more thematic content relevant to climate change, environmental justice, and nature, try the  Environmental Justice & Earth Day feature , which includes music, novels, feature films, and documentaries on these topics, and the  highlight on Environmental Ethics & Aesthetics  at the  Philosophy Research Guide .

From Winnie the Pooh to Moby Dick, animals can be found in a wide variety of novels, children's stories, folktales, and other writings from the medieval to contemporary eras. Literary animal studies explores the figurative significance of animals in literature, offering critical insight into the portrayal of animals in literature. Scholars discuss how writers represent animal experience in human language, whether it is truly possible to develop a non-anthropocentric mode of writing, and how representations of nonhuman subjects might affect our perception of certain species. 

When exploring literary animal studies in IUCAT, try looking under the following subject headings:  "Human animal relationships in literature"  and  "Animals in literature."  See also:  "Palgrave studies in animals and literature" series .

Images: (Left) The Cricket in Times Square . George Selden (1960). (Right): Author: Zakariya ibn Muhammad Qazwini (ca. 1203-1283), Scribe: Muhammad ibn Muhammad Shakir Ruzmah-'i Nathani. Illustration: A Wild Cat and an Animal Called Sirayis . 1121 AH/AD 1717 (Ottoman). Artstor.

Explore the following subject headings in IUCAT to learn more about animals and animal representation in the media:

• "Animals in motion pictures"
• "Animal films--History and criticism"
• "Animals in mass media"
• "Human animal relationships in mass media"

Image:  Hachicko Statue in Tokyo, Japan . Go Tokyo.

Images:  Album covers, clockwise from left to right: Alex G God Save the Animals ; Ia Clua & Jordi Batiste Chichonera’s Cat ; The Birdsong Project For The Birds : Vol. 1;  Fiona Apple Fetch the Boltcutters ;  Nyokabi Kariũki  peace places: kenyan memories ;  Pink Floyd Animals .

About the Playlist

The nonhuman world, including animals, have long captured the cultural and musical imaginations of people. In this playlist, we have curated a selection of songs about, referring to, or in any way inspired by our fellow critters, whether literally or symbolically. To learn more about the music we've included, the history of nonhuman animal references in music, and animals' own relationships with music, consult some of the resources below:

• "How Birds and Animals Have Inspired Classical Music"    ( BBC Music )
• "The Specialist's Guide to Animals in Music" ( Gramophone )
• "Animals in Music" Playlist ( Naxos )
• "Readers Recommend: Songs About Animals" ( The Guardian )
• "Zoomusicology" ( Wikipedia )
• "Are Humans the Only Music Species?" ( MIT Press Reader )
• "Do Any Other Animals Play Music?" ( BBC Science Focus )
• "7 Scientific Studies About How Animals React to Music" ( Mental Floss )

Note : To enjoy the playlist in full, click on the white Spotify icon in the upper-right corner of the playlist, and press the "like" (♡) button in the application to save.

This American Life 

• The Feather Heist    A flute player breaks into a British museum and makes off with a million dollars worth of dead birds. 
• Spark Bird     Stories about birds and the hearts they sway, the havoc they wreak, the lives they change.

In Dog We Trust    Exactly how much are the animals that live in our homes caught up in our everyday family dynamics?

Ologies with Alie Ward

• Chickenology (Hens & Roosters) Part 1 with Tove Danovich
• Diplopodology (Millipedes & Centipedes) with Dr. Derek Hennen
• Carnivore Ecology (Lions, Tigers, & Bears) with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant

The Ezra Klein Show

• Mark Bittman Cooked Everything. Now He Wants to Change Everything   The acclaimed food writer offers a sweeping indictment of our modern food system.
• The Hidden Costs of Cheap Meat   The animal rights activist Leah Garcés discusses how modern meat production harms animals, people and the environment.
• A Conversation With Ada Limón, in Six Poems   The award-winning poet shares how she stays open to wonder and beauty in a difficult world.
• For ‘Gender’, See ‘Turtles’: Experiments in Empathetic Biology    (Callum Angus)
• excerpts from "every dog i pet in 2016"    (joseph parker okay)
• Why I Write About Animals, or, My Body Is the Animal I Write About    (Hannah Gamble)

Miscellany 

There are many ways to get involved with Animal Rights and Environmental movements right here in and around Bloomington. From incorporating animal studies into your scholarship to donating money and participating in direct action campaigns, see the following list for organizations supporting animals and the environment in the Bloomington area:

• Bloomington Animal Shelter    Run by Bloomington Animal Care and Control, whose mission is to address and respond to all animal needs in the community through education, enforcement and support in order to build a community where animals are valued and treated with kindness and respect. The Animal Shelter is accepting donations and foster applications.
• Monroe County Humane Association (MCHA) "Dedicated to promoting the welfare of animals, strengthening the human-animal bond, and providing access to veterinary care & humane education across our community."
• Sunrise Bloomington    "We are a group of undergrads, grads, faculty, high schoolers and Bloomington community members who are dedicated to bringing about positive changes towards climate justice initiative through grassroots movement building!"
• IU Student Animal Legal Defense Fund    The Student Animal Legal Defense Fund was established at IU Maurer School of Law in 2010 to provide a forum for education, advocacy, and scholarship aimed at improving the lives of animals and advancing their interests through the legal system.
• BloomingVeg    "An all-ages social and advocacy group for vegetarians, vegans, and veggie-lovers alike in Bloomington, Indiana."
• Indy VegFest    A "nonprofit organization whose mission is to increase the public’s acceptance of the compassionate, environmental, and health facets of a vegan lifestyle through an annual event and year-round outreach and education opportunities."
• Rainbow Bakery    Vegan bakery in Bloomington, IN.
• Vegan, Vegetarian & Gluten-Free Restaurants in Bloomington    (Visit Bloomington)
• Uplands PEAK Sanctuary Indiana's first farmed animal sanctuary, providing lifelong care to their residents, educational tours, and volunteer opportunities.

The following are national organizations fighting for animal rights, liberation, and environmental justice. For more information on the impact of a few of the organizations listed below, check out Animal Charity Evaluators , which researches animal welfare organizations.

• Native American Humane Society    "Shares our expertise to help tribal communities learn how to humanely manage and care for the animal populations in their own communities. NAHS connects tribal communities and animal welfare service providers, NGOs, foundations, and other agencies to assist tribal communities in resolving their challenges with animals through regular animal care, population management, and community activities."
• The Humane League    "We exist to end the abuse of animals raised for food by influencing the policies of the world’s biggest companies, demanding legislation, and empowering others to take action and leave animals off their plates." 
• Good Food Institute    "A nonprofit think tank working to make the global food system better for the planet, people, and animals. Alongside scientists, businesses, and policymakers, GFI’s teams focus on making plant-based and cultivated meat delicious, affordable, and accessible."
• The Green New Deal Network    "A coalition of grassroots organizations, labor, and climate and environmental justice organizations growing a movement to pass local, state, and national policies that create millions of family-sustaining union jobs, ensure racial and gender equity, and take action on climate at the scale and scope the crisis demands."
• Indigenous Environmental Network    "IEN was formed by grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ). IEN’s activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities."
• Queerbaiting
• The Gay Best Friend
• Bury Your Gays

Welcome! In this feature, we will explore the representation of queer people in media, particularly in film and television. We will explore some common tropes/stereotypes, consider the use of representation as a concept, and track where queer representation has been and where it is going. The representation of queer people falls into categories: negative representation (harmful stereotypes that vilify and misrepresent the lives and motivations of queer folks), no representation (complete exclusion of queer people), token representation (virtue signalling through the placement of a queer character), queerbaiting (the inclusion of scenes that suggest a character might be LGBTQ+, while maintaining a distinct lack of evidence in the story to confirm or deny it), retroactive representation (when creators explicitly (and retroactively) claim that certain characters are LGBTQ+), idealistic representation (a depiction set in a world where queerness isn’t stigmatized or discriminated against), and complex representation (a nuanced, compelling depiction of queer characters that addresses the intersectional nature many queer folk's lived experiences). This feature considers a few of these representations and provides a selection of academic texts that may be helpful to your research on this or related topics.

In this feature, will highlight common tropes like The Gay Best Friend, Bury Your Gays, and Queerbaiting. Alongside these tropes, however, we highlight media that depicts nuanced and complex queer characters and reflections on queerness in the media (you will find these under the non-fiction, film, and television tabs).

For a brief history of queer cinema, check out the " Queer Film Classics " series by Arsenal Pulp Press. See a selection here:

From left to right: Winter Kept Us Warm , Paris is Burning , Anders Als Die Andern , Fire , and Midnight Cowboy

Further reading

• Queer representation in media: the good, the bad, and the ugly ( Tessa Kaur)
• Revision as Resistance: Fanfiction as an Empowering Community for Female and Queer Fans (Diana Koehm, UConn Honors thesis)
• A Real Gay Person: Representation and Stereotypes in Queer Romantic Comedies (Maja Hardikar, Georgetown University Master's Theses)
• Gaysploitation Upends the Stereotypes That Make Us Wince (Erik Piepenburg, The New York Times)
• A History of Queerness in Cinema with Alonso Duralde (Bulls Eye with Jesse Thorn, NPR)
• Placing the Queer Audience: Literature on Gender & Sexual Diversity in Film and TV Reception (Rob Cover & Duc Dau, Mai Feminism)
• After Decades In The Background, Queer Characters Step To The Front In Kids' Media (Victoria Whitley-Berry, NPR)

To get started with your research, explore the " Sexual minorities in mass media ," " Homosexuality in motion pictures ," and " Lesbianism in motion pictures " subject headings in IUCAT. If there is a book you are particularly interested in, scroll down on its catalog record to find its subject headings. You can then browse by subject heading and find books similar to the one that you have already identified.

For more films, see the following lists:

• 40 Essential LGBTQ+ Documentaries (Manuel Betancourt, Rotten Tomatoes)
• Pride Month Movie Guide: 30 Films By, For and About the LGBTQ+ Community (A.Frame)
• The 60 Best Queer Movies of All Time (Marley Marius, Liam Hess, Lisa Wong Macabasco, Emma Specter, Gia Yetikyel &Taylor Antrim, Vogue)
• The Trans Horror Masterlist (ashley, Letterboxd)
• Queer Films Everyone Must See (Zā, Letterboxd)
• A history of LGBTQ+ representation in film (Stacker)

Documentaries

For more shows, see the following lists:

• The 28 Best LGBTQ+ TV Shows to Stream Right Now (Tyler Breitfeller, Vanity Fair)
• The 25 Most Essential LGBTQ TV Shows of the 21st Century (Wilson Chapman, IndieWire)
• 39 binge-worthy LGBTQ TV shows to watch this Pride (Alison Foreman & Oliver Whitney, Mashable)

Queerbaiting is a (marketing) technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but do not depict, queer romance or other LGBTQ+ representation. Queerbaiting attracts a queer/straight ally audience without isolation viewers who are opposed to seeing queer people in media. Some prominent characters that were used to queerbait fans include Dumbledore from Harry Potter, Finn and Poe from Star Wars, Holmes and Watson from Sherlock, numerous characters from the Marvel franchise , and Dean and Castiel from Supernatural. Subtext in general became popular in film in the 1930s when the Hays Code (guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States) limited what could be shown on screen. Today, queerbaiting is a way to keep media viewership up without actually representing queer people on screen, contribution to further marginalization of the LGBTQ+ community.

Further Reading

• The Problem With the Internet’s Obsession With Queerbaiting (James Factora, them)
• Queerbaiting: The (Mis)representation Of The Queer Community (Natalie Biele, odyssey)
• I s Celebrity ‘Queer Baiting’ Really Such a Crime? (Mark Harris, T Magazine)
• Is it ever OK to use the term queerbaiting? (Katie Baskerville, Mashable)
• How Do We Solve A Problem Like “Queerbaiting”?: On TV’s Not-So-Subtle Gay Subtext (rose, Autostraddle)
• 'Killing Eve', 'Dead to Me', and The Confusing State of Queerbaiting on TV (Jill Gutowitz, Cosmopolitan)
• Harry Potter and the History of Queerbaiting (Ellen Ricks, The Mary Sue)
• Is Disney continuing to queerbait fans with The Rise of Skywalker press tour? (Molly Catherine Turner, Culturess)
• Avengers: Endgame's Gay Representation Is Bullshit (Charles Pulliam-Moore, Gizmodo)
• Netflix’s Wednesday series sparks debate with LGBTQ+ viewers: ‘A metaphor for people in the closet’ (Asyia Iftikhar, PinkNews)

“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” Called Out for Erasing Queer Dialogue (Sara Li, Teen Vogue)

Video : The Evolution Of Queerbaiting: From Queercoding to Queercatching . Rowan Ellis (2019).

The Gay Best Friend is a trope where a gay male friend of the main character (often a straight woman) "exists mostly to add variety, funny mannerisms, and cheap laughs to an otherwise all-straight story" ("Gay Best Friend," TV Tropes ). Though the Gay Best Friend is often a stereotypical depiction of a gay man, the first Gay Best Friends were positive developments in queer representation, depicting queer people on screen at a time when representation was completely absent.

Video :  The Gay Best Friend - How It Became a Stereotype . The Take (2021).

The Advocate writes, "often an important first step in introducing queer storylines to mainstream audiences, the GBF trope had a tendency to reinforce stereotypes about gay men: that their only interests are makeovers, shopping and drama, that their struggles and relationships fade into the background unless they're supporting a straight person's story, and that they only exist to be wise oracles about love and romance. In early film, the trope of the Sissy emerged as a way for filmmakers to code a character as queer (by depicting them as effeminate and outside of conventional masculinity) without explicitly stating the character's sexuality."

From more stereotypical depictions of effeminate white men, the gay best friend evolved to include characters of diverse identities and with deeper interior lives. For example, Wilson Cruz (right) played the character Rickie Vasquez in My So-Called Life. Cruz was the first openly gay actor to play an openly gay character in a leading role in an American television show.

• A History of the Gay Best Friend in Film and TV (Advocate)
• Missing the Gay Best Friend ( Mark Harris, T Magazine)
• The Evolution Of The “Gay Best Friend,” From Harmful Trope To TV Gold (Dylan Kickham, Elite Daily)
• Rethinking the ‘gay best friend’ (Caroline O’Donoghue, The Guardian)

The Bury Your Gays trope refers to the presentation of excessive deaths of LGBTQ+ characters, depicting these characters as more expendable than their heterosexual counterparts. This trope is related to the sad gay movie (which depicts queer characters in extremely traumatic situations, heartbreaking coming out stories, general suffering, etc.).

Video: The "Bury Your Gays" Trope, Explained . The Take (2020).

Studies have show that, in aggregate , queer characters are more likely to die than straight characters. "Indeed, it may be because they seem to have less purpose compared to straight characters, or that the supposed natural conclusion of their story is an early death" (Bury your gays, TV tropes ). "Though the term has been widely attributed to any queer character that meets a tragic fate in media, the history it stems from is one where the characters are punished and killed specifically for the sin of being gay on screen" (Hardikar 4-5). This trope is so prevalent that the website " Does an LGBT Person Die " warns viewers of when a queer person will die in a film or television show.

• Queer women have been killed on television for decades. Now The 100's fans are fighting back (Caroline Framke, Vox)
• All 235 Dead Lesbian and Bisexual Characters On TV, And How They Died (Riese, Autostraddle)
• 'Bury Your Gays': Why Are So Many Lesbian TV Characters Dying Off? (Alamin Yohannes, NBC News)
• 15 Recent, Especially Brutal, Examples of the Bury Your Gays Trope (Mey Rude, Out)
• Hollywood's "Bury Your Gays" Trope Explained: History & Controversy (Emily Clute, Screen Rant)
• Bury Your Gays: History, Usage, and Context Hulan, Haley (2017) "Bury Your Gays: History, Usage, and Context," McNair Scholars Journal: Vol. 21: Iss. 1, Article 6. Available at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair/vol21/iss1/6
• The “Bury Your Gays” Trope in Contemporary Television: Generational Shifts in Production Responses to Audience Dissent Cover, Rob; Milne, Cassandra. 2023. The “Bury Your Gays” Trope in Contemporary Television: Generational Shifts in Production Responses to Audience Dissent.” The Journal of Popular Culture 56 (5-6): 810–823. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.13255.

Source: Hardikar, M. (2023). A Real Gay Person: Representation and Stereotypes in Queer Romantic Comedies . Georgetown University.

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Article contents

Media constructions of culture, race, and ethnicity.

• Travis L. Dixon , Travis L. Dixon Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Kristopher R. Weeks Kristopher R. Weeks Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
•  and  Marisa A. Smith Marisa A. Smith Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.502
• Published online: 23 May 2019

Racial stereotypes flood today’s mass media. Researchers investigate these stereotypes’ prevalence, from news to entertainment. Black and Latino stereotypes draw particular concern, especially because they misrepresent these racial groups. From both psychological and sociological perspectives, these misrepresentations can influence how people view their racial group as well as other groups. Furthermore, a racial group’s lack of representation can also reduce the group’s visibility to the general public. Such is the case for Native Americans and Asian Americans.

Given mass media’s widespread distribution of black and Latino stereotypes, most research on mediated racial portrayals focuses on these two groups. For instance, while black actors and actresses appear often in prime-time televisions shows, black women appear more often in situational comedies than any other genre. Also, when compared to white actors and actresses, television casts blacks in villainous or despicable roles at a higher rate. In advertising, black women often display Eurocentric features, like straight hair. On the other hand, black men are cast as unemployed, athletic, or entertainers. In sports entertainment, journalists emphasize white athletes’ intelligence and black athletes’ athleticism. In music videos, black men appear threatening and sport dark skin tones. These music videos also sexualize black women and tend to emphasize those with light skin tones. News media overrepresent black criminality and exaggerate the notion that blacks belong to the undeserving poor class. Video games tend to portray black characters as either violent outlaws or athletic.

While mass media misrepresent the black population, it tends to both misrepresent and underrepresent the Latino population. When represented in entertainment media, Latinos assume hypersexualized roles and low-occupation jobs. Both news and entertainment media overrepresent Latino criminality. News outlets also overly associate Latino immigration with crime and relate Latino immigration to economic threat. Video games rarely portray Latino characters.

Creators may create stereotypic content or fail to fairly represent racial and ethnic groups for a few reasons. First, the ethnic blame discourse in the United States may influence creators’ conscious and unconscious decision-making processes. This discourse contends that the ethnic and racial minorities are responsible for their own problems. Second, since stereotypes appeal to and are easily processed by large general audiences, the misrepresentation of racial and ethnic groups facilitates revenue generation. This article largely discusses media representations of blacks and Latinos and explains the implications of such portrayals.

• content analysis
• African American portrayals
• Latino portrayals
• ethnic blame discourse
• structural limitations and economic interests
• social identity theory
• Clark’s Stage Model of Representations

Theoretical Importance of Media Stereotypes

Media constructions of culture, race, and ethnicity remain important to study because of their potential impact on both sociological and psychological phenomena. Specifically, researchers have utilized two major theoretical constructs to understand the potential impact of stereotyping: (a) priming and cognitive accessibility (Dixon, 2006 ; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007 ; Shrum, 2009 ), and (b) social identity and social categorization theory (Mastro, 2004 ; Mastro, Behm-Morawitz, & Kopacz, 2008 ; Tajfel & Turner, 2004 ).

Priming and Cognitive Accessibility

Priming and cognitive accessibility suggests that media consumption encourages the creation of mental shortcuts used to make relevant judgments about various social issues. For example, if a news viewer encounters someone cognitively related to a given stereotype, he or she might make a judgment about that person based on repeated exposure to the mediated stereotype. As an illustration, repeated exposure to the Muslim terrorist stereotype may lead news viewers to conclude that all Muslims are terrorists. This individual may also support punitive policies related to this stereotype, such as a Muslim ban on entry to the United States. Therefore, this cognitive linkage influences race and crime judgments (e.g., increased support for criminalizing Muslims and deporting them).

Social Identity Theory and Media Judgments

Other scholars have noted that our own identities are often tied to how people perceive their groups’ relationships to other groups. Social categorization theory argues that the higher the salience of the category to the individual, the greater the in-group favoritism one will demonstrate. Media scholars demonstrated that exposure to a mediated out-group member can increase in-group favoritism (Mastro, 2004 ). For example, researchers found that negative stories about Latino immigrants can contribute to negative out-group emotions that lead to support for harsher immigration laws (Atwell Seate & Mastro, 2016 , 2017 ).

Both the priming/cognitive accessibility approach and the social identity approach demonstrate that cultural stereotypes have significant implications for our psychology, social interactions, and policymaking. It remains extremely important for us to understand the nature and frequency of mediated racial and ethnic stereotypes to further our understanding of how these stereotypes impact viewers. This article seeks to facilitate our understanding.

Stage Model of Representation

In order to provide the reader with an introduction to this topic, this article relies on the published content-analytic literature regarding race and media. Clark’s Stage Model of Representation articulates a key organizing principle for understanding how media may construct various depictions of social groups (Clark, 1973 ; Harris, 2013 ). This model purports that race/ethnic groups move through four stages of representation in the media. In the first stage, invisibility or non-recognition , a particular race or ethnic group rarely appears on the screen at all. In the second stage, ridicule , a racial group will appear more frequently, yet will be depicted in consistently stereotypical ways. In the third stage, regulation , an ethnic group might find themselves depicted primarily in roles upholding the social order, such as judges or police officers. Finally, a particular social group reaches the respect stage in which members of the group occupy diverse and nuanced roles. Given Clark’s model, this article contends that Native Americans and Asian Americans tend to fall into the non-recognition stage (Harris, 2013 ). It follows that few empirical studies have investigated these groups because empirical content analyses have difficulty scientifically assessing phenomena that lack presence (Krippendorff, 2004 ).

Bearing in mind Clark’s stages, Latinos appear to vacillate between non-recognition and ridicule. Meanwhile, blacks move between the ridicule and regulation stages, while whites remain permanently fixed in the respect stage. In other words, in this article, our lack of deep consideration of Native Americans and Asian Americans is rooted in a lack of representation which generates few empirical studies and thus leaves us little to review. The article offers a quick overview of their portrayal and then moves on to describe the social groups that receive more media and empirical attention.

Native American and Asian American Depictions

Although severely underrepresented, there are a few consistent stereotypical portrayals that regularly emerge for these groups. In some ways, both Native American and Asian Americans are often relegated to “historical” and/or fetishized portrayals (Lipsitz, 1998 ). Native American “savage” imagery was commonly depicted in Westerns and has been updated with images of alcoholism, along with depictions of shady Native American casino owners (Strong, 2004 ). Many news images of Native Americans tend to focus on Native festivals, relegating this group to a presentation as “mysterious” spiritual people (Heider, 2000 ). Meanwhile, various school and professional team mascots embody the savage Native American Warrior trope (Strong, 2004 ).

Asian Americans overall have often been associated with being the model minority (Harris, 2009 ; Josey, Hurley, Hefner, & Dixon, 2009 ). They typically represent “successful” non-whites. Specifically, media depictions associate Asian American men with technology and Asian American women with sexual submissiveness (Harris & Barlett, 2009 ; Schug, Alt, Lu, Gosin, & Fay, 2017 ).

Overall, scholars know very little about how either of these groups are regularly portrayed based on empirical research, although novelists and critical scholars have offered useful critiques (Wilson, Gutiérrez, & Chao, 2003 ). Hopefully, future quantitative content analyses will further delineate the nature of Native American and Asian American portrayals. Consider the discussion about entertainment, news, and digital imagery of blacks, Latinos, and whites presented in the next section.

Entertainment Constructions of Race, Culture, and Ethnicity

Entertainment media receives a great deal of consideration, given that Americans spend much of their time using media for entertainment purposes (Harris, 2013 ; Sparks, 2016 ). This section begins with an analysis of black portrayals, then moves on to Latino portrayals to understand the prevalence of stereotyping . When appropriate, black and Latino representations are compared to white ones. Two measures describe a group’s representation: (a) the numerical presence of a particular racial/ethnic group, and (b) the distribution of roles or stereotypes regarding each group. When researchers have often engaged in examinations of race they typically begin by comparing African American portrayals to white portrayals (Entman & Rojecki, 2000 ). As a result, there is a substantial amount of research on black portrayals.

Black Entertainment Television Imagery

Overall, a number of studies have found that blacks receive representation in prime-time television at parity to their actual proportion in the US population with their proportion ranging from 10% to 17% of prime-time characters (Mastro & Greenberg, 2000 ; Signorielli, 2009 ; Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015 ). African Americans currently compose approximately 13% of the US population (US Census Bureau, 2018 ). When considering the type of characters (e.g., major or minor) portrayed by this group, the majority of black (61%) cast members land roles as major characters (Monk-Turner, Heiserman, Johnson, Cotton, & Jackson, 2010 ). Black women also fare well in these representations, accounting for 73% of black appearances on prime-time television (Monk-Turner et al., 2010 ).

However, recent content analyses reveal an instability in black prime-time television representation over the last few decades. Tukachinsky et al. ( 2015 ) found that the prevalence of black characters dropped in 1993 and remain diminished compared to previous decades. Similarly, Signorielli ( 2009 ) found a significant linear decrease in the proportion of black representation from 2001 (17%) to 2008 (12%). Signorielli ( 2009 ) attributes this decrease in black representation to the decrease in situation comedy programming. Indeed, African Americans appear most frequently in situation comedies. Sixty percent of black women featured in prime-time television are cast in situation comedies, and 25% of black male prime-time portrayals occur in situation comedies (Signorielli, 2009 ). However, between 2001 and 2008 , situational comedies decreased, while action and crime programs increased.

The previously discussed analyses describe the frequency of black representation. However, frequent depictions do not equate to favorable representation. Considering role quality (i.e., respectability) and references made to stereotypes, entertainment media offers a mixed bag. On the one hand, some recent analyses found that the majority of blacks are depicted as likable, and as “good characters,” as opposed to “bad character”-like villains (Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015 ). In addition, the majority of black characters are depicted as intelligent (Tukachinsky et al., 2015 ). On the other hand, the rate of blacks shown as immoral and despicable (9%) is higher than that of whites (2% and 3%, respectively) (Monk-Turner et al., 2010 ). In addition, black depictions exhibiting high social status and professionalism trended downward. Between 2003 and 2005 , higher status depictions reached their peak at 74.3% but sharply fell in subsequent years to 31.5%, with black women faring worse than black men (Tukachinsky et al., 2015 ). Classic studies of entertainment representations found that blacks tend to be the most negatively represented of any race or ethnic group, often being depicted as lazy and disheveled (Mastro & Greenberg, 2000 ). Overall, black characters tend to be portrayed in less respectful ways compared to whites in content intended for general audiences, although they sometime fare better when the targeted audience is African American (Messineo, 2008 ). For example, crime drama television frequently depicts white women as at risk for murder, but FBI statistics demonstrate that murder victims are more often likely to be black males (Parrott & Parrott, 2015 ).

Black Representations in Magazines and Advertising

African Americans remain well represented in magazines, though they are not as prominent in this medium as in television (Schug et al., 2017 ). Moreover, the trend in the representation of African Americans, particularly women, appears to be improving (Covert & Dixon, 2008 ). Images of black women represent 6% of advertisements in women’s magazines and 4% of advertisements in men’s magazines (Baker, 2005 ). However, both black-oriented and white-oriented magazines appear to advance portrayals of black women with Eurocentric rather than Afrocentric features, referencing whiteness as a beauty standard. Overall, compared to black-oriented magazines, white-oriented magazines feature more black women with fair skin and thin figures. Black-oriented magazines feature more black women with straight hair. Moreover, straight hair textures outnumber other natural styles (i.e., wavy, curly, or braided) in both white- and black-oriented magazines.

Conversely, black men typically assume unemployed, athletic, or entertainment roles in these ads (Bailey, 2006 ). Moreover, mainstream magazines are most likely to depict black men as unemployed. Meanwhile, black-oriented magazines tend to portray African Americans in more managerial roles.

Black Representations in Sports Entertainment

Besides prime-time television, black stereotypes in sports coverage and music receive substantial attention in the literature. The unintelligent or “dumb” yet naturally talented black athlete remains a programming staple (Angelini, Billings, MacArthur, Bissell, & Smith, 2014 ; Rada & Wulfemeyer, 2005 ). For example, Angelini et al. ( 2014 ) found that black athletes receive less success-based comments related to intelligence than white athletes (Angelini et al., 2014 ). The findings echo previous research arguing that black athletes receive fewer positive comments regarding their intelligence than do white athletes (Rada & Wulfemeyer, 2005 ). Fairly similar depictions exist in broadcast commentary (Primm, DuBois, & Regoli, 2007 ). For example, Mercurio and Filak ( 2010 ) content-analyzed descriptions of NFL quarterback prospects featured on the Sports Illustrated website from 1998 to 2007 . The descriptions portray black athletes as possessing physical abilities while lacking intelligence . Conversely, Sports Illustrated described white prospects as intelligent but lacking in athleticism.

Black Representations in Music Videos

Music videos tend to sexualize black women, reinforcing the black jezebe l stereotype (i.e., a sassy African American woman who is sexually promiscuous) (Givens & Monahan, 2005 ). Also, black men appear aggressive and violent in music videos (e.g., like a criminal, thug, or brute ) (Ford, 1997 ). According to rap research, blacks appear in provocative clothes at a higher rate than whites, and black women are the most provocatively dressed in music videos (Turner, 2011 ). Even black female artists are twice as likely to wear provocative clothing than are white female artists (Frisby & Aubrey, 2012 ). Furthermore, Zhang, Dixon, and Conrad ( 2010 ) and Conrad, Zhang, and Dixon ( 2009 ) found that black women appeared in rap videos as sexualized, thin, and light-skinned while black men appeared dark-skinned and threatening .

Latino Entertainment Television Representation

Unlike African Americans, Latinos remain significantly underrepresented in English-language television outlets. For instance, Tukachinsky et al. ( 2015 ) found that of all characters, the number of Latino characters was less than 1% in the 1980s and increased to over 3% in the 2000s. However, these numbers fall significantly below the proportion of people who are Latino within the United States (about 18%) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018 ). Similarly, Signorelli ( 2009 ) also found that the percentage of Latinos in the United States Latino population and the percentage of Latino characters in prime-time programming differed by approximately 10%.

Latinos continue to be underrepresented in a variety of genres and outlets. For instance, Latinos remain consistently underrepresented in gay male blogs. For example, Grimm and Schwarz ( 2017 ) found that white gay models (80.2%) were most prevalent, followed by black gay models (4.5%). However, Latino models were the least prevalent (1.5%). In addition, Hetsroni ( 2009 ) found that the Latino population makes up 14% of patients in real hospitals, yet they only comprise 4% of the patients in hospital dramas. Conversely, whites make up 72% of real patients but comprise 80% of hospital drama patients.

Latino Underrepresentation in Advertising

Latino underrepresentation extends to the advertising realm. For example, Seelig ( 2007 ) determined that there was a significant difference between the Latino proportion of the US population and the Latino proportion of models found in mainstream magazines (1%). Another study that investigated Superbowl commercials conducted by Brooks, Bichard, and Craig ( 2016 ) found that only 1.22% of the characters were Latino.

Prominent Stereotypes of Latinos in Entertainment Media

Although underrepresented, Latinos are also stereotypically represented in entertainment media. For example, Tukachinsky et al. ( 2015 ) discovered that over 24% of Latino characters were hypersexualized in prime-time television. Furthermore, Latinos tended to occupy low-professional-status roles. This trend also occurred more often with Latina females than Latino males.

Spanish-language television also reinforced stereotypes. For instance, Mastro and Ortiz ( 2008 ) studied the portrayals of characters in prime-time Spanish-language television broadcasts by Azteca America, Telefutura, Telemundo, and Univision. They found rich Latina women reinforced the harlot stereotype . They were sexualized , were provocatively dressed, and had slim body types (Mastro & Behm-Morawitz, 2005 ). Similar to the findings for African Americans and rap music, colorism was also part of these depictions, with idealized Latinos having more European features. Men with a dark complexion were depicted as aggressive (e.g., the criminal stereotype) , while men with a fair complexion were portrayed as intelligent and articulate.

Entertainment Imagery Summary

Blacks appear to be well represented in entertainment imagery, often in favorable major roles as professionals. However, their positive portrayals appear to be on the decline as situation comedies become displaced by other genres where blacks are less prominent. Although well represented, black depictions continue to embody many stereotypes. African American males are portrayed as unintelligent or “dumb” athletes whose only assets are their inbred athletic abilities. Black men tend to appear as aggressive criminals or brutes in music videos while black women appear as sexualized jezebels with European features.

Latinos, on the other hand, face substantial obstacles related to their lack of representation. They tend to be grossly underrepresented across a number of entertainment outlets including television, magazines, and advertising. When they are seen, they tend to occupy two primary stereotypes, the harlot stereotype and the criminal stereotype. This appears to be a constant across both Spanish-language and English-language outlets.

News Constructions of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity

News remains an important area to consider when it comes to media stereotypes for two reasons. First, news can be considered a powerful purveyor of social truth (Romer, Jamieson, & Aday, 2003 ; Tewksbury & Rittenberg, 2012 ). While entertainment can be considered by lay audiences to have a weak relationship with social reality given its fictional nature, news is rooted in actual events, and therefore seems more real. Stereotypes found in news content may seem believable, increasing these stereotype’s influence on audiences’ perceptions of reality. Second, citizens rely on news to form opinions about policies and politicians (Iyengar, 1987 ; Price & Tewksbury, 1997 ). News reports contain the reservoir of information that citizens utilize to make decisions within our representative democracy (Iyengar, 1991 ). If the news falsely points to racial groups as the cause of social problems, these citizens may advocate for ineffective and misguided policies. The next section explores how the news purveys racial and ethnic stereotypes.

Blacks in the News

A number of early studies suggested that the news often stereotyped blacks as violent criminals , consistently overrepresenting them in these roles by large margins (Dixon, Azocar, & Casas, 2003 ; Dixon & Linz, 2000a , 2000b ; Entman, 1992 , 1994 ). At the same time, many of these studies showed blacks underrepresented in more sympathetic roles, such as victims of crime (Dixon & Linz, 2000a , 2000b ).

However, recent research suggests that the criminal stereotype has not remained consistently part of the news landscape. For example, Dixon ( 2017b ) found that current depictions of blacks in local news reflect actual percentages of blacks in these various roles, including as criminals. Similarly, Dixon and Williams ( 2015 ) found African Americans underrepresented as both criminals and victims. On the other hand, another recent content analysis that investigated black family depictions in the news, conducted by Dixon ( 2017a ), found that black family members were overrepresented as criminal suspects compared to crime reports.

Furthermore, Mastro, Blecha, and Atwell Seate ( 2011 ) content-analyzed articles pertaining to athletes’ criminal activity published in newspapers and found that mentions of black athletes’ criminal activity outnumber white and Latino athletes. Furthermore, mentions of criminal activity among black athletes outnumber their real-world proportion in professional sports (Mastro et al., 2011 ). In addition, crime articles discussing black athletes provide more explicit details of the crime and mention more negative consequences (e.g., jail or fines) than articles regarding white athletes. News narratives also present less sympathetic coverage for black athletes, more support for the victim, a less respectful tone, and fewer thematic frames (i.e., situating the crime in a larger context) for black athletes compared to white athletes.

Besides criminality , news tends to also depict blacks as part of the underserving poor . For example, van Doorn ( 2015 ) content-analyzed images depicting poverty in news magazines (i.e., Time, Newsweek , and USNWR ). News magazines picture blacks as the majority of persons in poverty (52%), while blacks only account for around 25% of Americans in poverty (van Doorn, 2015 ). Blacks experience similar misrepresentations as welfare recipients . Based on magazine depictions, black people comprise 55% of all welfare recipients. However, in reality, blacks only account for 38% of welfare recipients. Furthermore, the black elderly are depicted as only accounting for 1% of poor elderly persons pictured, while the true percentage is 6%. In addition, during times of economic stability, African American association with poverty increases, but during times of economic upheaval (e.g., the Great Recession) white association with poverty goes up.

Latinos in the News

If there is an overarching issue to consider regarding Latino depictions in news, it would again be their perpetual underrepresentation. Overall, Latinos remain severely underrepresented on television news, especially in sympathetic roles. For example, early studies by Dixon and Linz ( 2000a , 2000b ) found Latinos were underrepresented as perpetrators, victims, and police officers in the news. In one of these studies, Latinos were 54% of the homicide victims in Los Angeles County but were depicted as homicide victims only about 19% of the time on television news. A recent update to this study found that Latinos were accurately represented as perpetrators, but continued to be underrepresented as victims and police officers (Dixon, 2017b ). This invisibility extends to newspapers and magazines (Sorenson, Manz, & Berk, 1998 ). For example, Latinos are underrepresented in Time and Newsweek as part of the obese population, 5% in these magazines versus 18% according to medical statistics (Gollust, Eboh, & Barry, 2012 ).

When we considered the pervasive stereotype that is present with Latinos, it revolved around the issue of immigration and Latino immigrants as criminal or cultural threats . For instance, a meta-analysis (i.e., a type of method that unearths patterns of academic research) by Rendon and Johnson ( 2015 ) on studies that analyzed media coverage of Mexican affairs in the United States revealed a Threat Phase, from 2010 to 2014 . During this phase, reporters investigated the notion that immigrant Mexicans imperil the United States. Furthermore, Chavez, Whiteford, and Hoewe ( 2010 ) found that more than half of analyzed stories concerning Mexican immigration from the New York Times , Washington Post , Wall Street Journal , and USA Today focused on illegal immigration. Furthermore, within these immigration stories, crime was addressed most often (50.6%), followed by economics (e.g., job competition) (30.6%), and legislative deliberations (28.1%). Similarly, Branton and Dunaway ( 2008 ) found that English-language newspapers were almost twice as likely as Spanish-language news to depict immigration in a negative light.

Kim, Carvahlo, Davis, and Mullins ( 2011 ) found that illegal immigration stories produced by the media focus on the negative consequences of crime and job competition. A more recent study conducted by Dixon and Williams ( 2015 ) appears to confirm the media link between immigration, Latinos, and criminal behavior. They found that criminal suspects identified as immigrants in news stories were greatly overrepresented as Latino. In addition, almost all of the illegal or undocumented immigrants appearing in the news were depicted as Latino, which is a great overrepresentation based on official government reports. Dunaway, Goidel, Krizinger, and Wilkinson ( 2011 ) confirm that news coverage encourages an immigration threat narrative, meaning that the majority of immigration stories exhibit a negative tone.

Whites as the “Good Guys”

While black representations as criminal suspects does appear to vary in intensity and Latinos tend to be depicted as either invisible or threatening immigrants, white portrayals remain consistently positive in this domain. Classic studies of both news and reality-based programming show whites overrepresented as officers and victims (Dixon et al., 2003 ; Dixon & Linz, 2000a , 2000b ; Oliver, 1994 ). This includes network and local news programs. More recent studies show that this continues to occur regularly and remains a news programming staple (Dixon, 2017b ). When contrasted with black and Latino representations, this reinforces the notion that whites resolve social problems and people of color create social problems.

Summary of News Constructions of Culture, Race, and Media

Based on this literature review, three significant findings that summarize news’ construction of race and ethnicity emerge. First, African Americans tend to be overly associated with criminality and poverty . However, the intensity of these portrayals depends on context (e.g., a focus on families, athletes, or general economic conditions). Second, Latinos tend to be largely underrepresented, but when they are seen, they tend to be overly associated with problematic illegal immigration , especially immigrants who may pose a threat or be prone to criminality. Third, news depicts whites most favorably, overrepresenting them as victims (e.g., innocent portrayals) and officers (e.g., heroic portrayals).

Digital Media Constructions of Culture, Race, and Media

The vast majority of research detailing the portrayal of people of color in the media relied on the analysis of traditional media sources including television and magazines. However, increasingly, people turn to digital media for both entertainment and news. This section provides an overview of this growing industry that will eventually dominate our media landscape. The discussion first entails video games and Internet news websites. Speculation about the role social media will play with regard to these depictions follows.

Black Depictions in Video Games

An abundance of research focuses on racial representation within video games (Burgess, Dill, Stermer, Burgess, & Brown, 2011 ; Williams, Martins, Consalvo, & Ivory, 2009 ). Similar to traditional entertainment media, African Americans comprise approximately 11% of popular video game characters for major game systems (e.g., Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube) (Williams et al., 2009 ). Conversely, blacks are underrepresented in massive multiplayer online games (MMO) in which players customize their own avatars’ features, including gender and skin tone (Waddell, Ivory, Conde, Long, & McDonnell, 2014 ). In this environment only 3.84% of all unique characters within MMOs are black.

When considering gender differences in portrayals, more problematic depictions exist. For instance, black women are underrepresented in gaming magazines and almost completely absent from video game covers (Burgess et al., 2011 ). Meanwhile, black men are typically portrayed as either athletic and/or violent . Black aggression does not occur in socially sanctioned settings (e.g., war). Instead, many black males appear as outlaws (e.g., street fighters).

Black Depictions in Digital News Sources

There is limited research on news depictions and race within digital media contexts, but this will most likely become the focus of future scholarship over the next few years. This focus will be fueled by the rise of political figures, such as Donald Trump, who utilize media stereotypes to advance their political agendas (Dixon, 2017a ). Much of what we do know stems from research on websites and digital news sources. One earlier study of this phenomena found that African Americans were underrepresented as part of images and headlines used in these web news stories (Josey et al., 2009 ). They were also more strongly associated with poverty than what the actual poverty rates suggest. A more recent analysis of a wide variety of online news sources similarly found that black families were overrepresented as poor and welfare dependent (Dixon, 2017a ). In addition, black fathers were misrepresented as excessively absent from the lives of their children. Finally, African American family members were overrepresented as criminal suspects. These findings complement the traditional news conclusions reached by previous scholars.

Latino Depictions in Video Games

Waddell, Ivory, Conde, Long, and McDonnell ( 2014 ) found that the trend of Latino underrepresentation in media extends to the video game industry. Latino avatars were not observed in the highest grossing MMO games in 2010 (0%). Williams, Martins, Consalvo, and Ivory ( 2009 ) also assessed the racial characteristics of video game characters across 150 games and found that white characters were observed more often (59.32%) than Latino (1.63%) characters. Furthermore, Latino characters were never observed assuming primary roles.

Latino Depictions in Digital News Sources

In terms of digital news sources, the research presents extremely similar findings between Latinos and African Americans. Latinos continue to be largely underrepresented across a variety of roles in web news (Josey et al., 2009 ). They are underrepresented in both headlines and images. They are also likely to be overassociated with poverty (Dixon, 2017a ; Josey et al., 2009 ).

Summary of Digital Constructions of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity

In summary, underrepresentation remains the norm for both African Americans and Latinos in digital media. At the same time, digital news overly associates these groups with poverty . Clearly, as traditional media and its audience migrate to new digital platforms, this area will continue to be researchers’ focus well into the future. One digital platform not mentioned is social media. Many users receive, consume, and share entertainment and news content via social media. This includes music and music fandom content (Epps & Dixon, 2017 ). Social media’s specific and unique characteristics may contribute to media stereotype cultivation and prevent positive intergroup contact (Dixon, 2017c ). Much work needs to be undertaken in the future to explore these possibilities.

Conclusions

This article began with a discussion of the possible impact of mediated stereotypes to contextualize our discussion. Social categorization theory, social identity theory, and priming/cognitive accessibility suggest that the prominent black stereotypes of black laziness , criminality , innate athleticism , jezebel, and poverty would be embraced by heavy media consumers. Similarly, even though Latinos remain underrepresented, the reinforcement of Latino stereotypes like poverty , harlot , criminal , and illegal immigrant would result from regular media consumption. While underrepresented, Latinos receive enough mainstream media attention for scholars to conduct quantitative social research. Asian and Native Americans’ underrepresentation in mainstream media, however, indicates these groups’ general absence.

When educators teach these topics in class, they are often asked: Why? Why does media perpetuate these stereotypes? Consider these two prominent answers. First, media creators suffer from mostly unconscious, and sometimes conscious bias, that scholars believe facilitates an ethnic blame discourse (Dixon & Linz, 2000a ; Romer, Jamieson, & de Coteau, 1998 ; Van Dijk, 1993 ).

This discourse tends to occur within groups (e.g., whites conversing with one another) and leads them to blame social problems on ethnic others (e.g., Latinos and blacks). Given that media producers remain overwhelmingly white, this explanation appears plausible. As white people engage in these discussions, their way of thinking manifests in their content. The second explanation revolves around the structural limitations and economic interests of news agencies (Dixon & Linz, 2000a ). This explanation suggests that media agencies air material most appealing to audiences in the simplest form possible to increase ratings. This process heavily relies on stereotypes because stereotypes make processing and attending to media messages easier for audience members. In turn, profits increase. This points to problems related to the relationship between media content creation and the media industry’s profit motives. Skeptics may question these explanations’ plausibility, but overall, mediated stereotypes remain a persistent part of the media environment. Digital media exacerbate the negative effects of mediated stereotype consumption.

Further Reading

• Dixon, T. L. (2011). Teaching you to love fear: Television news and racial stereotypes in a punishing democracy. In S. J. Hartnett (Ed.), Challenging the prison industrial complex: Activism, arts & educational alternatives (pp. 106–123). Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
• Dixon, T. L. (2016). Rap music and rap audiences revisited: How race matters in the perception of rap music . In P. Hall (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Music Censorship (pp. 1–10). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Ivory, J. D. , & Kalyanaraman, S. (2007). The effects of technological advancement and violent content in video games on players’ feelings of presence, involvement, physiological arousal, and aggression . Journal of Communication , 57 (3), 532–555.
• Mastro, D. (2009). Effects of racial and ethnic stereotyping in the media. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 325–341). New York: Routledge.
• Oliver, M. B. , Jackson, R. L. , Moses, N. N. , & Dangerfield, C. L. (2004). The face of crime: Viewers’ memory of race-related facial features of individuals pictured in the news . Journal of Communication , 54 , 88–104.
• Rose, I. D. , Friedman, D. B. , Marquez, D. X. , & Fernandez, K. (2013). What are older Latinos told about physical activity and cognition? A content analysis of a top-circulating magazine . Journal of Aging and Health , 25 , 1143–1158.
• Angelini, J. R. , Billings, A. C. , MacArthur, P. J. , Bissell, K. , & Smith, L. R. (2014). Competing separately, medaling equally: Racial depictions of athletes in NBC’s primetime broadcast of the 2012 London Olympic Games . Howard Journal of Communications, 25 (2), 115–133.
• Atwell Seate, A. , & Mastro, D. (2016). Media’s influence on immigration attitudes: An intergroup threat theory approach . Communication Monographs, 83 (2), 194–213.
• Atwell Seate, A. , & Mastro, D. (2017). Exposure to immigration in the news: The impact of group-level emotions on intergroup behavior . Communication Research , 44 (6), 817–840.
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What is Media Representation?

The basic definition of representation in the media is simply how media, such as television, film, and books, portray certain types of people or communities. There are a number of communities who are underrepresented in western media. They include women, people of color, LBGTQA+ people, people with a range of body shapes and types, people of non-Christian religions, and differently-abled people. There has been a steady increase of diversity in media, but progress has been long and slow. 

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2018-2019 Issues , 2018-2019 Issues , Empathy , Print

Visibility and Empathy: How Media Representation Affects Our Interactions

December 7, 2018 December 7, 2018

By Alejandro Ortega

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]early three years ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences faced criticism for failing to nominate actors of color for acting awards in the 2016 #OscarsSoWhite controversy. Spike Lee and Will Smith were among the actors who boycotted the awards ceremony and pushed questions of media representation of minorities to the forefront of public conscience. Although the United States is projected to become a majority-minority country by 2045, media representation of racial and ethnic minorities continues to lag. A study conducted by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School found that only 28.3% of characters with dialogue in four hundred films released between September 2014 and August 2015 were non-white. In a time where cultural diversity is becoming more pronounced in the United States, media representation has become an essential tool in shaping intercultural understanding and critical empathy between ethnic groups.

    Recently, films that center around cultures of ethnic minorities have been heavily criticized for their use of stereotypes. Many criticized the 2016 animated film Moana for conglomerating distinct Polynesian cultures into an over-simplified portrayal to cater to Western audiences. Depictions of these cultures to promote tourism in the Pacific faced backlash. Disney’s decision to partner with Hawaiian airlines as part of the film’s marketing caused critics to further question Disney’s intentions behind centering the film around Polynesian culture. A survey conducted by YouGov, a data analytics firm, found that a majority of Latinx and black respondents expressed that they felt on-screen representations of the groups they belong to were inauthentic.

         Such inauthentic representations manifest as stereotypes and cliched storytelling. In reference to the Disney animated film Princess and the Frog , Alicia Schmidt Camacho, professor at Yale University’s Department of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, states that “at the end of the day there are some very tired tricks of storytelling… that interfere with the most promising parts of the story which is about the honor of hard work.”

      A lack of media representation can have detrimental psychosocial effects on how members of a given ethnic minority perceive themselves. George Gerbner, a professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania, coined the term “symbolic annihilation” in 1976, which refers to the manner in which a failure to represent a group in mainstream media can lead to members of such a group not seeing themselves as holding importance in the social spaces which they occupy. A lack of media representation can  influence the way members of a given group perceive themselves: excluding these people from media representation can lead a given group to perceive themselves as having limited membership in society. These psychological and sociological phenomena pose an obstacle to intercultural understanding by affecting the concept of self held by members of such group. Further research has demonstrated similar psychological and social effects of a lack of media representation of minorities. In his study of the psychological impact of media representation on Native Americans, Peter A Leavitt of the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona found that “media invisibility” and the use of stereotypical representations of ethnic groups can lead to deindividuation—the phenomenon where members of a given social group lose their individual identity and adopt the collective identity assigned to that group.

     Despite media representation of minorities still lagging behind, significant strides have been made made over the past year. The Walt Disney Pictures animated film Coco, which featured an all-Latino cast of voice-over actors, centered around the Mexican tradition of the Day of the Dead and went on to become of the top grossing Pixar films of all time. Professor Schmidt Camacho said of the film, “What’s recognizably powerful about [Coco] is that it deals with loss and separation. It is an artifact of the struggle over migrants’ rights because there’s that whole crossing into the land of the dead that’s like going through the border patrol…There’s the sense of the resourcefulness of people to circumvent those rules.” The film was praised for its ability to respectfully depict Mexican culture for a global audience; it is now translated into forty languages and has become the highest grossing film of all time in Mexico.

   Yuko Kuwai, an intercultural communication researcher examined the manner in which multicultural empathy can be fostered through ethnic minorities’ self-representation in the media. Kuwai examined how a group of Japanese students’ response to the documentary Permanencia, which details the experiences of Japanese Brazilians in a society that prides itself on an assumed ethnic homogeneity. Even though many of the students expressed many of their responses from the perspective of the dominant ethnic group, Kuwai found that multiple students had never been exposed to Japanese Brazilians and thus began to perceive the emotions they expressed regarding their struggles as valid. Kuwai also found that the documentary had particularly powerful effects on students who came from multicultural backgrounds; although they themselves were not Japanese Brazilian, they could relate to the social stigma associated with being “ torn between the two identities.” Kuwai’s study is indicative of the transformative power media representation can have on multicultural empathy, particularly for those individuals who live in ethnically homogeneous communities.

        Professor Schmidt Camacho says she greatly benefited from growing up in a multicultural Philadelphia. She states, “I was in school with teachers who had been generations involved in the civil rights movement. Many of them were African Americans. They shared a lot of literature and art related to black life, black experience, and music… My parents were involved in immigrants’ rights work that covered different topics such as farm workers and people fleeing Central America from the civil wars.” Professor Camacho proudly proclaims that her interactions with such individuals and experiences of “shared cultural life” greatly enriched her life.

      As media platforms become more accessible in the future and America grows increasingly diverse, authentic media representation will need to accompany other measures of inclusion in order to create social environments conducive to intercultural understanding and empathy.  Professor Camacho says of this “A child needs a doll that looks like her… but more [of] what a child needs is a society that offers her the full possibility to find community and create community.”

Alejandro is a first-year in Benjamin Franklin College. You can contact him at [email protected].

Stuart Hall and Representation

What is representation.

Stuart Hall believed representation was the “process by which members of a culture use language… to produce meaning”. It is the organisation of signs, which we use to understand and describe the world, into a wider set of values of ideologies. These meanings are not fixed or “real”; they are produced and defined by society.

Systems of Representation

Hall (1997) identified two “systems of representation” – conceptual maps and language.

Conceptual Maps

The first system consists of the mental representations we carry around in our minds. You should have no trouble picturing your friends and family, or the places you have visited recently. Experiences and events remain vivid long after they have concluded. We have the ability to imagine abstract concepts and theories. Even fictional worlds and mythical creatures can be fully realised in our thoughts.

These ideas are all representations of what we might consider to be the real world.

Conceptual Map:

If you have seen a donut, you can visualise it in your mind.

Importantly, we can distinguish once concept from another because we are fully aware of their similarities and differences. We know doors are not the same as windows, up is the opposite of down, and there is a strong contrast between black ink on a white page.

We also recognise the complex relationships between concepts and group them into clusters and categories: colours, types of buildings, emotions, subjects in school, our neighbourhood, faith, the moon and the stars, and so on. By creating systems of concepts, or conceptual maps , we can give meaning to our world.

Although we are individuals with our own perspectives and histories, we actually experience most things with other people and form similar interpretations of the world. This makes it easier for us to exchange our conceptual maps by translating them into signs – gestures, written and spoken language, images and other methods of communication.

The language we use to communicate with each other is the second system of representation.

A Simple Exercise

Hall used a very simple exercise with his students to demonstrate how this representation process worked. First, he would ask them to take a good look around the room and focus on different objects. This would make them conceptualise each object in their minds.

He then asked them what they saw. Of course, his students would use words to refer to the objects which he was able to decode because he understood what they meant.

In this way, representation is the process that links our conceptual map of the world and the meanings we construct through language.

Approaches to Representation

Stuart Hall (1997) summarised three approaches to understanding the representation process: reflective, intentional and constructionist views.

The Reflective View

This approach to understanding representation suggests the signs we use communicate with each other reflect their true meaning because language acts like a mirror to the world.

Visual signs often have some sort of relationship to the physical form of the objects they represent so, in terms of semiotics, Charles Peirce might categorise these signs as icons. However, as Stuart Hall pointed out, a picture of a rose “should not be confused with the real plant with thorns and blooms growing in the garden”.

Ferdinand de Saussure debated if onomatopoeic words and interjections were evidence of the reflective quality of language, but he believed these signs were not organic and there was “no fixed bond between the signified and signifer”. In other words, signs are part of our culture rather than the natural world.

To what extent do news organisations reflect the real world in their reports? Join the debate in our guide to framing which outlines how their use codes and conventions can influence the audience’s interpretation of the story.

The Intentional View

By contrast, the intentional approach suggests we impose meaning on the world through the signs we use to describe it. When you are talking to a friend, the words you use to encode your message will mean exactly what you intended them to mean.

If you have read our guide to Hall’s encoding / decoding model of communication , you will already know he dismissed this approach to understanding the representation process. We may produce media texts, but their meanings are limited by the framework of knowledge of that particular period and culture. Hall also proposed the audience could have a negotiated or even an oppositional interpretation of the text. This leads us to the constructionist approach to understanding representations.

The Constructionist View

Things exist in the physical world. Our conceptual maps are based on reality, but representation is a symbolic practice and process. Remember, Saussure argued there is no natural relationship between the sign and its meaning or concept.

Put simply, we construct meanings by organising signs into a system.

Stuart Hall mentioned the language of electric plugs in the UK to illustrate this approach. Before 2006, red wires were used to carry the current from the power supply to the appliances. The system was changed to match the European standards so brown wires are now live. In this way, colours have no fixed meaning and their definitions can quickly change.

Further Reading

The Beauty Myth

Key Concepts in Post-colonial Theory

The Representation of Women on Magazine Covers

What is Media Framing?

Agenda-Setting Theory

• The Bechdel Test

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Rawan Elbaba, Student Reporting Labs Rawan Elbaba, Student Reporting Labs

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/why-on-screen-representation-matters-according-to-these-teens

Why on-screen representation matters, according to these teens

Why does representation in pop culture matter?

For some young students, portrayals of minorities in the media not only affect how others see them, but it affects how they see themselves.

“I do think it’s powerful for people of a minority race to be represented in pop culture to really show a message that everybody has a place in this world,” said Alec Fields, a junior at Forest Hills High School in Pennsylvania.

Fields was one of 144 middle and high school students who were interviewed about seeing themselves reflected — or not — on the screen. PBS NewsHour turned to our Student Reporting Labs from across the country to hear what students had to say a topic that research shows still has room for growth.

The success of recent films like “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians” have — again — sent a message about the importance of representation of minorities, not only in Hollywood but in other aspects of pop culture as well.

Only two out of every 10 lead film actors (or 19.8 percent) were people of color in 2017, this year’s UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report found. Still, that’s a jump from the year before, when people of color accounted for 13.9 percent of lead roles. People of color have yet to reach proportional representation within the film industry, but there have been gains in specific areas, including film leads and overall cast diversity.

According to 2018 U.S. Census Bureau estimates , the nation’s population is nearly 40 percent non-white. By 2055, the country’s racial makeup is expected to change dramatically, the U.S. will not have one racial or ethnic majority group by 2055, the Pew Research Center estimated .

Some students said that not seeing yourself represented in elements of pop culture can affect mental health.

“It just makes you feel like, ‘Why don’t I see anybody like me?’ [It] kind of like brings your self-esteem down,” said Kimore Willis, a junior at Etiwanda High School in California.

Others said they often look to trends in pop culture when forming their own identities.

“We need to see people that look like ourselves and can say, ‘Oh, that looks like me!’ or ‘I identify with that,’” said Sonali Chhotalal, a junior at Cape May Technical High School in New Jersey.

Others, however, feel that Hollywood is overcompensating for their lack of diversity by depicting exaggerated and stereotypical characters.

Eric Wojtalewicz from Black River Falls High School in Wisconsin said that he sees a lot of gay characters that seem “over-the-top,” playing on old tropes. “I definitely think that not all gays are like that,” he said.

Kate Casper, a junior at T.C. Williams High School in Virginia, called Hollywood’s attempt at diversity “disingenuous.” Although there can never be enough diversity, Casper said, she feels that the entertainment industry is using diversity for economic benefit. “Diversity equals money in today’s world, which is cool, I guess,” she said, adding that “it’s cooler to have pure motives.”

The UCLA report agrees that diversity sells. It says that the median global box office has been the highest for films featuring casts that were more than 20-percent minority, making nearly $450 million in 2017.

Although public opinion may be divided about whether the entertainment industry is doing enough to represent all types of people, South Mountain High School student Dazhane Brown in Arizona said that feeling represented is “empowering.”

“If you see people who look like you and act like you and speak like you and come from the same place you come from … it serves as an inspiration,” Brown said.

PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs produced this story in an effort to highlight the importance of representation of minorities in popular culture. Students from 31 Labs across the country submitted these responses.

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Media misrepresentation has lasting effects

August 23, 2016 Trista Sullivan Columns , Editorial

As popular culture in the form of media has grown throughout the decades, along with our ability to access it, the effects it has on our society and the way we view the world have morphed with it. In a culture that is so in tune with what is going on around us near and far, through apps like Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat, or access to the Huffington Post, New York Times and Washington Post on our phones, it doesn’t take long for opinions and ideas to develop. But a new danger that lies in this double-edged form of communication and media consumption is misrepresentation. Misrepresentation comes in many forms. Under-representation or exclusion, discrimination, and even the words we use to label individuals and groups of people all fall under what I’m going to refer to as the umbrella of misrepresentation.

I was inspired to write about this subject after tweeting a joke about a Manic Pixie Dream Girl character, which then turned into a discussion of women’s representation in media. The MPDG is described as a female character whose only purpose is to help the male romantic lead grow and develop as an individual. The MPDG is also not given much depth as a character and given very little backstory — I always think of Zooey Deschanel’s character in the movie “Yes Man.” While speaking with a friend about the existence of the MPDG, I began to realize it was just a small cog in the machine of misrepresentation of women in mass media. I found myself upset, and almost in tears by the end of our conversation because I realized how much I felt that the effects of this misrepresentation affected my daily life. When women are misrepresented, the standards that are developed for how these female characters should act, look and speak are then mirrored onto what we expect from real women. And this is a major problem.

We live in a society that has been shown to uphold its members to unrealistic standards all because of how concepts and ideas are presented to us through the media. How are the ways we are discussing black lives changing the way we treat black individuals and other marginalized groups of people? We’ve all heard words like thug, gangster and vicious used as stock words to describe black individuals on the news, by politicians, in music — everywhere. But how seriously are we taking this? Do you think it is a problem? When the only images we are creating of these individuals are of violent criminals, how does this affect how we approach each other in reality?

I find it a problem, an even bigger one than we might think. The use of this kind of language in mass media, which is so accessible and influential in this day, is a form of violence. This is an issue that is not being taken seriously. This form of misrepresentation is leading to the perpetuation and strengthening of racism, and racist apologists. This form of misrepresentation is leading to violence in the way we speak about each other. This form of misrepresentation is creating a fear that millions are using to justify the murder of thousands of Americans during the last five years alone.

When we preach to the world that terror is spreading through our nation and we find a group of people to point our fingers at in blame, we are creating a death sentence for those people. It is our job to break down these stereotypes and misrepresentations within our communities. One of the only ways we can attempt to change the representation of others in media is to first correct how we represent others.

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Media Representations of Places: Definition, Concepts, Theory

To what extent and how do the media – press, broadcasting or social – influence our perceptions of places and brands, and as such their image and reputation ? With what consequences?

Learn about:

• Importance of media representations;
• Why media representations are especially relevant for remote places;
• Amount and nature of media coverage of places;
• How news coverage influences reputation;
• Why the ‘media reputation’ of places is hard to control.

Media representations of places – why care?

Media representations play a crucial role in the place image context. Perceptions of places, including countries or tourist destinations, are influenced by the ways in which they are represented by the media ( Boisen et al., 2011).

While images are constructed and communicated through multiple channels, including direct experience, word-of-mouth and audio-visual media (Hudson & Brent-Ritchie, 2006), the mass media are one of the main means by which information is disseminated ( Anholt , 2010).

The media play “a major part in informing consumers’ images of destinations…either directly in terms of being read, heard or watched, or indirectly through the advice given by friends, relatives and other sources.” (Hall, 2002, pp. 458-459)

Media representations especially crucial for distant places

Remote places in particular depend on media coverage to become known to the outside world ( Avraham , 2000; Avraham & Ketter, 2008; Choi, Lehto, & Morrison, 2007; Dinnie , 2008; Kotler & Gertner , 2011).

What is more, the media’s portrayal of distant places is mostly accepted as their “true” nature by those not living there (Adoni & Mane, 1984; Avraham, 2000; Avraham & Ketter, 2008; Burgess & Gold, 1985; Gold, 1980; Pocock & Hudson, 1978; Relph, 1976).

In this regard, the media also function as a primary source for stereotypes and images associated with distant places (Dahlgren & Chakrapani, 1982; Gold, 1994). Media reporting can also turn remotely located places into areas of possible concern for people living thousands of kilometers away (Chouliaraki, 2006; Cottle, 2009a, 2009b).

Yet, the ability of places to become known through the media is limited by the tendency of the media in many countries to exclude peripheral regions (Avraham, 2003; Lahav & Avraham, 2008).

Amount and nature of media coverage of places

Regarding the amount and nature of media coverage of places, Avraham and Ketter (2008, p. 30; see also Avraham, 2000) – drawing on Manheim and Albritton (1984) – have proposed that places either:

• receive much negative coverage,
• are not covered by the media except in a negative context, usually related to crime, social problems, natural disasters, etc.,
• receive much positive coverage, such as cultural events, tourist activity, or investments, or
• are largely ignored by the media but when noticed are covered in a primarily positive light.

How news coverage influences reputation

Carroll and McCombs (2003) offer some guiding principles that help understand the influence of news coverage on (corporate) reputation:

• the greater the amount of coverage, the greater public awareness,
• attributes emphasized in media coverage become attributes the public uses to define a firm; and
• the valence of news coverage, positive or negative, is reflected in corresponding public perceptions about those attributes.

Although those principles were developed with business organizations in mind, they can be considered equally valid for understanding the significance of media reputation for place or national brands. In both situations, brand managers are, at the best, outsiders listening in, if not completely disconnected from such conversations (Humlen, 2012).

Media reputation: difficult to control

Controlling media-constructed reputation of a place is difficult, if not impossible (Murphy, 2010). The reputation an organisation or place enjoys in the media develops over time through a complex social process (Deephouse, 2000, p. 1098); it is constantly challenged and evolving (Murphy, 2010).

Apart from media representations of places being subject to sociopolitical influences beyond the immediate control of places, they also cannot entirely control editorial decisions or other news making characteristics (Avraham & Ketter, 2008).

This is not to say that a place’s reputation (coverage) in the media shouldn’t be closely monitored. Quite the contrary:

Isolated negatives in media coverage should not be dismissed as irrelevant, as “these dissonances may signal nascent patterns that, when they become obvious, may have assumed an immovable logic of their own” (Murphy, 2010, p. 233).

Adoni, H. , & Mane, S. (1984). Media and the social construction of reality: Toward an integration of theory and research. Communication Research , 11(3), 323-340. doi: 10.1177/009365084011003001

Anholt, S. (2010). Places: Identity, image and reputation. Houndsmills, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.

Avraham, E. (2000). Cities and their news media images. Cities , 17(5), 363-370. doi: 10.1016/S0264-2751(00)00032-9

Avraham, E. (2003). Behind media marginality: Coverage of social groups and places in the Israeli press. Langham, MD: Lexington Books.

Avraham, E. , & Ketter, E. (2008). Media strategies for marketing places in crisis: Improving the image of cities, countries and tourist destinations. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Inc.

Boisen, M. , Terlouw, K. , & Bouke, v.G. (2011). The selective nature of place branding and the layering of spatial identities. Journal of Place Management and Development , 4(2), 135-147. doi: 10.1108/17538331111153151

Burgess, J. , & Gold, J.R. (Eds.). (1985). Geography, the media and popular culture. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.

Carroll, C.E. , & McCombs, M. (2003). Agenda-setting effects of business news on the public’s images and opinions about major corporations. Corporate Reputation Review , 6(1), 36-46. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.crr.1540188

Choi, S. , Lehto, X.Y. , & Morrison, A.M. (2007). Destination image representation on the web: Content analysis of Macau travel related websites. Tourism Management , 28(1), 118-129. doi: doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2006.03.002

Chouliaraki, L. (2006). The spectatorship of suffering. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications.

Cottle, S. (2009). Global crises in the news: Staging news wars, disasters, and climate change. International Journal of Communication , 3, 494-516.

Cottle, S. (2009). Global crisis reporting: Journalism in the global age. Maidenhead, United Kingdom: Open University Press.

Dahlgren, P. , & Chakrapani, S. (1982). The third world on T.V. news: Western way of seeing the ‘other’. In W. Adams (Ed.), Television coverage of international affairs (pp. 45-62). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Deephouse, D.L. (2000). Media reputation as a strategic resource: An integration of mass communication and resource-based theories. Journal of Management , 26(6), 1091-1112.

Dinnie, K. (2008). Nation branding: Concepts, issues, practice. Oxford, United Kingdom: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Gilpin, D. (2010). Organizational image construction in a fragmented online media environment. Journal of Public Relations Research , 22(3), 265-287. doi: 10.1080/10627261003614393

Gold, J.R. (1980). An introduction to behavioral geography. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Gold, J.R. (1994). Locating the message: Place promotion as image communication. In J.R. Gold & S.V. Ward (Eds.), Place promotion: The use of publicity and marketing to sell towns and regions (pp. 19-38). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Hall, C.M. (2002). Travel safety, terrorism and the media: The significance of the issue-attention-cycle. Current Issues in Tourism , 5(5), 458-466. doi: 10.1080/13683500208667935

Hudson, S. , & Brent-Ritchie, J.R. (2006). Promoting destinations via film tourism: An empirical identification of supporting marketing initiatives. Journal of Travel Research , 44(4), 387-396. doi: 10.1177/0047287506286720

Humlen, A. (2012). Why ‘humanizing’ brands begins with a state of mind. Emotional Branding Alliance Blog.  Retrieved March 19th, 2012, from http://www.socialvoicebranding.com/why-humanizing-brands-begins-with-a-state-of-mind/

Kotler, P. , & Gertner, D. (2011). A place marketing and place branding perspective revisited. In N. Morgan, A. Pritchard & R. Pride (Eds.), Destination brands: Managing place reputation (3rd ed., pp. 33-54). Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Lahav, T. , & Avraham, E. (2008). Public relations for peripheral places and their national media coverage patterns: The Israeli case. Public Relations Review , 34(3), 230-236. doi: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2008.05.002

Manheim, J.B. , & Albritton, R.B. (1984). Changing national images: International public relations and media agenda setting. The American Political Science Review , 78(3), 641-657.

Masters, E. (2010). Brand Aotearoa? Deep origin marketing of functional foods and other natural products of New Zealand origin. (MBA Master thesis), University of Liverpool. Link to Pdf file

Murphy, P. (2010). The intractability of reputation: Media coverage as a complex system in the case of Martha Stewart. Journal of Public Relations Research , 22(2), 209-237. doi: 10.1080/10627261003601648

Pocock, D. , & Hudson, R. (1978). Images of the urban environment. London, UK: Macmillan.

Relph, E. (1976). Place and placelessness. London, UK: Pion.

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Cris’s Media Studies

What is representation?

The source for all of the information i used is https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z9fx39q/revision/1

Media representations are the ways in which the media portrays something from a particular ideological or value perspective. The main key terms of representation and how representation is used is through construction, mediation, selection, anchorage, stereotypes, ideology. Representation is also constructed through camera shots, camera angles, editing, audio codes, and visual codes.

Mediation is to the agreement or cooperation of two opposing parties by a third . This can be useful to secure or create things with less conflict.

Selection refers to what has been selected to include in a media text. This can be particularly important because the word you use can change the angle of what you are trying to say.

Anchorage is when a piece of media uses another piece of media to allow the audience to understand it easier and quicker. It reduces the number of references that to allow the audience to get it more directly.

Stereotypes are a simplified representation of a person, groups of people or a place, through basic or obvious characteristics – which are often exaggerated.

Ideologies are the ideas and beliefs of media producers, which are often represented in their media texts. Dominant ideologies are ones that are told to us repeatedly and we don’t question them.

The use of these can affect everything about your film and you have to be careful as each of these has their pros and their cons. However in general they are all powerful tools and can be used to greatly benefit your work if used properly.

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More From Forbes

Why media companies need to prioritize diversity and representation.

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Anita Verma-Lallian is the founder of Camelback Productions and a real estate developer and CEO/founder of Arizona Land Consulting .

America is the quintessential melting pot that's made up of different ethnicities, cultures and beliefs, and yet, when it comes to the representation of these shared lived experiences in the media, there is still a huge divide.

Consider, for example, that a study by Nielsen found that during the 2020 to 2021 TV season, Asian and Pacific Islander talent only had a 2.9% share of screen time across broadcast television. "People who identify as Southeast Asian, however, saw far less of themselves when they tuned in," the report said. As a South Asian female with children who are looking for “people who look like us” in the media, this lack of representation is alarming and was the catalyst for me to set up a film production company with a focus on South Asian storytelling.

We all know the media serves as a source of entertainment and documenting cultural make-up, but there are so many other functions that it serves, which makes diversity and representation such an important factor.

Fostering Creativity In The Work Environment

The U.S. is a combination of lived experiences, and that is what makes this such a culturally rich and diverse place. When media companies reflect this reality and integrate diversity into their workforce, they allow for the integration of different perspectives, experiences and ideas, which creates a breeding ground for creativity.

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In fact, I would argue that integrating different cultural viewpoints and life experiences, especially from racialized communities, is not only critical for rich storytelling but also for the future of media. The Asian population alone in the U.S. has been estimated to surpass 46 million by 2060 , according to the Pew Research Center, so there is a need to ensure diverse voices are part of the mainstream narrative.

Media companies must ensure they are creating opportunities for diverse team members to share their perspectives, experiences and ideas. An important way to do this is by actively seeking out and promoting underrepresented voices, which starts with inclusive hiring practices and pathways for the career development of underrepresented groups.

Allowing Others To Feel Heard And Seen

Representation in the media has a far-reaching impact, and leaders have to be cognizant that it’s not just about showcasing diversity for diversity's sake. Representation goes much deeper; it's about allowing individuals to feel heard and seen. The media boasts a powerful platform to celebrate and acknowledge the different facets of American society, which is a kaleidoscope of races, ethnicities and backgrounds.

This is particularly important when it comes to marginalized communities that might feel overlooked. Growing up in 1980s America, there weren’t many people who looked like me, and, looking back, I realize how important it is to be represented. There is no doubt that representation goes a long way in validating experiences, affirming a sense of belonging and promoting cross-cultural understanding.

Media companies should make time and space for diverse individuals to be heard and seen throughout the entirety of a project. By having diverse members on a team, the content being produced can be validated directly by those the material reflects. Without this, the accuracy of diverse stories is called into question. Diversity isn't just about ensuring equal representation; it's about echoing the stories of those who experience them firsthand and fostering a sense of belonging.

Creating Role Models And Challenging Stereotypes

As a mother of two young children, it's important to me that they encounter strong, positive role models for inspiration. I believe when people from different backgrounds see themselves reflected positively in the media landscape, it allows them to “dream big” while instilling a sense of pride and ambition.

From my perspective, representation is particularly crucial for marginalized communities, as this can help show individuals that anything is possible while fueling their ambitions and breaking down barriers. I've seen that the South Asian community, for example, has had to deal with stereotypical projections in the media for a long time, so it was particularly important for me to create a company that created positive role models while challenging stereotypes.

Media has a tremendous influence on our lives. Take The Simpsons : It's one of the most popular shows on the planet, yet its depiction of a South Asian character was largely limited to stereotypes . Companies have the power to challenge stereotypes and offer a different perspective—a step toward promoting a more inclusive and equitable society.

This promotion of an inclusive and equitable society requires media companies to be more assertive in defense of diverse team members and their stories. When the media uses racial imagery for entertainment, it skews the way all viewers understand and categorize people. Media companies must challenge stereotypes to provide an accurate portrayal of the world by embracing different genders, races, and cultures; interacting with individuals from diverse groups; and providing the necessary training to be able to recognize and confront stereotypes.

The fabric of American society is made of people from all different backgrounds, ethnicities and walks of life, with their own unique experiences, perspectives and points of view. To represent a snapshot of true America, it’s critical that media companies accurately represent these diverse communities and give them the chance to share their true-to-life experiences. By embracing diversity, media companies can positively influence cultural perceptions and challenge biases. This can help ensure the world children grow up in is one where they see themselves reflected in mainstream media and know that anything is possible.

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• Paul Feig, Marlee Matlin, Samara Weaving & Sian Heder Among 30+ Signees Of Inevitable Foundation Letter Calling For Improved Disability Representation In Hollywood

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Inevitable Foundation , the non-profit advocating on behalf of the disabled community, on Wednesday unveiled an open letter calling for improved disability representation in Hollywood.

The letter is signed by 30+ industry leaders, both as allies and members of the disability community, including CODA filmmaker Sian Heder and star Marlee Matlin , As We See It ‘s Jason Katims and Rick Glassman, Ramy ‘s Ramy Youssef and Steve Way, and Hacks co-creators Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky, as well as the likes of Alyssa Milano, Samara Weaving , and filmmaker Paul Feig .

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66% Of Audiences Unsatisfied With Representation Of Disability & Mental Health In Entertainment, Inevitable Foundation Report Finds

Inevitable Foundation Unveils Visionary Fellowship For Disabled Filmmakers; New Initiative Supported By Netflix

In conjunction with the letter, Inevitable Foundation has launched a new billboard campaign highlighting  its latest research. Currently, billboards can be seen across the industry centers of Los Angeles and New York City, with early supporters including Lamar NY and Orange Barrell Media.

Read the full letter authored by Richie Siegel and Marisa Torelli-Pedevska, Co-Founders of Inevitable Foundation, below.

Hey Hollywood,

There is a massive, loyal, and engaged audience of viewers and consumers within the global entertainment landscape who remain entirely underserved.

It’s an expansive community that lives everywhere from large coastal cities to rural areas, with wide ranging political and religious views.

It’s an audience—given its mere scope, collective buying power and influence—that should have unlimited choices when it comes to quality entertainment.

But they have simply been ignored. We’re talking about the Global Disability Audience , which includes more than a billion people worldwide . For a global industry that is so hyper-focused on box office and streaming profitability, this is a truly confounding business decision.

Over 25% of Americans have a disability, including physical, invisible and developmental disabilities, neurodiversity, mental health conditions, chronic illnesses and those who are Deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind or low vision. There are over 20 million U.S. households that have at least one disabled person in them. This massively underserved group deploys $21 billion in discretionary income each year. And this audience is only growing—Gen Z is 71% less likely to report good mental health compared to Millennials, and one in three 18-24 year olds experience a mental health condition, up from one in four in 2000.

It’s why 66% of audiences, both disabled and non-disabled, are unsatisfied with current representations of disability and mental health in film and television. It’s also why 20% of all adult audiences would subscribe to a new streaming service and go to more movies in theaters if the projects included authentic representations of people with disabilities and mental health conditions.

Given the size of this global audience, you would think that Hollywood would be hugely invested in capturing and entertaining this demographic. You would think that there would be new films and television shows coming out every week that aim to engage and entertain this audience given its scale.

But this isn’t even close to being the case. Hollywood, it’s time to Greenlight Disability. Everyone has a role to play:

CREATIVES: Hire disabled writers and filmmakers whose projects can help you tap into this massive underserved audience.

Disabled audiences can tell when stories were made for them, but not by them, as most prior attempts have been. It’s time to develop and greenlight a wave of commercial stories across every genre and format that appeal to this audience.

IP: Invest in IP from disabled authors, game designers, comic book artists and journalists. While there is a growing belief that most of the valuable IP for Hollywood has already been picked over, there is a sizable and valuable segment of the market no one is paying attention to: IP from disabled writers and creatives. It’s time to invest in this IP to build the next global franchises. CREATIVE EXECUTIVES: Hire disabled creative executives to shepherd these projects towards success. Too many non-disabled decision makers are either shutting down promising projects or pushing forward ones that most disabled people could immediately tell you will not resonate with disabled audiences. It’s time to invest in a new generation of disabled creatives executives and set them up for success across studios, networks and streamers. DATA COLLECTION: Invest in data collection and tracking for disabled audiences. Right now, few streaming services are prioritizing the tracking of disabled audiences’ viewership habits. Few movies are tested in front of disabled audiences, and this audience is entirely left out of box office tracking surveys and systems. It’s time to invest in the data and insight infrastructure to support this audience, given how many creative and business decisions are made using this information. MARKETING: Put real marketing muscle behind the distribution of these projects. Disabled audiences are statistically some of the most engaged consumers (see: Disability TikTok) and they are astutely aware of condescension, tokenism, exploitation, and virtue signaling. It’s time to speak to them authentically and engage with them as the sophisticated, loyal consumers that they are—and ensure that these projects get respectable marketing budgets to spread the word. ACCESSIBILITY: Invest in accessible premieres and screening venues so disabled audiences can show up. Too many theaters, festivals, and online platforms don’t prioritize, or even consider, accessibility, and it’s no wonder the audience doesn’t show up there— they literally can’t. It’s time to invest in accessibility so this audience can show up. If you build it, they will come. Engaging the Global Disability Audience doesn’t need to be pushed to your (likely underfunded) DEI department. You don’t need to invest in this audience to check a box, warm people’s hearts, or even because it’s the right thing to do . This is a highly lucrative audience who is eager to be entertained and has plenty of money to spend. At minimum, investing in the global disability audience simply supports your business objectives. So what are you waiting for? Sincerely, Richie Siegel Marisa Torelli-Pedevska Co-Founders, Inevitable Foundation

With the support of:

Adam Conover Aisling Bea Alexander Woo Ali Stroker Alyssa Milano Ben Watkins Brandon Sonnier Carol Barbee Craig Thomas Chris Cooper & Marianne Leone Dara Resnick David Nutter Eddy Kitsis Ginger Gonzaga Jason Katims Jack Thorne Jen Statsky Jillian Mercado Jorge Gutierrez Kiera Allen Lauren Ridloff Lauren “Lolo” Spencer Lucia Aniello Marlee Matlin Mickey Sumner Millicent Simmonds Nyle DiMarco Paul Feig Paul W. Downs Rachel Bloom Ramy Youssef Rick Glassman Rob Delaney Samara Weaving Sammi Haney Sian Heder Steve Way Tim Omundson Troian Bellisario

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Ramy Youssef, Sian Heder, Marlee Matlin and More Call on Hollywood to ‘Greenlight Disability’

By Pat Saperstein

Pat Saperstein

Deputy Editor

• Ramy Youssef, Sian Heder, Marlee Matlin and More Call on Hollywood to ‘Greenlight Disability’ 1 hour ago
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A group of industry actors, filmmakers, writers and showrunners has signed on to an open letter spearheaded by Inevitable Foundation asking Hollywood to consider financing and marketing more projects that include accurate and entertainment representation of people with disabilities. Among the signers are “Coda” director Sian Heder , Alyssa Milano, Ramy Youssef , Rachel Bloom, Marlee Matlin , “Three Body Problem” showrunner Alexander Woo and “A Quiet Place Part II” star Millicent Simmonds.

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Hey Hollywood,

There is a massive, loyal, and engaged audience of viewers and consumers within the global entertainment landscape who remain entirely underserved.

It’s an expansive community that lives everywhere from large coastal cities to rural areas, with wide ranging political and religious views.

It’s an audience — given its mere scope, collective buying power and influence — that should have unlimited choices when it comes to quality entertainment.

But they have simply been ignored.

We’re talking about the Global Disability Audience, which includes more than a billion people worldwide.

For a global industry that is so hyper-focused on box office and streaming profitability, this is a truly confounding business decision.

Over 25% of Americans have a disability, including physical, invisible and developmental disabilities, neurodiversity, mental health conditions, chronic illnesses and those who are Deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind or low vision. There are over 20 million U.S. households that have at least one disabled person in them. This massively underserved group deploys $21 billion in discretionary income each year. And this audience is only growing — Gen Z is 71% less likely to report good mental health compared to Millennials, and one in three 18-24 year olds experience a mental health condition, up from one in four in 2000.

It’s why 66% of audiences, both disabled and non-disabled, are unsatisfied with current representations of disability and mental health in film and television. It’s also why 20% of all adult audiences would subscribe to a new streaming service and go to more movies in theaters if the projects included authentic representations of people with disabilities and mental health conditions.

Given the size of this global audience, you would think that Hollywood would be hugely invested in capturing and entertaining this demographic. You would think that there would be new films and television shows coming out every week that aim to engage and entertain this audience given its scale. But this isn’t even close to being the case. Hollywood, it’s time to Greenlight Disability. Everyone has a role to play:

• CREATIVES: Hire disabled writers and filmmakers whose projects can help you tap into this massive underserved audience. Disabled audiences can tell when stories were made for them, but not by them, as most prior attempts have been. It’s time to develop and greenlight a wave of commercial stories across every genre and format that appeal to this audience.
• IP: Invest in IP from disabled authors, game designers, comic book artists and journalists. While there is a growing belief that most of the valuable IP for Hollywood has already been picked over, there is a sizable and valuable segment of the market no one is paying attention to: IP from disabled writers and creatives. It’s time to invest in this IP to build the next global franchises.
• CREATIVE EXECUTIVES: Hire disabled creative executives to shepherd these projects towards success. Too many non-disabled decision makers are either shutting down promising projects or pushing forward ones that most disabled people could immediately tell you will not resonate with disabled audiences. It’s time to invest in a new generation of disabled creatives executives and set them up for success across studios, networks and streamers.
• DATA COLLECTION: Invest in data collection and tracking for disabled audiences. Right now, few streaming services are prioritizing the tracking of disabled audiences’ viewership habits. Few movies are tested in front of disabled audiences, and this audience is entirely left out of box office tracking surveys and systems. It’s time to invest in the data and insight infrastructure to support this audience, given how many creative and business decisions are made using this information.
• MARKETING: Put real marketing muscle behind the distribution of these projects. Disabled audiences are statistically some of the most engaged consumers (see: Disability TikTok) and they are astutely aware of condescension, tokenism, exploitation, and virtue signaling. It’s time to speak to them authentically and engage with them as the sophisticated, loyal consumers that they are—and ensure that these projects get respectable marketing budgets to spread the word.
• ACCESSIBILITY: Invest in accessible premieres and screening venues so disabled audiences can show up. Too many theaters, festivals, and online platforms don’t prioritize, or even consider, accessibility, and it’s no wonder the audience doesn’t show up there— they literally can’t. It’s time to invest in accessibility so this audience can show up. If you build it, they will come.

Engaging the Global Disability Audience doesn’t need to be pushed to your (likely underfunded) DEI department. You don’t need to invest in this audience to check a box, warm people’s hearts, or even because it’s the right thing to do.

So what are you waiting for?

Sincerely, Richie Siegel Marisa Torelli-Pedevska Co-Founders, Inevitable Foundation

With the support of: Adam Conover  Aisling Bea  Alexander Woo  Ali Stroker  Alyssa Milano  Ben Watkins  Brandon Sonnier  Carol Barbee  Craig Thomas  Chris Cooper & Marianne Leone  Dara Resnick  David Nutter  Eddy Kitsis  Ginger Gonzaga  Jason Katims  Jack Thorne  Jen Statsky Jillian Mercado  Jorge Gutierrez Kiera Allen  Lauren Ridloff  Lauren “Lolo” Spencer  Marlee Matlin  Mickey Sumner  Millicent Simmonds Nyle DiMarco

Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello  Paul Feig  Rachel Bloom  Ramy Youssef Rick Glassman Rob Delaney  Samara Weaving  Sammi Haney  Sian Heder Steve Way  Tim Omundson  Troian Bellisario

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Whanganui district councillors divided over representation for 2025 election

Whanganui District Council will confirm its future representation arrangements at a meeting on September 3. Photo / NZME

There were passionate speeches in Whanganui District Council chambers this week as elected members grappled with the make-up of council for the 2025 local elections.

In June, a working party recommended that the council comprise eight councillors from the general ward and two from the Māori ward but that was overruled by the council which proposed 10 from the general ward and two from the Māori ward.

The working party’s recommendation was brought back to the table by strategy and policy committee chairwoman Kate Joblin during deliberations on representation review submissions on Tuesday.

Whanganui Mayor Andrew Tripe was in favour of 10 councillors, saying it would lead to more efficient decision-making.

He said by his calculations, there would be a $10,000 remuneration increase for councillors if there were 10 instead of 12.

“That would attract a new person, a new kind of person, a new persona to consider running for council because they can see it is able to make their life work.”

Councils in Tauranga, South Wairarapa, Rotorua, and Ruapehu all had fewer than 12 councillors, Tripe said.

“It’s working for them so I can’t see why it wouldn’t work for us.”

Councillor Rob Vinsen said Tauranga City Council “destroyed themselves through factionalism” and that could happen in Whanganui if the council was not careful.

Tauranga councillors were sacked in 2020 by then-Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta who cited “poor behaviour”, “infighting”, and not setting “realistic” rates .

“The number of councillors we’ve got now gives a greater opportunity for the community to be heard and for more views to come around this council table,” Vinsen said.

“It’s a myth that other councils have less [councillors] than Whanganui. There are a few but the majority have either equal or more.”

Vinsen said reducing the numbers would make it harder for new people to be elected.

Councillor Jenny Duncan said efficiency was a “function of systems, processes and leadership”, not “a function of numbers”.

“I can’t find how efficiency is simply going to come because we drop two people off,” she said.

“We heard that a number of councils have fewer numbers than we do but we didn’t get any evidence that they function any better.”

Joblin said she had sat on boards for more years than she cared to remember and 13 (12 councillors plus the mayor) was too many to be totally focused and efficient.

“I think we would achieve more by having 11 people around the board, possibly even less, but that’s not up for an option today,” she said.

Joblin, Tripe, Deputy Mayor Helen Craig, and councillors Josh Chandulal-Mackay and Charlotte Melser voted for 10 councillors. Duncan, Vinsen, and councillors Ross Fallen, Peter Oskam, Charlie Anderson, Philippa Baker-Hogan, and Glenda Brown voted against.

Councillor Michael Law was absent.

The committee will recommend the council, at its meeting on September 3, adopt the representation proposal of 12 councillors (10 from the general ward and two from the Māori ward) and retain the Whanganui Rural Community Board.

Apart from Oskam, councillors voted for the recommendation that the community board comprise two Whanganui members, two Kaitoke members, three Kai Iwi members and two additional members appointed by the council, representing the Whanganui general ward and/or the Whanganui Māori Ward.

Before deliberations, the committee heard verbal submissions on representation from members of the community.

Peter Edmonds said he was in favour of 10 councillors and it gave iwi “a better proportion of the whole”.

“It would be a challenge they would have to accept for a greater degree of responsibility within the aegis of the whole council,” he said.

Former Whanganui district councillor John Anderson said more than half of those entitled to vote in local body elections failed to do so.

“In some respects, the concept of democracy is under threat,” he said.

“In my view, tinkering with the current representation model is simply not addressing the problems we face.

“My plea to you is to look wider, think deeper, and make bolder decisions.”

Anderson said a decrease in diversity would be expected if there were fewer councillors.

Consultation on the 12 councillor proposal ran from July 2 to August 2. There were 190 public submissions, with 58% in support of it.

However, 50% of submitters were opposed to the proposed structure overall, 37% were in favour, and 11% did not know.

There was wide support for the community board, with 67% in favour of retaining it.

Governance services officer Sasha Matthews said those who agreed with the proposal thought it was fair, welcomed Māori wards, and believed the structure matched Whanganui’s population numbers.

“They also expressed satisfaction with how the current system is working,” she said.

“Meanwhile, those that disagreed had a common theme - the belief that democracy shouldn’t be race-based and Māori wards weren’t needed in Whanganui.”

Matthews said the number of submissions was a huge improvement on the last representation consultation in 2019, which received only 10.

The decision regarding Māori wards is outside the scope of the council’s current representation review.

Last year, elected members voted eight to five in favour of establishing them for the 2025 and 2028 local elections.

The Government has said councils which created Māori wards without a poll must either reverse the decision or conduct a binding referendum during the 2025 election.

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle . Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.

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Human-centric approach vital for AI effectiveness

• Security Council

Africa Has Provided Clear, Compelling Vision for Security Council Representation, Speakers Stress in Historic Debate on Enhancing Continent’s Participation

Africa has articulated a clear and compelling vision for its representation on the Security Council, that body heard today at a historic high-level debate on enhancing the continent’s effective participation in the United Nations organ tasked with maintenance of peace and security.

The meeting was convened by Sierra Leone, Council President for August, and chaired by that country’s President, Julius Maada Bio. Speaking in his national capacity, he said:  “Today, I speak as a representative of a continent that has long been underrepresented in the decision-making process that shapes our world.”  Setting out the aspirations of its fifty-plus countries and over 1 billion people, he stated:  “Africa demands two permanent seats in the UN Security Council and two additional non-permanent seats, bringing the total number of non-permanent seats to five.” The African Union will choose the continent’s permanent members, he said, stressing that “Africa wants the veto abolished; however, if UN Member States wish to retain the veto, it must extend it to all new permanent members as a matter of justice.” 

This is the Common African Position, as espoused in the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration, he said. As the Coordinator of the African Union’s Committee of Ten, his country has spearheaded efforts to amplify the continent’s voice on the question of its representation.  Noting the bloc’s admission to the Group of Twenty (G20) as a welcome development, he said it is absurd for the UN to enter the eightieth decade of its existence without representation for his continent.  It must be treated as a special case and prioritized in the Council reform process, he stressed. 

Highlighting the way slavery, imperialism and colonialism have shaped current global power structures, he noted the persistent stereotype of Africa “as a passive actor” in global affairs.  The continent’s inclusion in the permanent membership category will ensure that decisions affecting it are made with direct and meaningful input from those most impacted.  This will not only unlock Africa's full potential; it will also improve the Council’ legitimacy, he added. 

“The cracks” in the Organization’s foundation “are becoming too large to ignore”, António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations acknowledged during his briefing.  The Council was “designed by the victors of the Second World War and reflects the power structures at that time,” he said, recalling that in 1945, most of today's African countries were still under colonial rule and had no voice in international affairs.  As a result, there is no permanent member representing Africa in the Council and the number of elected members from the continent is not in proportion to its importance. 

It is unacceptable, he underscored, that “the world's pre-eminent peace and security body lacks a permanent voice for a continent of well over a billion people”, whose countries make up 28 per cent of the membership of the UN.  While Africa is underrepresented in global governance structures, it is overrepresented in the challenges these structures address.  Nearly half of all country-specific or regional conflicts on the Council's agenda concern Africa, and “they are often exacerbated by greed for Africa’s resources” and further aggravated by external interference, he said. 

“Reform of this Council membership must be accompanied by a democratization of its working methods,” he added, drawing attention to the need for more systematic consultations with host States and regional organizations.  Enhancing Africa’s representation in the Council is not just a question of ethics; “it is also a strategic imperative that can increase global acceptance of the Council’s decisions,” he reminded that body.

Echoing that, Dennis Francis (Trinidad and Tobago), President of the General Assembly, said:  “We cannot continue to take [the United Nations’] relevance for granted.”  Instead, he added, “we must earn it, daily, with the actions we take”,  including meaningful reform.  Highlighting the Assembly’s active engagement on Council reform, he said the current draft of its input to the Pact of the Future calls for redressing the historical injustice to Africa.

The continent, he pointed out, is home to 54 of the UN’s 193 members, accounts for 1.3 billion of the world’s population and hosts the majority of UN peacekeeping operations.  “The fact that Africa continues to be manifestly underrepresented on the Security Council is simply wrong,” he said.  Alongside the growing calls for a Council that is more representative and transparent, he noted, there are also calls for a revitalized General Assembly.  Member States are asking that body to assume a greater role in peace and security matters but also hold the Council more accountable for its actions — “and, indeed, inaction” he said. 

The United Nations is clearly suffering from a legitimacy crisis, Sithembile Mbete, Senior Lecturer of Political Sciences at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria noted, adding that younger generations are witnessing its failures in “real time” on social media platforms.  She described Africa’s experience of the UN system over the past 80 years as one of “misrepresentation and underrepresentation”.  This has become evident in the perpetuated narratives of Africa as a continent of “backwards societies” reliant on aid as well as in the continent’s exclusion from permanent membership of the Council and inadequate representation among non-permanent members. 

Detailing the historical context for this, she recalled the four centuries of European slave trade starting in 1450 and devastating Africa’s population, culture, and economies, as well as the 1884 Berlin Conference that imposed colonial States, which still impacts the continent’s economic relations with rich nations.  In the 30 years since the end of the cold war, African subjects took up nearly 50 per cent of the Council’s meetings — but while Africa was on the menu, as was the case in Berlin 100 years ago, it still does not have a permanent seat at the table.  By 2045, Africa will have 2.3 billion people, making up 25 per cent of the global population, she said, asking diplomats to summon “the courage” to confront the power relations that are preventing meaningful reform. 

Lounes Magramane, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad of Algeria, pointed to the hotspots on his continent, from the security, development and humanitarian challenges in the Sahel region to the Sahrawi people’s struggle for their right to self-determination.  Yet, Africa is the only group not represented in the permanent category, he said, reiterating the call for allocation of two permanent and two non-permanent seats.  Permanent members must commit to support the reform process, he said, calling on them to participate constructively in the intergovernmental negotiations. 

China’s representative was one of several speakers who traced the connection between colonialism and Africa’s under-representation.  The brutal legacy of Western colonial rule, the inhumane slave trade and resource-plundering impoverished the people of that continent and artificially interrupted their development.  This is the root cause of all historical injustices in Africa, he asserted.  “Some Western countries still cling to the colonial mindset,” he said, interfering in Africa’s internal affairs using financial, legal, and even military means to exert their influence in currency, energy, minerals and national defence.  He urged those countries “to change course and return the future of Africa to the hands of the African people”. 

Eight decades ago when the Council first met, the United States’ delegate said, “its architects could not have imagined then what the world would look like today, as we cannot imagine what it will look like 70 years from now”.  In 2050, one in four people on the planet will be African, she noted, adding that Africa has the fastest-growing population of any continent.  “We all benefit when African leaders are at the table,” she said, adding that the upcoming Summit of the Future should be a platform for meaningful progress.  At the same time, “Africa’s problems are not Africa’s alone to deal with,” she said, as she warned against the attempts of some States to obstruct Panels of Experts.  They represent a critical UN tool that provides the body with credible information about security threats, she added.

General Jeje Odongo Abubakhar, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Uganda, said that despite being “the market of the world” and a leading contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, Africa has been “unjustly excluded from positions of power and influence” in the Council.  A stronger presence will give the continent a “much-needed platform for engagement with the international community as an equal and significant partner,” he said.  Voicing support for the intergovernmental negotiating process, he noted that “it is taking too long to conclude”. 

Mozambique’s delegate noted that this topic has been long addressed in many different fora, including the negotiations on Assembly resolution 62/557 concerning “Question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and related matters”.  Yet, regrettably, “the Security Council’s engagement in that process has been modest to say the least,” he said, adding that the body’s position has not changed much since the 1965 expansion that added the four elected members to the organ.  To those who argue that expanding membership will diminish the Council’s efficacy, he pointed out that legitimacy and efficacy are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. 

Shinsuke Shimizu, Ambassador for International Economic Affairs in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, commended the continent’s effort to shoulder more responsibilities at the Council, highlighting the landmark resolution on financing of African Union-led Peace Support Operations.  The Council must be reformed with an expansion in both permanent and non-permanent membership, he asserted.  Also supporting the expansion of both categories of membership was Lord Collins of Highbury, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for the United Kingdom. In order for the Council to be as effective as it can be, it must urgently include permanent African representation, he said. 

The representative of France stressed the need to strengthen the Council’s legitimacy whilst preserving its decision-making ability.  The reform is “possible”, and Africa should serve as the “catalyst” for this change, she said, adding that the ambitious goal of expansion must be included in the text of the Pact of the Future.  She also urged Member States to join her country’s initiative to limit the use of the veto in cases of mass atrocities.

The Council also heard from several members of the African Union’s Committee of Ten Heads of State and Government, also known as C-10, which was established in 2016.  The speaker for Equatorial Guinea noted that the Common African Position has received much support from Member States in the Assembly as well as the five permanent Council members, “but we have not seen such support become a concrete reality and lead to actual reforms.”  He invited them to clearly define that support and take action.  Congo’s delegate said that given the five permanent Council members’ recognition of the historic injustice done to Africa, there is a real opportunity to advance this reform, encouraging Member States to consider seriously the proposals in the Common African Position. 

The representative of Kenya said the “marginalization is getting worse as the powerful countries seek after their own interests” while Namibia’s delegate, who recalled the Council’s lack of support for his country during its struggle against apartheid and colonialism, underscored that enhancing Africa’s representation is “not a favor to the African continent”.  The continent’s patience should not be mistaken as acquiescence, he warned.  The representative of Senegal rejected “interim solutions that relegate new members to second-class roles” adding that “permanence is not a matter of privilege; it is a question of representativeness”.

While speakers expressed broad support for reforming the Council’s membership, some voiced reservations about certain aspects of the proposed reforms. 

The representative of Italy, speaking for Uniting for Consensus, which he described as a reform group dedicated to achieving a more democratic Council, suggested increasing the number of seats in a reformed Council to a maximum of 27, out of which Africa would obtain 6 seats, thereby “becoming the group with the largest number of elected seats”.  Intergovernmental negotiations have shown increasing convergence on the expansion of non-permanent seats based on equitable geographical distribution, he observed.  At the same time, Africa’s aspiration to serve for longer periods on the Council is legitimate, he said, noting his group has proposed longer-term re-electable non-permanent seats to provide continuity of tenure.  This will maintain a system of democratic accountability “without creating additional and unjustifiable privileged positions”, he said.

Along similar lines, the representative of the Republic of Korea, who reaffirmed his country’s support for Council reform, “standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Africa”, also cautioned that increasing permanent membership will mean that the vast majority of the UN membership would inevitably be further marginalized.  “The Republic of Korea’s consistent and strong reservations about expanding the permanent membership are thus based on the rational and logical conclusion that this antiquity needs to be contained, not proliferated,” he underscored.  The immediate priority should be expanding the non-permanent membership, he said, adding that “any fixed composition of new permanent members will serve at best as a still picture or a snapshot of one moment of history”.

Guyana’s delegate rejected the proposal for expanded permanent membership without the veto privilege, cautioning that this will create hierarchies of members in the permanent category.  Moreover, it will perpetuate injustice by restricting the prerogatives of new permanent members, including from Africa.  While firmly supporting the abolition of the veto, she contended that “as long as it continues to exist, all new permanent members should have the prerogative of its use”.  Notwithstanding, the use of the veto must be curtailed, she stressed, adding that it should never be used to paralyze the Council in cases of mass atrocities such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

The representative of Pakistan said the veto is the principal reason for the Council’s frequent inability to take effective collective action.  “The problem cannot be the solution,” he said, opposing the addition of new permanent members on the Council as demanded by four individual States, viewing it as a move to promote narrow national interests.  Advocating for a “regional approach”, he expressed support for “special regional seats” to be occupied by States selected by the region and elected by the General Assembly.  Similarly, the concept of longer-term and re-electable seats within each region — proposed by the Uniting for Consensus Group — can be considered as a way to achieve these objectives. While the veto cannot be abolished, it must be severely constrained, particularly in the case of the genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, he said.

The representative of the Russian Federation, however, expressed support for retaining the mechanism of veto, which ensures the adoption of realistic decisions.  Describing his country as a “consistent supporter” of Security Council reform, he cautioned, however, against creating a Council that is “too broad” to maintain its “effectiveness and authority”.  He also pointed to the need for the redistribution of “penholderships” which are currently dominated by former colonial Powers in the Council.  All efforts to correct this situation are “sabotaged by Western countries”, he said, adding that “they are more concerned with ensuring that their NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] bloc allies are included in the permanent pool of the Council alongside countries from the Global South.”

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Computer Science > Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Title: coboom: codebook guided bootstrapping for medical image representation learning.

Abstract: Self-supervised learning (SSL) has emerged as a promising paradigm for medical image analysis by harnessing unannotated data. Despite their potential, the existing SSL approaches overlook the high anatomical similarity inherent in medical images. This makes it challenging for SSL methods to capture diverse semantic content in medical images consistently. This work introduces a novel and generalized solution that implicitly exploits anatomical similarities by integrating codebooks in SSL. The codebook serves as a concise and informative dictionary of visual patterns, which not only aids in capturing nuanced anatomical details but also facilitates the creation of robust and generalized feature representations. In this context, we propose CoBooM, a novel framework for self-supervised medical image learning by integrating continuous and discrete representations. The continuous component ensures the preservation of fine-grained details, while the discrete aspect facilitates coarse-grained feature extraction through the structured embedding space. To understand the effectiveness of CoBooM, we conduct a comprehensive evaluation of various medical datasets encompassing chest X-rays and fundus images. The experimental results reveal a significant performance gain in classification and segmentation tasks.

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Trump’s Pattern of Sowing Election Doubt Intensifies in 2024

By Karen Yourish and Charlie Smart

Former President Donald J. Trump has baselessly and publicly cast doubt about the fairness of the 2024 election about once a day, on average, since he announced his candidacy for president, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

Though the tactic is familiar — Mr. Trump raised the specter of a “rigged” election in the 2016 and 2020 cycles, too — his attempts to undermine the 2024 contest are a significant escalation.

Mr. Trump first raised questions about the 2016 election in August of that year, about 100 days before the election.

Aug. 21, 2016

He did so earlier — and more frequently — before the 2020 election.

June 26, 2019

But in the 2024 cycle, the falsehoods have been baked in since Mr. Trump announced his candidacy, almost two years before Election Day. They show no signs of subsiding.

Nov. 18, 2022

Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election had historic consequences. The so-called “Big Lie” — Mr. Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen from him — led to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol and two of four criminal indictments against Mr. Trump, as well as his second impeachment.

But Mr. Trump had planted seeds of doubt among his followers long before Election Day, essentially setting up a no-lose future for himself: Either he would prevail, or the election would be rigged.

He has never given up that framing, which no evidence supports, even well after the end of his presidency. And as he seeks to return to the White House, the same claim has become the backbone of his campaign.

Long before announcing his candidacy, Mr. Trump and his supporters had been falsely claiming that President Biden was “weaponizing” the Justice Department to target him. But it took until March of last year for Mr. Trump to settle on a new accusation: that the multiple legal challenges related to Mr. Trump’s business and political activities constituted a “new way of cheating” in order to “interfere” in the 2024 election. He has made versions of that accusation more than 350 times.

“This is a rigged deal, just as the 2020 election was rigged, and we can’t let them get away with it,” Mr. Trump said on Nov. 18, 2022, three days after announcing his 2024 candidacy. His comments were in response to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s appointment of a special counsel to supervise the Justice Department’s criminal investigations related to the events leading up to the Jan. 6 riot and Mr. Trump’s decision to keep classified documents at his Florida resort.

By last summer, Mr. Trump had honed the language and made it a staple of his stump speech: “They rigged the presidential election of 2020, and we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election of 2024.”

The Times has documented more than 500 campaign events, social media posts and interviews during the 2024 cycle in which Mr. Trump falsely accused Democrats or others of trying to “rig,” “cheat,” “steal” or otherwise “influence” the next election — or of having done so in 2020.

‘Election interference’ is Trump’s choice accusation in 2024 cycle

Mentions of rigging or similar words

Mentions of election interference or similar words

Mentions of both

Trial started in hush-money case

Trump charged in classified documents case

Trump charged in Jan. 6

and Georgia election interference cases

Trump charged in Manhattan hush-money case

WEEK TRUMP ANNOUNCED 2024 CAMPAIGN

Trump charged in Jan. 6 and Georgia election interference cases

Mentions of election interference

or similar words

Week Trump announced

2024 campaign

Trump charged in Manhattan hush-

Trump charged

in classified

documents case

Trump charged in Jan. 6 and

Georgia election interference

Mr. Trump has adapted the specifics of his accusations with each of the three election cycles. But in each case, his pattern of discourse has followed the same contours. He sows doubt about the legitimacy of the election, and then begins to capitalize on that doubt by alluding to not necessarily accepting the election results — unless, of course, he wins.

This rhetorical strategy — heads, I win; tails, you cheated — is a beloved one for Mr. Trump that predates even his time as a presidential candidate. He called the Emmy Awards “a con game” after his television show “The Apprentice” failed to win in 2004 and 2005. And before he officially became the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, he began to float the possibility that the primary contest was, as he said, “ rigged and boss controlled .”

By May of that year, Mr. Trump spoke plainly about why he had stashed the argument away. “You’ve been hearing me say it’s a rigged system,” he said, “but now I don’t say it anymore because I won.”

Late that summer, with his sights set on the November general election, Mr. Trump tested out a new line, contending that “the media” was “rigging” the election in favor of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. His assertions intensified in October after a recording surfaced of him speaking in vulgar terms about women.

“I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — if I win,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in 2016, three weeks before Election Day. And though he would end up winning the Electoral College and the presidency, his failure to secure the popular vote led him to form a Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to “prove” that rampant voter fraud was to blame.

In December 2019, well into Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives impeached him, saying he used the levers of government to solicit election assistance from Ukraine in the form of investigations to discredit Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump subsequently said that Democrats were using the “impeachment hoax” to “interfere” in the election.

The Covid-19 pandemic gave him a new rallying cry, centered on election integrity: Mail-in ballots were “dangerous,” “fraught with fraud” and were being used to “steal” and “rig” the election, he said.

About six weeks before Election Day in 2020, Mr. Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. “We want to make sure that the election is honest, and I’m not sure that it can be,” Mr. Trump said.

This time, it was half a year before Election Day 2024 — and after more than a year of pushing the “election interference” line about the criminal charges against him and repeatedly warning that Democrats are “cheating” — that Mr. Trump again placed conditions on his acceptance of election results.

“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results,” he said in a May 1 interview with The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”

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