Episode 21: Quantifying Negative Media Portrayals of People of Color
Citations Needed
Citations Needed
4.8 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 January 2018
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
According to one 2014 study, 75% of white Americans don't have any non-white friends. Put another way, white people's perception of African Americans and other people of color comes primarily from media representations rather than actual interactions. As such, how communities of color are portrayed in the media – from news and opinion pages to movie and TV screens – is tremendously important.
Two newly-published reports reveal how these perceptions are consistently distorted to over-emphasize Black and Latinx criminality, center white people in sympathetic portrayals as either victims or heroes, and overwhelmingly lump immigration coverage in with coverage of crime and violence.
In this episode, we discuss the bare statistics of how people of color, immigrants, and the poor are shown in media, why it matters, and the consequences of media makers from newsrooms to Hollywood perpetuating destructive stereotypes.
We're joined by some of the people behind these reports, Lucy Odigie-Turley of The Opportunity Agenda and Nicole Rodgers of Family Story.
***
The Guests
Lucy Odigie-Turley is the Opinion and Media Research Coordinator with The Opportunity Agenda. An experienced communication researcher with training in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, Lucy conducts and organizes multi-methods research to assess dominant media narratives and public opinion about poverty, immigration, and criminal justice.
Nicole Rodgers is the founder and executive director of Family Story, a communications and research organization that elevates stories of diverse families. A strategist with broad expertise in communications, branding, and research in the public interest, Rodgers is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Role Reboot, an online magazine dedicated to storytelling and social critique from a new generation of Americans rethinking "traditional" family, breaking through stereotypes, and bucking expectations about gender roles.
***
The Reports
Redefining Sanctuary: Analysis of public attitudes and media coverage of sanctuary jurisdictions and related immigration policies
Lucy Odigie-Turley | December 2017 | The Opportunity Agenda
A Dangerous Distortion of Our Families: Representations of Families, By Race, In News and Opinion Media
Dr. Travis L. Dixon | December 2017 | Color Of Change
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is Citations Needed with Nemeshirazi and Adam Johnson. |
| 0:08.7 | Welcome to Citations Needed, a podcast on the media, power PR and the history of bullshit |
| 0:16.1 | I am Nemeshirazi. |
| 0:17.1 | I'm Adam Johnson. |
| 0:18.4 | And happy new year everybody. |
| 0:20.0 | Thank you everyone for joining us. |
| 0:22.4 | We are thrilled to be back and we are going to launch right in with an episode focused |
| 0:28.6 | on, guess what? |
| 0:29.8 | The media and representations in the media. |
| 0:32.5 | So yes, this is I guess what one may define as a more liberal show, which I don't mean |
| 0:36.3 | as a pejorative, despite popular belief, we're not uniformly hostile to liberalism. |
| 0:41.2 | But what we're going to discuss in this episode is there was two really good studies that |
| 0:44.3 | came out that came across Nemeshirazi's desk that he thought were really interesting |
| 0:47.2 | and good to sort of update about how the media represents both African Americans and Latinos |
| 0:54.3 | and the larger issue of immigrants and immigration, which we think is sort of per se |
| 0:59.6 | is really important because representation does matter and the reason why we know what |
| 1:04.5 | matters is because people sell advertising, right? |
| 1:07.3 | So either advertising works or it doesn't work. |
| 1:09.3 | So if you're advertising, if you're, you know, misrepresenting African Americans on TV |
| 1:13.1 | shows and news media, that in the aggregate that it's going to have a racist effect, you |
| 1:17.9 | know, in theory, yes, you over to the capitalist system and get rid of all that. |
| 1:21.0 | That's great. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Citations Needed, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Citations Needed and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.