What to Expect
Our goal with this project is to explore the ways in which media representations of Black youth primarily serves to further common stereotypes and discourses of the Black community. Through our research we have also been able to see the ways in which the discourse of Black folk being outside of humanity is prevalent in media. For example, we are constantly shown this through the way that media representation of Black youth serves to explode the discourses of youth that we’ve discussed in this class. The discourses for teens, particularly “at-risk ”and “social-problem”, tend to be exaggerated when Black youth are involved which highlights their state as subalterns. You will be able to find a deeper exploration of this idea in our Stereotypes section.
As a group we will primarily be utilizing Croteau (for his analysis as media as a medium for dominant ideologies), Raby (for the discourse of adolescence) and Christensen (because the idea of “secret education” is key to our argument) for our analyses. We will also be including examples that serve to show the potential for media images to not fall in line with this secret education. While it would seem that these examples contradict our argument, we find that it is important to highlight the potential for media to subvert dominant ideology and to begin to construct a future in which media does not rely on harmful stereotypes and furthering the subalternation of particular communities.
As a group we will primarily be utilizing Croteau (for his analysis as media as a medium for dominant ideologies), Raby (for the discourse of adolescence) and Christensen (because the idea of “secret education” is key to our argument) for our analyses. We will also be including examples that serve to show the potential for media images to not fall in line with this secret education. While it would seem that these examples contradict our argument, we find that it is important to highlight the potential for media to subvert dominant ideology and to begin to construct a future in which media does not rely on harmful stereotypes and furthering the subalternation of particular communities.