This study examined portrayals of African-American women shown in professional careers on prime-time network television during the May 2005 sweeps month. Specifically, the study compares these portrayals to actual U.S. Department of Labor workforce statistics to observe a possible similarity. Additionally, the study identifies any behavioral and conversational stereotyped attributes ascribed to African-American female characters shown in the workplace. A quantitative content analysis of four broadcast networks (FOX, ABC, UPN, and WB) ranked by Nielsen Media as having the highest rated prime-time television programming among minority households for 2003-2004 revealed that African-American female characters on network television are over-represented in terms of professional careers in comparison to their actual presence in U.S. workforce statistics.
However, their actual presence in these careers is higher than that of African-American male characters on network television, which closely resembles the distribution of professional African-American males and females in the U.S. working population. The results also revealed that out of the four networks, UPN had a substantially greater number of African-American female characters in professional careers, but their representations include subtle messages of racial/ethnic stereotypical behaviors commonly associated with African-Americans.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USF/oai:scholarcommons.usf.edu:etd-3938 |
| Date | 01 June 2005 |
| Creators | Jefferson, Shani Tyhirah |
| Publisher | Scholar Commons |
| Source Sets | University of South Flordia |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | default |
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