US Media and Diversity (Electronic Media Research Series)

This volume fully illuminates the role of diversity in media representation, dissemination, and effects across various platforms, including social media. Against a backdrop of shifting demographics and increasing diversity, the book highlights the implications for media consumption patterns and explores the simultaneous rise in online hate.

Organized into three thematic sections, the book first centers people of color in the discussion of media stereotypes and identity, considering the impact of technology on such identities. This volume then moves to analyze the news media, and how stereotypes are presented and perpetuated, before focusing on paradigm shifts brought on by critical media effects and counter-stereotyping research. The empirical studies and theoretical analyses push readers to imagine better how Communication scholars can advance this essential work at a precarious time in history.

Budding and senior scholars interested in understanding stereotypical media representations and effects will gain insights from this critical and timely book, and it will interest those working in the areas of media and communication, media representation, social justice, diversity and inclusion, media sociology, social media, and journalism.

Travis L. Dixon (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara) is the David L. Swanson Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Dixon is a media effects scholar specializing in investigating the prevalence of stereotypes in the mass media and the impact of stereotypical imagery on audience members.

Dana Mastro (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is Professor of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is currently serving as Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel. Her research documents representations of ethnic/racial groups in the media and examines the effects of exposure to these depictions on perceptions of self as well as interethnic/interracial dynamics in society and policy decision-making.