Race and Media Reader

The Race and Media Reader provides a wide-ranging introduction to major issues and debates surrounding the role that the media plays in ongoing struggles around race and racism in the US today. The essays collected here come from a wide variety of disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological perspectives, and focus on a broad range of media practices, racial and ethnic populations, and historical moments. These readings, curated by Gilbert Rodman, offer an intersectional approach to thinking about media and the politics of race, arguing that media representations of specific racial/ethnic identities need to be understood within the broader social, cultural, and economic contexts in which they circulate. With concise introductory notes by Rodman, these selections ask readers to take a critical stance on the media’s role as one of the most powerful institutions involved in the creation and maintenance of problematic racial hierarchies, and to consider ways of thinking and acting that might bring us closer to a world where racism no longer exists.

Gilbert B. Rodman is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota, where his research focuses on critical media studies, cultural studies, popular culture, communication technologies, intellectual property, and the politics of race and ethnicity.