Book Review: Entman and Rojecki, The Black Image in the White Mind

Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki
The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America
University of Chicago Press, 2000, 305 pp.
$US 26.00 cloth (0-226-21075-8)

This book attempts to analyze the images of Blacks conveyed by the mass media during the 1990s, focusing on network television as well as including local television, newspapers and movies. The authors highlight newscasts, but also include prime-time highly rated popular TV programs, advertising and the movies. What they find, we – as the media audience – already know or at least sense very strongly: that there are differences in the representation of Blacks and Whites. But Entman and Rojecki seek to demonstrate what those differences are. In doing so, they employ some interesting and well-thought-out content analysis categories–but fail in some extended analyses because of their analytic over-reach.

Their major concern in the book is the representation of Blacks in television news, primarily network news. Using videotaped news programs for ABC, CBS and NBC, for 1990 and 1997 as well as transcripts of ABC World News during 1990-91 and 1997, they analyzed the representation of Blacks, looking for stories in which Blacks were causal agents or centrally involved in the story. They noted that Whites were overwhelmingly likely to be sole agents in news stories – about 26 times as likely as Blacks. Such disparities, the authors say, not only reflect "America's status and power hierarchy, they may also serve to reinforce it." The contexts in which Blacks and Whites are shown are also disparate, for rarely was a Black person shown discussing important general issues, such as economics, foreign affairs or electoral politics, rarely was he interviewed as an expert in coverage of science/technology, health/smoking, disasters/rescues, weather events, etc. Instead, Blacks were more prominently associated with sports/entertainment, discrimination issues and were often featured as experts on race issues. In short, they were typecast.

The authors decry the fact that Blacks are shown more frequently in the context of crime. Their analysis indicates an equal number of Blacks and Whites were alleged perpetrators of violence and that there are more White than Black victims. The authors argue that, although Blacks' commission of crime is out of proportion to their population, the media coverage "makes them into symbols of threat." That image can be assuaged by a media-imposed social symmetry if Whites who have not been officially charged with crimes are juxtaposed with Blacks who have been: "Slumlords whose neglect of heat and sanitation codes causes children to become sick, police who harass minority youth without probable cause, banks that refuse to lend to credit-worthy individuals based on race, and apathetic teachers of non-White students all commit a serious kind of crime if not violence against people, a sort not reported in official statistics of crime or in most newscasts." One might have hoped such orthodox left-Marcusean diatribes meant to shock had seen their day as meshuggeneh filler by post-Marcuse generations. Apparently not.

"Black unemployment, discrimination, ineffective schooling, single-parent upbringing, are "experiences that tend not to be reported within the narrative of each specific crime." The crime/violence events are presented, they say, "context-free." But one wonders what medium could survive if it insisted on inserting hypothetical and unproven apologias of this nature each time it carried a story in which a Black was arrested and charged with some serious crime."

The authors are also critical of the "news media's focus on Blacks as entertainers and athletes" – reflecting what they call the "ratings-driven atmosphere" which is the reality of media today. However, they fail to acknowledge that viewers, White or Black, might on the whole be more receptive to ANY person of any race who is lionized, made into a popular hero.

Despite flaws such as this, the authors have developed some interesting insights into unwitting media bias. One of their more intriguing findings is that Whites accused of violence more often were given names than were Blacks; thus the latter were treated as members of a category rather than as individuals. As well, they claim blacks were more often seen handcuffed or physically restrained by police (although this could be based on police expectations or experience, rather than media selectivity bias). But the authors return to awkward polemic, seemingly condemning "innocuous" Black journalists and anchors because they "spoke from the same perspective as Whites." While they admit that this perspective is in line with norms of journalists' professional roles, still Enteman and Rojecki enter the world of the subjunctive again, arguing Black newspeople "could construct a different narrative on crime involving Blacks, one focusing more on discrimination as a cause."

While criticizing media for deindividualizing Blacks charged with crimes, they deny the same individualism to the Black journalists, insisting on treating them categorically as in the following passage: "…the innocuous Black anchors may also reinforce Whites' impatience with the threatening or demanding Blacks who appear so frequently in the news itself.. …the image that undermines old-fashioned racism may promote the denial component of racial animosity."

A surprising finding is that when Blacks are shown in television entertainment features, they are in higher status positions than Whites. The authors criticize this attempt to provide high status Black role models since it "imposes a formal distance between Black and White actors that hobbles the development of interracial intimacy and the enlargement of the audience's sympathetic imagination " (I am not sure I understand what they mean by sympathetic imagination.) And what if Blacks were primarily shown as in lower status positions than Whites? What then would the authors criticize? I suspect it would be the lack of high status Black role models. Along this line, they are critical of the fact that Blacks display "a layer of scrupulous responsibility," which they consider to be a renunciation of "virtually all symbolic traces of Blackness and [which embodies] those characteristics associated with White Virtue." Scrupulous responsibility is not a good characteristic for all races? I suspect that many Blacks would quite rightly resent this suggestion.

Turning to their treatment of advertising, the content analysis of commercials revealed a predominance of lighter skinned blacks. There was an association between type of product and race, with Blacks more often promoting products with "practical value in daily life" in contrast with luxurious, frivolous and "fantasy-related" products. There was segregation of blacks and whites in the ads, with low black and white contact. It is argued that advertisers fear that white audiences will resent images of high Black-White contact. These are "normal institutional processes," the authors assert. They point out quite correctly that "Advertisers usually choose actors with the goal of appealing to a predominantly White target audience." I found this to be true in my own research and in my past experience as an advertising agency account executive.

The book's strong points are the questions it incorporates into its content analysis: the categories developed for the analyses are interesting, innovative and relevant. Its weaknesses are in the extended left-wing polemics in which the authors seem to reach very hard to find something more to say and end up losing credibility. The book is recommended as a basic acquisition for departments with courses in mass society, communications and race. It is not textbookish in nature but parts of it could be assigned to graduate students working in these areas.

Benjamin D. Singer
University of Western Ontario
singer@uwo.ca



		Canadian Journal of Sociology Online September - Octobert 2001 Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America University of Chicago Press, 2000, 305 pp. $US 26.00 cloth (0-226-21075-8) This book attempts to analyze the images of Blacks conveyed by the mass media during the 1990s, focusing on network television as well as including local television, newspapers and movies. The authors highlight newscasts, but also include prime-time highly rated popular TV programs, advertising and the movies. What they find, we – as the media audience – already know or at least sense very strongly: that there are differences in the representation of Blacks and Whites. But Entman and Rojecki seek to demonstrate what those differences are. In doing so, they employ some interesting and well-thought-out content analysis categories–but fail in some extended analyses because of their analytic over-reach. Their major concern in the book is the representation of Blacks in television news, primarily network news. Using videotaped news programs for ABC, CBS and NBC, for 1990 and 1997 as well as transcripts of ABC World News during 1990-91 and 1997, they analyzed the representation of Blacks, looking for stories in which Blacks were causal agents or centrally involved in the story. They noted that Whites were overwhelmingly likely to be sole agents in news stories – about 26 times as likely as Blacks. Such disparities, the authors say, not only reflect "America's status and power hierarchy, they may also serve to reinforce it." The contexts in which Blacks and Whites are shown are also disparate, for rarely was a Black person shown discussing important general issues, such as economics, foreign affairs or electoral politics, rarely was he interviewed as an expert in coverage of science/technology, health/smoking, disasters/rescues, weather events, etc. Instead, Blacks were more prominently associated with sports/entertainment, discrimination issues and were often featured as experts on race issues. In short, they were typecast. The authors decry the fact that Blacks are shown more frequently in the context of crime. Their analysis indicates an equal number of Blacks and Whites were alleged perpetrators of violence and that there are more White than Black victims. The authors argue that, although Blacks' commission of crime is out of proportion to their population, the media coverage "makes them into symbols of threat." That image can be assuaged by a media-imposed social symmetry if Whites who have not been officially charged with crimes are juxtaposed with Blacks who have been: "Slumlords whose neglect of heat and sanitation codes causes children to become sick, police who harass minority youth without probable cause, banks that refuse to lend to credit-worthy individuals based on race, and apathetic teachers of non-White students all commit a serious kind of crime if not violence against people, a sort not reported in official statistics of crime or in most newscasts." One might have hoped such orthodox left-Marcusean diatribes meant to shock had seen their day as meshuggeneh filler by post-Marcuse generations. Apparently not. "Black unemployment, discrimination, ineffective schooling, single-parent upbringing, are "experiences that tend not to be reported within the narrative of each specific crime." The crime/violence events are presented, they say, "context-free." But one wonders what medium could survive if it insisted on inserting hypothetical and unproven apologias of this nature each time it carried a story in which a Black was arrested and charged with some serious crime." The authors are also critical of the "news media's focus on Blacks as entertainers and athletes" – reflecting what they call the "ratings-driven atmosphere" which is the reality of media today. However, they fail to acknowledge that viewers, White or Black, might on the whole be more receptive to ANY person of any race who is lionized, made into a popular hero. Despite flaws such as this, the authors have developed some interesting insights into unwitting media bias. One of their more intriguing findings is that Whites accused of violence more often were given names than were Blacks; thus the latter were treated as members of a category rather than as individuals. As well, they claim blacks were more often seen handcuffed or physically restrained by police (although this could be based on police expectations or experience, rather than media selectivity bias). But the authors return to awkward polemic, seemingly condemning "innocuous" Black journalists and anchors because they "spoke from the same perspective as Whites." While they admit that this perspective is in line with norms of journalists' professional roles, still Enteman and Rojecki enter the world of the subjunctive again, arguing Black newspeople "could construct a different narrative on crime involving Blacks, one focusing more on discrimination as a cause." While criticizing media for deindividualizing Blacks charged with crimes, they deny the same individualism to the Black journalists, insisting on treating them categorically as in the following passage: "…the innocuous Black anchors may also reinforce Whites' impatience with the threatening or demanding Blacks who appear so frequently in the news itself.. …the image that undermines old-fashioned racism may promote the denial component of racial animosity." A surprising finding is that when Blacks are shown in television entertainment features, they are in higher status positions than Whites. The authors criticize this attempt to provide high status Black role models since it "imposes a formal distance between Black and White actors that hobbles the development of interracial intimacy and the enlargement of the audience's sympathetic imagination " (I am not sure I understand what they mean by sympathetic imagination.) And what if Blacks were primarily shown as in lower status positions than Whites? What then would the authors criticize? I suspect it would be the lack of high status Black role models. Along this line, they are critical of the fact that Blacks display "a layer of scrupulous responsibility," which they consider to be a renunciation of "virtually all symbolic traces of Blackness and [which embodies] those characteristics associated with White Virtue." Scrupulous responsibility is not a good characteristic for all races? I suspect that many Blacks would quite rightly resent this suggestion. Turning to their treatment of advertising, the content analysis of commercials revealed a predominance of lighter skinned blacks. There was an association between type of product and race, with Blacks more often promoting products with "practical value in daily life" in contrast with luxurious, frivolous and "fantasy-related" products. There was segregation of blacks and whites in the ads, with low black and white contact. It is argued that advertisers fear that white audiences will resent images of high Black-White contact. These are "normal institutional processes," the authors assert. They point out quite correctly that "Advertisers usually choose actors with the goal of appealing to a predominantly White target audience." I found this to be true in my own research and in my past experience as an advertising agency account executive. The book's strong points are the questions it incorporates into its content analysis: the categories developed for the analyses are interesting, innovative and relevant. Its weaknesses are in the extended left-wing polemics in which the authors seem to reach very hard to find something more to say and end up losing credibility. The book is recommended as a basic acquisition for departments with courses in mass society, communications and race. It is not textbookish in nature but parts of it could be assigned to graduate students working in these areas. Benjamin D. Singer University of Western Ontario singer@uwo.ca http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/cjscopy/reviews/blackimage.html September 2001 © CJS Online