Messaging And Report Tag: social justice

The vast majority of the social science literature on this topic focuses on problems relating to black males and the media, and is essentially descriptive — that is, it describes and analyzes existing patterns in the media, and in thought and behavior. Since there are so many current patterns that are problematic, much of the scholarship focuses on discovering the scope and details of the problem.

Prescriptive studies are relatively scarce in the literature, especially those that explicitly set out to determine, through the use of empirical evidence, how communicators (in the broadest sense) ought  to be addressing the problems and handling relevant topics. The lack of prescriptive social science is related to the gap between theorists and activists noted in Charlotte Ryan’s analysis, “Building Theorist-Activist Collaboration in the Media Arena: A Success  Story”:

As currently organized, academic-based framing theory focuses on frames as fossils – the products or remnants of political discourse. Framing theorists rarely involve themselves in a sustained fashion with working framers, the processes framers employ, or the audiences they mobilize. (Ryan, 2005)

This section reviews these areas where research is thin, if available at all.

Little “Good News” About Media Effects

The studies referred to earlier in this report paint a picture of a deep and complex problem. A distorted portrayal in the media taken as a whole leads to flawed and biased thinking about black boys and men, which in turn leads to significant real-world consequences of various kinds.

Much less apparent in the social science literature is evidence of the good effects that may be created by promoting new patterns of media portrayal. What happens when representation is fuller and more accurate, and more sympathetic? What kinds of media patterns help make people less biased, or lead to better outcomes? What is the evidence (if any) about what “works”? While it is implicit in much of the discussion that changes in the media should lead to beneficial outcomes, there is very little evidence cited on this point.

One exception is political scientist Shanto Iyengar’s influential study of the effects of television news choices on viewers’ attitudes (Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues). In  an experimental setting, Iyengar showed subjects different types of news stories focusing on African Americans, embedded within longer news segments, focusing on a variety of topics. Subjects were then asked a series of questions regarding their racial attitudes, and the responses were compared based on whether subjects had seen “episodic” stories, coverage focusing on individuals rather than larger trends or forces, or “thematic” stories, focusing on broad, systemic patterns. The result:

News coverage of black poverty in general and episodic coverage of black poverty in particular increases the degree to which viewers hold individuals responsible for racial inequality. News coverage of racial discrimination has the opposite effect [emphasis added]. (Iyengar, 1991,  p. 67)

That is, focusing on the outcomes for individuals ends up promoting counterproductive perspectives, while coverage that focuses on systemic discrimination can help move attitudes in a positive direction. Of course, coverage of the latter type is all too rare, as previously noted.

How to Influence the Media

While some advocates and other actors report successes in influencing media patterns, such as the Maynard Institute’s efforts to raise journalists’ awareness of how they cover race, the review uncovered no social science literature on the topic of how to effectively intervene in the media. That is, while various social scientists have pointed to the need to change various patterns, there is little guidance available from the research about how to insure the greatest likelihood of success in these efforts.

Clearly, some patterns have changed for the better over the generations, presumably in connection with broad cultural shifts in attitude. But how can advocates most effectively address the media in the contemporary context?

Good News from the Laboratory

A review of the relevant literature reveals a large number of social science studies that shed light on hypothetical ways in which the media might potentially help reduce bias against black males. While these studies do not look directly at media or public discourse — and are often not targeted at consideration of black males per se — this large body of research on how to reduce bias effects should certainly be of interest to communicators pursuing the same goal on a societal scale.

For instance, one finding that is intriguing, if difficult to apply, is that exposure to comedy (no matter what the subject of the comedy is) appears to make it easier to distinguish other-race faces from each other, a task that can be quite difficult depending on the subject’s life experience. The mechanisms are unclear here, and may have to do with links between positive emotional states and cognitive performance overall — i.e., not relating to race in particular. (Johnson & Fredrickson, 2005)

A brief review of some other important examples from the literature follows.

Individuation

Psychology researchers have investigated various “individuation” procedures that can reduce unconscious bias against African Americans, e.g., as measured in Implicit Association Tests. (Implicit bias is measured in tasks where reaction times are so fast that conscious consideration is not possible, and often in contexts where it is impossible for subjects to be aware that racial thinking is being tested.) For instance, when white college students receive hours of practice in distinguishing one black face from another, they ultimately show significantly reduced implicit bias, presumably because practice in thinking of blacks as individuals reduces the unconscious tendency to see them in terms of stereotypes. (Lebrecht, Pierce, Tarr, & Tanaka, 2009)

This individuation practice is helpful because researchers note that whites’ unconscious bias against black faces may well represent a default mode of thinking, i.e., “category-based” thinking, in which people are automatically thought of in terms of (often stereotypical) group characteristics — based on age, gender, or race, for instance. (Wheeler & Fiske, 2005)

In another study, subjects were asked to look at a photo of an unknown black face and guess whether the individual would like a particular vegetable (with no particular cultural or emotional significance).  In this context, implicit bias was eliminated. The results contrast with a study in which subjects were asked to think about the black individual’s age, which appeared to trigger default, category-based perception. Thinking of the face as belonging to an individual with particular tastes works against unconscious bias and stereotypical thinking.

Explicitly “breaking the habit”

Other researchers have found that explicit training in rejecting stereotypes can help to reduce unconscious bias. Study participants who spent roughly 45 minutes doing tasks such as clicking “No” when viewing a black face paired with a stereotypical description (positive or negative) later showed a reduction in their implicitly measured bias — i.e., reaction times so fast they could not have been consciously controlled. Promisingly, the researchers found in a related task (focusing on biases about skinheads) that effects last for at least 24 hours. On the other hand, the researchers found that significantly briefer training periods had no effect — they liken the training to skill learning that requires repeated and intensive practice. (Kawakami, Dovidio, Moll, Hermsen, & Russin, 2000)

In one of the studies most directly related to media (Ramasubramanian, 2007), the researcher examined the effects of a combination of explicit training about stereotypes, plus examples that   implicitly worked against stereotypes. Participants saw one of two twelve-minute videos that either explicitly advised them about media stereotypes (the “media literacy” video) or did not (the “control” video). They then read and summarized five brief written news stories, including two that contained  either stereotypes about black males (relating to violence and unemployment) or counter-stereotypes (focusing on “gentleness and entrepreneurial success”). Following these exercises, they participated in a standard type of “lexical decision task” in which faster recognition of stereotype words (e.g., lazy, poor, uneducated) indicates that a stereotype is active in the mind. The results indicated that a combination of “media literacy training” plus seeing counter-stereotypical news stories reduced the activation of negative stereotypes — though neither by itself had this effect.

Reflex training

Experimental researchers have also found that study participants asked to internalize a particular new reflexive response can eliminate unconscious bias in contexts where it usually occurs. For instance, some subjects in the police simulation task discussed earlier were instructed to focus beforehand on the idea that they would think “safe” (rather than “quick”) when seeing a black face, and this procedure  ended up reducing or eliminating the tendency to “shoot” more unarmed black males. (Stewart & Payne, 2008)

Note that this type of concrete reflex training procedure proves more effective than training officers not to be biased or not to shoot innocent people.

In another study, subjects were asked to repeat the following to themselves three times and then type it out (and told that this would improve their performance): “If I see a person, then I will ignore his race!” And in fact, these subjects too were able to perform the “shooter” task without race-based bias. (Mendoza, Gollwitzer,  & Amodio, 2010)

Importantly, this if-then type of reflex training seems more effective than more “abstract” training in avoiding biased behavior.

Reducing stereotype threat

Researchers have designed controlled experiments to explore communications approaches that can lessen the impacts of stereotype threat, especially in tasks related to educational success. For example, teaching college students that intelligence is malleable rather than fixed (Aronson et al., 2002) or that race is socially constructed rather than biological (Shih et al., 2007) reduces the effects of stereotype threat considerably; and teaching people about the nature of stereotype threat itself has shown benefits. (Johns et al., 2005)

While this experimental work does not directly address public/media communications, there is reason to think that some of the lessons from this research could be applicable to changing the way that both blacks and non-blacks interact with stereotypes.

Motivation

Another body of studies has focused on the kinds of motivation that help people overcome prejudiced responses. For instance, several have suggested that guilt can be an effective tool for learning to reduce automatic bias. When whites are told that they have had negative reactions to unknown black faces, their level of implicit bias tends to go down when they are tested again. (Monteith, Ashburn-Nardo, Voils, & Czopp, 2002)

The important caveat is that this is much more true for people who already have internal motivation to think and act in a less biased way — i.e., people who truly do not want to be biased. This pattern was confirmed in a study that combined an explicit survey of racial attitudes with a test of implicit bias. Whites with an internal belief that bias is wrong, but who were not motivated strongly by external judgment of their racial behavior, showed the least signs of implicit bias. (Devine, Plant, Amodio, Harmon-Jones, & Vance, 2002)

On the other hand, externally imposed guilt can backfire: Researchers reviewing a body of literature on intentional “stereotype suppression” — i.e., experiments where participants were explicitly asked not to think in biased ways — conclude that this often leads to a “rebound effect,” meaning that prejudiced racial thinking can emerge more strongly after being suppressed for a particular interval, particularly when the suppression is based on the idea of being judged by others. (Devine & Sharp, 2009)

In short, censure may be an effective tool for eliminating some types of prejudiced behavior in some contexts, but it is not an effective tool for changing damaging patterns of thinking overall.

While these findings suggest potential directions for advocates — e.g., to avoid messages that focus on censure, or to promote programs to “train” Americans to reject bias — other kinds of work are needed in order to take the types of insights described in this section and apply them effectively to the design of real-world communications.

Messaging

Another virtual gap in the social science literature concerns messaging per se — i.e., what to say about the issues, how to talk effectively about topics such as racial disparities, structural racism, lingering historical effects, and even the media problem itself (as discussed in section 1). There is substantial research on various dimensions of portrayal, but very little on how to talk about or explain key points.

There are certainly some hints in the literature, of course, including learning from public opinion research (which is the focus of the companion report to this social science review). For instance, it  seems clear that whites respond more negatively to policy proposals that are framed as helping one  group (blacks) at the expense of others, in part because these seem unfair to them, and in part because whites are cued to consider their own self-interest when considering the proposals. (Bobo & Kluegel, 1993)

Confirming this pattern, a study by Franklin Gilliam showed that participants exposed to an explicit statement about the need to treat minorities more “fairly” ended up having the most negative views of policies such as the Earned Income Tax Credit or low-cost home loans for minorities. Some participants read a statement that included the following:

Whether overtly or more subtly, minorities are treated differently when it comes to such things  as getting ahead in the classroom, applying for a home loan, and being able to see a doctor. According to this view, we need to renew our commitment to a just society by devoting more resources to policies that recognize and address fairness in our society. (Gilliam, 2008)

These participants ended up having more negative views of various supports for minorities than participants who saw no such statement or ones who saw statements less overtly geared to helping minorities. Indeed, years of public opinion data confirm the general pattern that whites tend to have a special antipathy for programs specifically targeted at helping blacks. (Steeh & Krysan, 1996)

On the other hand, some researchers echo many advocates’ discomfort with avoiding the topic of race. For example in the context of welfare  reform:

There may be good reasons for advocates of a racially fair welfare system to avoid invoking race or highlighting the disproportionate presence of black recipients on the welfare rolls. On the other side, however . . . such a strategy risks participating in the silence that surrounds racial inequity in the United States; it fails to name or challenge the social and economic processes that make persons of color more likely to need public assistance. (Schram, 2003)

But the central question for this review concerns evidence about which strategies are likely to be effective, and there are at least some indications that communicators don’t need to avoid the topic of race in order to be successful.

In one of the few social science studies addressing effective messaging practices that mention race explicitly, Gilliam and Manuel conclude that directly addressing race can be effective if communicators emphasize broad values, rather than focusing more narrowly on discrimination. The researchers found, using a national web-based survey, that messages focusing on ideas like prevention, problem-solving, and strengthening all communities do more to promote health and youth-development policies for minorities than messages focusing on how African Americans receive unfair treatment. (Gilliam & Manuel, 2009)

The more effective messages included statements like the following:

[P]reventing problems in African American communities is important because they will eventually become everyone’s problems. Preventing declining school budgets, restrictive lending practices, and a scarcity of health professionals in African American communities will prevent worse problems in the future.

[E]ffective solutions do exist. Progress can be made if programs are routinely evaluated  and the good ones brought to scale in African American communities. … smart states have significantly improved conditions in some African American communities … by raising teacher quality, creating lending policies for buying homes, and increasing the number of health professionals.

The reality is that African American communities are not enjoying the same benefits as the rest of the nation. This happens because the efforts that enhance a community’s well-being, like economic development, availability of health care programs, and opportunities for a good education, have not benefited African American communities.

Most other discussions of effective references to race are not social science studies per se. For example, after looking at multiple examples of successful and unsuccessful affirmative action campaigns in several states, the Center for Social Inclusion’s report “Thinking Change” concludes that, “If the goal is to educate the public about racial and gender unfairness to create long-term support for race and gender-conscious programs, the evidence seems to suggest that race-neutral strategies will fail.” (Note that while this CSI document is not a social science study, it is informed by many of the same studies as reviewed in this report.)

As “Thinking Change” points out, the city of Houston was able to fight back an anti-affirmative action ballot initiative through messaging that explicitly referred to race, though not to blacks. The white mayor repeatedly made the point that “Anglo male contractors got between 95 percent and 99 percent of the business before the affirmative action program got started 12 years ago. Today, they still get 80 percent.”⁶

The mayor’s argument effectively neutralizes both the fairness and zero-sum perspectives that often stand in the way of support for affirmative action, by emphasizing that whites still get the lion’s share of contracts. Another important reason for its success is almost certainly the mayor’s voice itself. If whites feel confident their interests are being understood and looked after, they are less likely to respond negatively.

This example is a hopeful one, but the authors acknowledge that many factors combine to determine the success of a race-related campaign, such as the particular issue at stake, the messengers, and the organizational effectiveness of each side.

In “Moving from Them to Us: Challenges in Reframing Violence among Youth” (Berkeley Media Studies Group), Dorfman and Wallack discuss a promising framework for discussing issues relevant to black males (and particularly youth):

The structural racism framework offered by legal scholars Andrew Grant-Thomas and john powell provides a much more complete understanding of the origins and consequences of racism. In this view, whether a person thrives in society is dependent upon the opportunities available, and opportunities are “produced and regulated by institutions, institutional interactions and individuals” together. Those interactions among institutions have a certain gestalt. Scholars liken it to a bird in a birdcage because it’s the network of bars working together, not a single bar, that traps the bird. (Dorfman & Wallack, 2009, p. 11)

While there is no reason to disagree that this bigger-picture perspective is desirable, there is little available evidence about how to talk about it in ways that effectively engage mainstream audiences and change their thinking.

For the moment, although some current “how-to” books for messaging in support of racial justice are informed by social science insights — see for example, the guides by Wallack et al. (1999) and Cutting and Themba-Nixon (2006) — these works rely mostly on the experience of practitioners rather than systematic research testing of practices and results.

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⁶ The CSI report draws on a Berkeley Media Studies Group report (A New Debate on Affirmative Action: Houston and Beyond, 1998), which in turn quotes Mayor Bob Lanier from The Houston Chronicle, Oct. 26, 1997.

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This part of the paper steps back from the problems regarding the media and its content considered earlier in the review and looks at some additional challenging dynamics and problems that are noted in the research and that communicators must grapple with.

Put briefly, the problem goes deeper than factors such as how many African Americans are involved in media content production, or the assumptions of content producers about their audiences. These challenges involve fundamental patterns in human cognition (e.g., the difficulty of focusing on systemic as opposed to anecdotal information) as well as dilemmas inherent in a fraught topic where it may be all too easy to offend or alienate one audience while appealing to another, or to trigger one problematic perception while combating another.

The Difficulties of Structural Thinking

As explicit, individual racism (i.e., the attitude that blacks are “inferior”) has gradually receded in recent decades, structural racism has emerged as a key concept in the analysis of race-biased perception — the idea that there are systemic and institutional barriers that impede racial equality, even if individuals were no longer racially biased (e.g., see “Thinking Change,” Center for Social Inclusion, 2005).

Unfortunately, due to fundamental tendencies in human reasoning, there is a natural kind of “cognitive blindness” to patterns that are systemic and statistical in nature (see Aubrun et al., 2005). The result is that most attempts to draw attention to the phenomenon of structural racism meet with resistance and even backlash on the part of broad sections of the American public. The media contributes to this pattern by consistently transforming matters of structural racism into reports that emphasize individual stories and individual outcomes. (O’Neil, 2009)

Unfortunately, the literature offers no clear, evidence-based way forward for addressing this deep challenge more effectively.

Anxiety and “The Other”

Many studies have shown that anxieties (e.g., about terrorism, or loss of a job) can lead to a more conservative outlook, including negative attitudes towards those perceived as “other” (e.g., Amodio, 2009; Jost et al., 2007). The result is that communications on issues even remotely connected to race can still end up triggering exclusionary negative racial attitudes, simply by evoking anxious feelings about the world — whether having to do with economic problems, war, or other threats. And in a time period that is particularly anxious for reasons that have little to do with race, it is predictable that racial attitudes and policy preferences will deteriorate.

Fundamental/Universal Challenges to Race Relations

This is a rich area of study that attempts to sort out patterns specific to a particular society from potentially more universal aspects of interracial dynamics. Both kinds of factors are certainly relevant to black male achievement in the U.S., and this review focuses on challenges more specific to this country, since these represent particular challenges that are potentially more amenable to change — e.g., through different patterns of media ownership, or training of journalists.

On the other hand, the universal type of challenge is also worth keeping in mind. For instance, there   is a consistent body of evidence showing that people have more trouble differentiating the faces of other-race individuals — and this effect seems to hold when blacks look at white faces, as well as when whites look at black faces (e.g., see Meissner & Brigham,  2001).

Causation vs. Correlation

A great deal of social science literature quantifies the disparities in outcomes between African Americans and others — e.g., black children suffer disproportionately high rates of obesity. Typically, these studies carefully distinguish between causation (x causes y) and correlations (x and y tend to be related). Causes are harder to prove and establish with confidence, especially in extremely complex situations like school success or incarceration rates, where a number of factors may be at work.

Unfortunately, the resulting focus on outcomes (as opposed to causes) can make social science a problematic resource for communicators. Correlations (e.g., black male-ness and poor school scores go together) are open to different interpretations (e.g., poor test scores are evidence of bias against black males vs. black males are “inherently” less well-equipped for school). In fact, depending on the assumptions that the audience is already making, a communications emphasis on disparities of outcome can reinforce people’s prejudices rather than drawing their attention to racial injustice.

In some cases, researchers are able to point to disparities in both inputs and outcomes, and can explicitly point to causes. For example, a report about race-based health disparities in California highlights the causes rather than the effects, namely that black children receive less physical education in school and have low rates of access to green space and therefore suffer disproportionately from obesity and other problems:

Much of Los Angeles is park poor, and there are unfair park, school, and health disparities based on race, ethnicity, income, poverty, youth, and access to cars. Children of color disproportionately live in communities of concentrated poverty without enough places to play in parks and schools . . .The human health implications of the lack of physical activity are profound. These children disproportionately suffer from obesity, diabetes, and other diseases related to inactivity. (Garcia & White, 2006)

But in many cases, researchers can only speak with confidence about correlations and disparities of outcome, which may not be as compelling.

Warts-and-All vs. Idealization

The first section of the review focused in part on how the media portrayal of black males is incomplete — not a full and accurate portrayal of their real nature, lives, and experience. But presenting a full and accurate warts-and-all portrait of black males is problematic because of the well-documented tendency   to blame victims for their problems (e.g., see Brown et al., 2003). Advocates face a dilemma in which any discussion of how the actions and choices of black men and boys contribute to their problems can end up reinforcing the idea that black males “have mostly themselves to blame.” On the other hand, not discussing black men’s choices or their consequences evokes charges that communicators are not realistic, for instance, or not asking enough of black men (see the earlier reference to Larry Elder). Portraying black men and black boys as passive victims of fate has additional drawbacks.

Cognitive scientists and psychologists have described a basic pattern of human thinking —  confirmation bias — which means that when people are given information, they tend to hear the parts that confirm what they already believe, and disregard the information that contradicts what they believe (e.g., Nickerson, 1998). This pattern creates problems for analysts who want to fully describe the problem of black male outcomes (e.g., relating to success gaps, family dysfunctions, or attitudes towards education), because they run the risk of “confirming” negative biases. There is little empirical research as yet to aid advocates in dealing with this dilemma.

The Role of Black Masculinity

Feminist scholars have pioneered the study of gender as a social construction, overturning the assumption that gender roles are an essential, relatively fixed part of human nature. They have looked at how forces like media, cultural beliefs, ideology, and history all shape people’s gender expectations and their lived experience as men or women. Although this kind of analysis initially focused more on whites than blacks and more on women than men, there is a growing, rich literature that treats black masculinity as a similar object of study. (Brooks & Hebert, 2006)

Many analysts take as their starting point the way in which black maleness has interacted with the history of racism. Hypersexuality, violence, misogyny, and athleticism are all exaggerations of maleness that serve to caricature and stereotype black males and black masculinity. (Tucker, 2007; hooks, 2004)

Media imagery of blacks continues to stress gender and sexuality. As mentioned earlier, when it  comes to males, the media leans towards individuals such as athletes, rappers, pimps, absent fathers, and criminals. Even “positive” portrayals of black men often highlight variations on these types. The stereotypes play out in both black and white communities, and analysts believe they are a major source of the distortions that interfere with black male success. (Mutua, 2006) In fact these exaggerated masculine types in the media come to symbolize a (narrow) path for success in society.

Most analysts attribute the durability of these attitudes first and foremost to white male anxieties about the threat of black men having sexual access to white women. The caricature of black masculinity has long been both the thing that excuses white oppression and stimulates the fear that motivates it.

On the other hand, addressing the issue can mean coming to grips with how black males themselves may embrace these stereotypes, often as a form of resistance to the lack of power they feel they have to actually shape their lives. In other words, black males, with ample encouragement from the media, may often “confirm” the hyper-masculine stereotypes. Among scholars we find a full range of responses to this dilemma. For instance, media stereotypes of hyper-masculine black males are treated as:

• false biases (Jones, 2009);
• partially true, but exaggerated by race hostilities and the media (Burrell, 2010);
• true, with the implication that black males should get their act together (see Neal, 2006);
• true, though black males are not at fault since:
  • they unfortunately buy into stereotypes and expectations just like everyone else (Hutchinson, 1996);
  • they face limitations created by a society that expects black males to behave in stereotypical ways, so that stars and athletes that embody those stereotypes are the ones lionized in popular culture (Tucker, 2007);
  • many of these behaviors have structural causes (e.g., lack of real power for black men; criminal justice system undermines black family structures, and so on).

In terms of methods, most of the literature is not rooted in quantitative or experimental data. Feminist studies owes much to literary criticism, and most of the studies that look at the media’s role in the portrayal of black masculinity are based on interpretation and analysis of particular texts, movies, and television shows. For example, Orbe (1998) looked at MTV’s reality show, Real World; Dines (2003) analyzed the content of cartoons in men’s magazines; and MacDonald (2005) analyzed the television drama Homicide to demonstrate how the construction of black masculinity is depicted on television.

The Problematic Appeal of a “Color-Blind” Society

One of the characteristics of the current period is the assertion that although racism may have been prevalent in the past, it is no longer a significant problem. In fact, asserting that white racism is the source of black people’s problems is caricatured as not only excuse-mongering, but a form of “reverse racism.” (Schram, 2003)

Of course, most serious scholars treat discrimination and race-based effects as highly significant and current. Moreover, consciousness of race is important to seeing and solving the problem.
Race consciousness [is] a necessary antidote in order to effectively oppose, resist and reveal the institutionalized, systemic, and normative character of racism . . . moving beyond a liberal individualist framework of analysis, with its stress on “neutrality,” “colourblindness,” and “integration” into an otherwise unchanged dominant society. (Warner, 2006)

But scholars have observed that the political right has systematically made use of “color-blind” framing to derail constructive discourse and policymaking to address the effects of discrimination:

In the Right’s view, affirmative action and other programs designed to address institutional racism . . . become both unnecessary . . . and unjust (since they do not discount race and consider individual merit alone). Using polemical and divisive tactics, the Right attacks affirmative action as “racial quotas,” “preferential treatment,” and “reverse discrimination.” It cynically takes the language of the Civil Rights Movement, including the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., himself, to argue that individuals should be judged by their merit and character and not by their skin color . . . And, it warns that preferential treatment accorded to a particular ethnic or racial group will create resentment among others (read Whites). (Aziz, 2002)

One result of this framing has been that the media shy away from explicitly acknowledging bias as an underlying cause for social problems. (Williams, 1997) Advocates or media figures who do insist on bias as a primary cause are attacked for being obsessed with race and therefore part of the problem themselves. As a result, the public discourse about race has become more polarized and toxic, and   much less likely to serve as a vehicle for open discussion in media that are often risk-averse when it comes to genuine controversy.

The widely disseminated report from the New York Times, “Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected” (Nov. 9, 2010, p. A22) is a case in point. The detailed article focuses on the effort to understand and address the school achievement gap for black males, yet the idea of discrimination is never raised. Readers are left to fill in their own explanation as to why young black boys do more poorly in school than their black sisters, more poorly than Latino boys, and worse than low-income whites.

Efforts to open up the conversation on problems of race will have to address or reverse this problematic imbalance — namely that in most media contexts, mentioning, much less insisting on, the role of discrimination is treated as a controversial or even racist stance, whereas failing to mention the role of racial discrimination (even when it is clearly warranted) is considered a neutral or impartial stance. As Winant puts it, “a refusal to engage in ‘race thinking’ amounts to a defense of the racial status quo, in which systemic racial inequality and . . . discrimination . . . are omnipresent” (quoted by Warner, 2006). (Winant, 1997)

Implicit Bias as a Political Tool

Further interfering with an open and constructive conversation about race is the way in which race has been used by politicians. Discourse about “welfare dependency” and the economic and social burdens of “handouts” have become a code for stoking and taking advantage of racial tensions in ways that help certain politicians and certain political projects (e.g., anti-tax, small government rhetoric).

When Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan swept California in the 1966 gubernatorial election, he sounded not only the familiar antitax, anti–social spending, antibureaucratic themes but at the same time baited “welfare mothers.” He brought the house down when he asserted that welfare recipients are on a ‘‘prepaid lifetime vacation plan.’’ (A careful survey experiment shows that voters hear these as code words for black welfare poor.) (Gilens, 1996)

It is clear that the public image of African Americans has suffered immensely by serving as a political football in the struggle between conservatives and progressives as they have sought to define some of the fundamental questions of the country — the distribution of wealth, the role of social policy and of government itself, the strength and direction of public institutions, and so on.

On this point, it is worth quoting at length from Sanford Schram’s 2003 work, Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform:

With the “old-fashioned” brand of racism now largely discredited, we inhabit a discursive moment defined by a mixture of corrosive racial resentments, fears of being labeled “racist,” and uncertainties about whether it is wise to speak of race at all. Too often, race now operates by stealth, embedded in ostensibly neutral language. (Williams, 1997; Ansell, 1997) Many conversations take on a “we all know what we’re talking about” feel, trading on race-coded euphemisms regarding “urban” and “inner city” problems, “cultural backgrounds,” the need for “personal responsibility,” the troubles of the “underclass,” and so on. As George Orwell noted many years ago (1954), such euphemistic language nourishes political ideas that cannot bear the cold light of direct analysis; it protects the existing social order at the expense of clear thought and open deliberation.

The Limits of Communication — Contact Theory

Finally, the social science literature suggests strongly that communications efforts, while important, must always be considered alongside other more direct, experiential strategies. In particular, it is critical  to continue finding creative ways of promoting direct contact (of a positive kind) between black males  and others in American society.

Numerous scholars have adopted or tested aspects of “contact theory” — the hypothesis that interpersonal contact is an important causal factor for reducing prejudice of all kinds. (See one of the most seminal works in the field: Gordon Allport’s study The Nature of Prejudice, 1954.) A carefully researched and highly cited 2006 review of over 500 studies found that contact theory is overwhelmingly supported by the data, and that contact typically reduces prejudice towards whole groups, even including groups not included in the study.

Not only do attitudes toward the immediate participants usually become more favorable, but so do attitudes toward the entire outgroup, outgroup members in other situations, and even outgroups not involved in the contact. (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006, p. 766)

The studies involved groups of all kinds — defined by race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, and other characteristics — and found similar patterns across all types of prejudice, as measured in a variety of different ways, from survey self-reports to experimental tests of implicit attitudes.

It is true that certain factors can significantly reduce the positive effects of contact:

Institutional support for contact under conditions of competition or unequal status can often enhance animosity between groups, thereby diminishing the potential for achieving positive outcomes. (Ibid., p. 766)

But these are far and away the exceptions to the rule. Overall, researchers believe the studies indicate “that the process underlying contact’s ability to reduce prejudice involves the tendency for familiarity  to breed liking,” and also point out that the effects can last:

To date, findings from longitudinal studies typically have shown the persistence of the prejudice reduction achieved by contact. (Ibid., p. 768)

In short, advocates for better outcomes for black males almost certainly need to focus some of their efforts on promoting increased contact between black males and others. Certain types of contact are ideal — e.g., individuals of equal status working together to achieve common goals — but the literature establishes that a very wide range of types of experiences will almost certainly help reduce bias and improve outcomes.

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The studies reviewed for this report paint a picture of a world in which black male lives and experience are distorted in public communications, in ways that lead to distorted understandings and attitudes towards them, and ultimately to serious obstacles to success and happiness in the real world. These patterns are critical for communicators to understand so that they know what they are up against.

Overall, the studies do not offer a great deal of specific guidance concerning exactly how to go about changing these patterns. They focus more on problems than solutions, and are more descriptive than prescriptive. It is clear that much more scholarship is needed on the ways in which communication can demonstrably help improve the situation for black males.

Nevertheless, taken along with the authors’ own research experience on a wide range of social issues, the studies considered here do suggest a number of ideas that communicators should keep in mind about how to proceed.

The most obvious is that communicators need to continue to work to create a fuller and more accurate portrayal of black males in the media — through education and external pressure targeted at media producers — as well as by working to embed more African Americans in all links in the media production chain, and by producing their own media reflecting best practices.

In principle, the latter effort is likely to help with all the factors that lead to distorted portrayals, as African-American media owners, producers, writers, and so forth are less likely to fall into patterns of neglect and distortion. But we caution that simply having more African Americans involved in content production is not likely to be a silver bullet solution, for reasons discussed in the section on deep challenges and dilemmas. For instance, while a black news producer might be better prepared to address neglect of certain topics, he or she may have no clear idea about the best narratives or language for making systemic forces more visible, or about how to avoid various “blame the victim” dynamics.

Beyond working towards more representative and “relatable” portrayals of black males, communicators must face challenges regarding what to say about the topic, in order to take the best advantage of communications opportunities ranging from web pages, to speeches, interviews, and community conversations.

Some evidence, such as Iyengar’s studies of the impact of thematic news stories, suggests that awareness of systematic patterns of bias against black males can have good results. For another example, see  Losen’s (2009) discussion of how the publication of significant high school graduation rate disparities between black males and others helped push national education policy in a constructive direction:

While internationally the denial of education to women is of primary concern, in the USA, black males are often the sub-group experiencing the greatest harm. …

[But a report on high school graduation rate disparities] attracted national attention … As public awareness grew … many other researchers began studying and reporting similar findings. Several politicians, including Obama, added improving graduation rates to their election campaign’s educational platform. Before election year in 2008, the Department of Education issued new regulations … [that] added accountability for schools and districts if minority or ethnic groups, students with disabilities, English learners or socio-economically disadvantaged youth failed to make adequate improvements in their rate of graduation. (Losen, 2009, p. 67)

But it is clear that, beyond simply reporting on the facts, communicators must work to find more effective ways of conveying some very difficult points — e.g., while structural racism is a familiar idea to insiders, there are reasons to believe that conveying a clear picture of it to broader audiences remains an important challenge. For a range of cognitive and cultural reasons, the focus easily remains on individual choices. Conveying the idea of “invisible” systemic forces that stack the odds against  black males is a challenge that cannot be overestimated.

Yet finding ways to offer audiences new mental pictures of the causality related to black male achievement is critically important, not just as a way of reassigning “blame,” but also as a way of transcending some of the most challenging dilemmas communicators face. For instance, a new causal picture can help communicators get past the troublesome question of whether to avoid discussion of black men’s choices, thereby inviting charges of idealizing them or setting the bar too low, or to invite charges of blaming the victim. A new understanding of big-picture causality could potentially put a more constructive light on seemingly self-destructive choices made by black males, e.g., the choice to join gangs because they seem to offer opportunities for social and economic advancement otherwise lacking in some communities. Making this big-picture case is far from easy, as communicators already know, but it may be essential.

Note that one promising candidate for a focus of discussion may be implicit bias itself — as identified in psychology experiments. As a focus of communications, these points illustrate several criteria that our own research suggests can be important for effective communication on a fraught topic: (A) steering clear of the type of moral censure that can alienate many audience members; (B) pointing to “objective” facts that are harder to dispute; (C) conveying a relatively novel and unfamiliar point (rather than rehashing familiar claims and accusations); and (D) offering the hope that there are concrete steps that can help. (For various reasons discussed in the social science literature, including the so-called “just-world” orientation, Americans tend to respond more favorably to messages that offer hope — see, for example, Feinberg & Willer,  2010.)

More generally, in fact, communicators can be confident that promoting stories about solutions and success stories — interventions or causal factors of any kind that have altered black male outcomes for the better — will help engage new audiences. Whether in fiction shows, news accounts, press releases, or informal anecdotes, communicators are sure to gain new kinds of attention by offering audiences fresh and hopeful takes on the topic.

Another potentially promising direction may be pointing out (and calling out) the manipulative uses   of race in the media and public discourse. Some of the social science evidence suggests that explicit inoculation against manipulators and manipulative messages can be very effective, and the strategy of opening people’s eyes to how they are being duped has been effective in other issues areas, such as cigarettes and smoking.

Finally, communicators should keep in mind that any of their efforts that can help promote greater contact between African-American males and others may be among the most effective steps they can take.

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