African American women in the news: Gender, race and class in journalism

Abstract

The representations of African American women are scattered across the multimedia landscapes of news and journalism. In her book, African American Women in the News: Gender, Race and Class in Journalism, Marian Meyers argues that these subjects are mostly hidden or portrayed in largely unflattering ways. Overall, this is an ambitious work. However, Myers uses Black feminist theory, which explicates intersectionality as a conceptual foundation for her work. Meyers lays the groundwork for her study in the first chapter, where she introduces the two broad research questions that animate her investigation: “…(1) how are African American women portrayed in the news; and (2) how does this coverage reflect intersectionality…” (p. 2). Meyers explores these questions in what she describes as “six discrete studies” (p. 10) focusing on the portrayals of African American women in varied news and information frameworks. These include evening newscasts from local network affiliated stations in Atlanta, evening newscasts from national entities CNN and Fox; YouTube videos featuring Michelle Obama, including ones provided by the White House about the First Lady's activities; print news coverage about prominent African American evangelist Juanita Bynum; coverage about the violence toward women at an annual college-student-aged event, Freaknik; and a feature series about crack-addicted mothers in The Atlantic Journal-Constitution. The last chapter summarizes these analyses with a call-to-action to continue these explorations about race, gender, and class.

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