Race and Contention in Twenty-First Century U.S. Media

Jason A. Smith, Bhoomi K. Thakore

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317385127
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume explores and clarifies the complex intersection of race and media in the contemporary United States. Due to the changing dynamics of how racial politics are played out in the contemporary US (as seen with debates of the "post-racial" society), as well as the changing dynamics of the media itself ("new vs. old" media debates), an interrogation of the role of the media and its various institutions within this area of social inquiry is necessary. Contributors contend that race in the United States is dynamic, connected to social, economic, and political structures which are continually altering themselves. The book seeks to highlight the contested space that the media provides for changing dimensions of race, examining the ways that various representations can both hinder or promote positive racial views, considering media in relation to other institutions, and moving beyond thinking of media as a passive and singular institution.

Chapters 3 and 13 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Part I Structures and Contention

1 Failure to Communicate

The Critical Information Needs Debate

Randy D. Abreu

DOI: 10.4324/9781315676425-3

It was the summer of 2013 as I embarked upon the historic National Mall of Washington, DC. Walking up to the Lincoln Memorial, I spotted a group of Black youth performing music, poetry, backflips, and more. I approached the organizer of the event, who informed me the youth are part of a local DC church and are out in front of the Lincoln Memorial to promote positive stories from the Black community. I look around the swarm of people videotaping and photographing the performers; something was missing. Not one television crew or camera was on site. This display of positive community involvement went unnoticed, but not for lack of trying. The organizer informed me that he did reach out to local news stations in order to promote the event, but to no avail.

That night, I went home and watched the local news. The headline read “Black Teens Rob Convenience Store.” Yes, a robbery is news; but if I am a young person of color watching the news, a narrative can have profound effects. The story that covers progressive youth for change goes much further in promoting a diverse and cohesive society than does a seemingly repetitive story of a Black thief. This is not to say that thievery should go uncovered by news outlets, but people of all colors steal on a daily basis; why do some producers feel the need to run the story of the Black kid who steals over the story of the Black kids who want to make the world a better place?

The power of media is exponential; it can shape opinions and help construct societal interactions. With those powers it is imperative to assess whether all Americans have the abilities to acquire the critical information they need to obtain resources for societal progress. From 2009 to 2013 there was an attempt to garner such assessment by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), but it was met with criticism from leaders within the United States government and the attempt was halted before it could take off.

The FCC was created through enactment of the Communications Act of 1934 and it mandated the FCC to establish regulations that would connect all Americans to an affordable and reliable communications system. Sixty years later, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 provided a necessary update to the law. The 1996 act included a provision that required the FCC to report to Congress on market entry barriers in the communications and information service market place along with regulations and practices that would help eliminate those barriers.

Our contemporary media is controlled by a handful of corporations that wield great influence over what we see, hear, and read, everyday (Austin, 2011). Consistent with the FCC’s mandate is a call to hold regulated corporations responsible for ensuring that media offers the essential information Americans need to equally participate and engage civically. At the FCC this essential information is referred to as Critical Information Needs (CIN), and it can affect an entire population in a myriad of ways simply through the dissemination or denial of such information (FCC, 2013). In 2014, the FCC’s attempt to understand what those needs are, how Americans obtain the information critical to their daily lives, and what barriers exist in our media ecologies to providing and accessing this information was derailed by partisan politics.

The equal ability of all citizens to participate in our democracy must be a compelling interest of the United States government. To ensure that those who provide critical information are held to responsible standards when serving local communities it is prudent to inquire into the operational practices and demographics of those that disseminate the information needs to the public. A White producer of news media from a suburban background is less likely to relate to and disseminate the needs of all residents in diverse and urban communities (Kim, 2011); a study examining media ownership and production found that 70% of minority-owned radio stations aired minority-targeted content (Sandoval, 2011). Therefore, if news media is to assume its optimal role in our society, there must be certainty that those who disseminate critical information needs understand their great powers and responsibilities (Smith, 2009).

This chapter will first take a look at historical and structural racism in the United States, particularly taking a critical look at community segregation and access to material goods that foster social mobility. Second, I will introduce the events leading up to the creation of the Critical Information Needs Study (CIN Study) attempted by the FCC. Third, I discuss the integral parts of the CIN Study as they relate to media ecologies. Fourth, I discuss the argument presented by government leaders in opposition to the CIN Study and provide a counter to the argument. Finally, I discuss the derailment of the CIN Study before it could be administered and the resulting policy implications on race and media in the 21st century.

A Critical Look at Race in the CIN Context

Structural racism and a lack of access to material goods has led to disparate needs and outcomes for different racial groups. Take for instance the desegregation of public schools during the mid-20th century. Derrick Bell (1976) noted the attempts of Civil Rights leaders to establish a racial population at every school consistent with the population demographics of the surrounding district. However, the attempts were flawed as White parents with the accessibility and means sent their children to private schools, continuing a cycle of unequal educational attainment and a lack of cultural diversity. Though notions of an equal education system run through our legal system, people of color still experience negative societal impacts. Low-income students (which far too often intersect with students of color) in public schools lack essential technological tools to succeed. As a result, their opportunities are diminished in our democracy when compared to privileged students in private schools.

Furthermore, access to capital consistently impedes the ability of people of color to succeed. While the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) was instrumental in alleviating home-ownership concerns during the mid 20th century, it was inherent in maintaining the segregation of Whites from people of color. The FHA discrimination policy, known as “redlining,” denied loans and financial services to people of color interested in buying a home. As a result, Blacks, and other persons of color were forced into segregated communities that garnered zero interest from investors, perpetuating a cycle of inequality and lack of access for social mobility.

In the communications realm, the story of disparate treatment is all too familiar. People of color are deprived opportunities to purchase spectrum and disseminate critical information through use of the public airwaves. As an FCC commissioned study by William Bradford (2000) showed, even when a person of color achieves educational success, they are shut out of the economic process; they are less likely to receive debt financing in capital markets. And when a loan is approved, a person of color traditionally pays higher interest rates than their White-male counterparts. This cycle of inherent discrimination has an effect on maintaining barriers to obtaining critical information needs, and as such, implores the FCC to fulfill its legislative mandate enabled in the Communications Act.

Low-income and non-English-speaking communities begin in a disadvantaged position. The lack of research that addresses the needs of these communities is concerning. Particularly concerning is the lack of research and data that informs lawmakers how disadvantaged communities are receiving, or not receiving, their critical information needs. For example, in the field of medicine there is a quantifiable gap in health access that can grow exponentially if not addressed (Viswanath & Kreuter, 2007). It is important to garner more research and data that directly address the critical information needs of all communities.

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities is an organized group of 17 media, policy, and communications leaders that joined to address the critical information needs of communities in the digital age. The Knight Commission (2009) identified four basic critical needs of communities: (1) communities need to coordinate a multitude of activities, ranging from elections to emergency response; (2) communities need to solve problems in health, education, and economic development; (3) communities need to establish systems of public accountability; and (4) communities need to develop a sense of connectedness. These needs are fundamental to disadvantaged communities. Following the Knight Commission, in 2012 the FCC requested the provision of a literature review of research into the critical information needs of all Americans. In furtherance of a Congressional mandate to highlight and address barriers to participation in the communications industry, the literature review would be one in a series of coordinated steps to research, gather, and study data.

This literature review would give way to a historic attempt at gathering necessary data and quantifying the actual critical information needs of different communities. The attempt would be known as the Critical Information Needs Study. The CIN Study aimed to assess the needs of a community within the locality, and not from an “outside-looking-in perspective,” by assessing the actual and perceived needs of local residents, as well as the diversity and decision-making within particular news organizations serving that community.

The CIN Study

Beginnings

The CIN study was released May 24, 2013. Following its release, Acting Chairwoman of the FCC, Mignon Clyburn, reiterated the commission’s mandate to ensure that FCC-regulated entities serve the needs of the American public regardless of monetary status.

A collaborative group of social scientists, legal scholars, journalists, and communications experts, collectively called the Communication Policy Research Network (CPRN), informed the CIN study at the request of the FCC. Though federal in its establishment, the goal of the CPRN review, and ultimately the CIN Study, was to identify and define the critical information needs of local communities, with a particular focus on low-income and disadvantaged communities.

The CPRN defined “critical information needs” as the “forms of information that are necessary for citizens, and community members to live safe and healthy lives; have full access to educational, employment, and business opportunities; and to fully participate in the civic and democratic lives of their communities should they choose” (Friedland, Napoli, Ognyanova, Weil, & Wilson, 2012). The CPRN review identified eight essential categories of “information” that must be accessed by a particular community via media that is accessible and in a language that is interpretable. ¹ Within the review, two distinct characteristics were identified. First, the community a person lives in significantly shapes their critical information needs. Second, the particular group a person falls within (e.g., race, gender, religion, occupation) can shape their own critical information needs. In this push, the CIN Study would be important because it took a critical look at the intersection of the growing diversity in the United States media landscape.

The research plan for the CIN Study included seven essential steps: (1) the development of the study itself; (2) development of research protocols and survey instruments for data collection; (3) obtaining regulatory clearance; (4) development of facilitator recruitment materials; (5) providing relevant materials and training to assist facilitators in applying research protocols; (6) coding, analyzing, and interpreting the extracted data; and (7) preparing a findings report for the study. From this position, the CIN Study was constructed.

A Finished Product

To effectuate its goal, the CIN Study was comprised of two prongs. First, it aimed to establish a “Media Market Census” to identify and determine whether FCC-regulated entities provide for CINs across different platforms to different communities. The Media Market Census would determine whether and how FCC-regulated corporations construct news and public affairs to deliver critical information needs.

Second, the CIN Study aimed to create a Community Ecology Study (CES) to understand the actual and perceived critical information needs of community members; whereas members of the community would participate in voluntary interviews and answer questions about their needs and the information they receive from the news. The CES aimed to construct a database of local content for a constructed one-week ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Other Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Contours of Race and Media
• Part I Structures and Contention
• Part II Navigating Contention Behind the Scenes
• Part III Visual Representations of Contention
• Part IV Perpetuating Contentious Ideologies
• Conclusion: looking ahead
• Editors and Contributors
• Index