Metaphors in Teen TV : A Content Analysis on the Portrayal of Race and Crime among Adolescents in Prime-Time Televisiion.
Written by Rizwan Ahmad
Introduction
The penetration of television in the mass
communication market occurred so quickly that most people alive today can’t
even remember or imagine a time when television was not a dominant factor. As
the dominance of television grew, so did the portrayal of children and
adolescents in television programming. A number of research studies have been
conducted to show the portrayal of children in prime-time television
programming since 1970s. But not much has been done as regards the portrayal of
race and crime among adolescents in prime-time programming. However, a number
of communication analysts have analyzed the depiction of adolescents in
prime-time television programming and did offer some interesting insights as to
in what capacity they were represented and their representation on the basis of
ethnic or racial background. But still, a vast area of the portrayal of race
and various forms of crime among adolescents in prime-time television
programming has largely been untouched or a very little attention has been paid
to how they were represented, the portrayal of their criminal activities in
both violent and non-violent crime, psychological crime, threat or potential
violence and ideological conflict based on their racial affiliations and gender.
This study would focus on the portrayal of race and
crime (violent, nonviolent, psychological, threat, and ideological) among
adolescents in prime – time programming in UPN, CNN and FOX network and will
examine the following research questions:
1. What is the percentage of African American adolescents and the portrayal of their position such as being week, powerful, wise, boring, competent, satisfied with life or/and active as compared to the total number of adolescents?
2. What
is the percentage of Asian adolescents and the portrayal of their position such
as being week, powerful, wise, boring, competent, satisfied with life or/and
active as compared to the total number of adolescents?
3. What
is the percentage of white adolescents and the portrayal of their position such
as being week, powerful, wise, boring, competent, satisfied with life or/and
active as compared to the total number of adolescents?
4. What
is the percentage of Hispanic adolescents and the portrayal of their position
such as being week, powerful, wise, boring, competent, satisfied with life
or/and active as compared to the total number of
adolescents?
5. What
is the percentage of Native American adolescents and the portrayal of their
position such as being week, powerful, wise, boring, competent, satisfied with
life or/and active as compared to the
total number of adolescent?
6.
What is the percentage of adolescents committing the violent crime as
compared to adolescents committing the non-violent crime/conflict,
psychological crime, potential violence/threat etc.?
7. What
is the percentage of African American, Asian, White, Hispanic and Native
American adolescents committing the violent crime respectively as compared to
respective adolescents committing the non-violent crime/conflict, psychological
crime, potential violence/threat etc.
8. What
is the percentage of African American,
Asian, White, Hispanic and Native American victims and their age-categories
respectively as compared to total number of victims?
According to Rice(1981), “ as children move into
adolescence, peer and entertainment heroes replace parents as primary models,
especially in influencing verbal expressions, hairstyles, clothing, music, food
preferences and basic social values and behavior such as self-control,
altruism, aggression, or sexual behavior”.(Soderman, Anne; Greenberg, Bradley
S.; Linsangan, Renato, 1993, 163). In “Real Boys”, Harvard University professor
William Pollack (1999, xxi) mentions what adolescents or “boys” are supposed to
mean, how they behave and what they feel and if they need help and what happens
if they are not helped. He identifies that “boys today are in serious trouble,
including many who seem ‘normal’ and to be doing just fine. Confused by
society’s mixed messages about what’s expected of them as boys, and later as
men, many feel a sadness and disconnection they cannot even name. New Research
shows that boys are faring less well in school than they did in the past and in
comparison to girls, that many boys have remarkably fragile self-esteem, and
that the rates of both depression and suicide in boys are frighteningly on the
rise. Many of our sons are currently in desperate crisis”. He further says that
“girls loose their voices as they enter their teens” and as a result they get
lost because of “society’s gender stereotypes about girls”(Pollack,1999, xxi).
The above research proposal would also discuss, at
the end, gender stereotypes, if any, about female adolescendents and the
portrayal of crime among them based on their ethnic or racial affiliations as
compared to their male counterparts.
Literature Review
Hundreds of research studies have been done over the
last four decades in an effort to identify the effects that televised crime, in
general and violence, in particular, may have on viewers. It seems easy for
critics to reprimand the crime in television programming. But the debate over
televised crime can be put forth in a more balancing position if data can be
provided in order to tell exactly how many criminal acts occur during a given
period, what kinds of criminal activities are involved, who the perpetrators
and the victims of crime are, and so on.
Soderman, Greenberg and Linsangan (1993, 163) writes
in Media, Sex and the Adolescent about LeMasters who in 1974 identifies “common
values portrayed by the media that
frequently conflict with the value perspectives many parents wish to inculcate
in their children; physical sex as ‘love’ versus sexual restraint and lifetime
monogamy; violence versus avoidance of violence; and idealization of
immaturity, materialism, hedonism and commercialism versus the development of
responsibility, industry, maturity and planning for the future” ( Soderman,
Greenberg & Linsangan, 1993, 163).
Many liberals and radicals seem to be upset by the representation of
crime in media. According to them, crime is not the direct result of media but
it does cause an “exaggerated public alarm about law and order, generating
support for repressive solutions”(Wykes, 2001 in Reiner, 2002 , 376). “Within
the field of media studies the influential ‘cultural indicators’ project has
for three decades monitored the damaging consequences of media representation
of violence for democratic institutions” (Gerbner, 1970, 1995 in Reiner, 2002,
376).
Media have been indicted by many communication
scientists for embellishing the menace of crime thereby creating or
“cultivating an image of the world” that would be perceived as “scary” and
“mean”(Gerbner and Gross, 1976; Carlson, 1985; Howitt 1998:chapter 4 in Reiner,
2002, 383). “Respectable fears about waves of excessive media focus on crime
are perennial, just as they are about crime in reality”(Pearson, 1983 in
Reiner, 2002, 388). “Violence is the most visible and disturbing end result of
the process that begins when a boy is pushed into the adult world too early and
without sufficient love and support. He becomes seriously disconnected,
retreats behind the mask, and expresses the only ‘acceptable’ male emotion –
anger. When a boy’s anger grows too great, it may erupt as violence: violence
against himself, violence against others, violence against society. Violence,
therefore, is the final link in a chain that begins with
disconnection”(Pollack, 1999, 338). A historical content analysis of 620
randomly selected prime-time television fiction between 1955 and 1986 revealed
predominance of “violent crime in television fiction. In the first decade of
the study, seven murders were found per one hundred characters seen on the
screen which was 1400 times more than the actual murder rate for the
Using content analysis, the Annenberg team
“measured” the amount of televised violence in prime-time programming from 1969
to 1977. Defining violence as “the overt expression of physical force, with or
without a weapon, against self or other, compelling action against one’s own
will on pain of being hurt or killed or actually hurting and killing” (Gerbner,
Gross, Eleey, Jackson-Beeck, Jeffries-Fox & Signorelli, 1978, 179), they counted the incidence of each violent
act and found out that 65.5 percent of
male children and male adolescents and 49.5 percent of female children
and female adolescents were involved in televised violence. They further
observed that “in the television world, young boys are the males most likely to
be victims rather than perpetrators of violence… when involved they are the
most lethal of all age groups”(Gerbner, Gross, Eleey, Jackson-Beeck,
Jeffries-Fox & Signorelli, 1978, 188) and such violence was targeted at a particular
group of people. The results showed that children, women, the old, the working
class and non-whites were all significantly more likely to be targets than were
white, middle-aged, middle-class men ( Gerbner, Gross, Eleey, Jackson-Beeck,
Jeffries-Fox & Signorelli, 1978, 188-190). Hence it was found that
television relied heavily on violence which prompted the definition of what
counted as violence and was defined as “ a dramatic demonstration of the power
of certain types of persons to inflict violence and the tendency of others to
fall victim to it … lessons of victimization and ways to avoid as well as
commit violence; caution and prudence as well as pugnacity; a calculus of one’s
risks as well as opportunities to be gained from violence …a tendency to assume
high level of violence; to acquiesce to the use of violence by
others, as well as to imitate violence and a sense
of fear and need for protection as well as of aggression” (Gerbner, Gross,
Eleey, Jackson-Beeck, Jeffries-Fox & Signorelli, 1978, 184).
Many of the content analyses of television
programming on the representation of youth characters or adolescents have put
them in poor light by explaining the way they were represented. Woodruff (1998,
43) having done a content analysis statewide on 26 Californian television
station on “ youth and race on local TV news” found out that most of the
perpetrators of violence (“approximately two-thirds”) in the news stories are
youth or adolescents and “fifty three percent of all youth stories involved
violence”. News stories that involve “youth” or adolescents and violence are
perceived as more “newsworthy” thereby, creating a “negative” image in the real
world. Woodruff also found out a remarkable difference in portraying the “white
youth” as compared to the “youth of color”. “More white youths were given
opportunity to speak in local news stories”. More “youth of color” were shown
as “a victim, a witness of violence, a criminal or suspect”. He also explored a
“marked difference in the circumstances in which white youth and youth of color
were used for ‘person on the street’ interviews, with youth of color being far
more likely to be shown in situations related to crime, drug dealing and gangs”
(Connect for kids – The Teen Years, http://www.connectforkids.org/usr_doc/reframingyth.html
[online version], 10-11). Minority adolescents such as Blacks, Hispanics,
Asians, Native Americans etc. have been underrepresented or negatively
portrayed on television. It is usually shown that “Anglo American male is the
ideal”. Anglo American males are usually portrayed in lead roles and in “the
positions of power, wealth and prestige”. Minority adolescents are sometime
non-existent or mostly portrayed in minor or derogatory roles (Barrera &
Close, 1982, 90-91).
Signorielli(1987, 255-267) analyzed the depiction of
children and adolescents in prime-time and children television programming
between 1967 and 1985. He discovered that adolescents “had more dramatic and
romantic potential and consequently had a more substantial representation on
television”(258). He also found out the under-representation of early
adolescents in prime-time programming irrespective of their racial background
(258). In children’s programming, he discovered that “black adolescents were
over-represented by a factor of four while white and male and female
adolescents were evenly represented”(258). He reported that “young adolescent
males (between the ages of 10 & 15) in prime-time … had the largest
proportion, actually an overrepresentation, of non-white characters among them.
Almost one-quarter of young adolescent males in prime-time programs and more
than one – third of these males in weekend day-time programs were blacks or
members of other minority races. The patterns were not the same for female
characters in prime-time programs – in this case the proportion of non-whites
was similar at all ages. In children programs, non-whites made up between 6 &
8 percents of younger female characters”(259). He further reported that younger
adolescents were more likely to be shown in the context of home and family as
compared to the older ones (261). Similarly, older adolescents were more likely
to commit violence than the younger ones while adolescents were also more
likely to be victimized (263). He also concluded that the instances of drug use
were more likely to be committed by the older adolescents than the younger ones
(262). As regards minority’s portrayal on prime-time television, he
observed that “minorities are defined by
having less than their proportionate share of values and resources, meaning
less usefulness, less opportunities, and fewer but more stereotyped roles. Under-representation
signifies restricted scope of action, stereotyped roles, diminished life
chances, and under-evaluation ranging from relative neglect to symbolic
annihilation” (Signorielli, 1987, 256).
Katherine Heintz-Knowles (1999) in “Reframing Youth
Issues for Public Consideration and Support” elucidated the significance of
prime-time television programming and how it changes the “attitudes” and
“beliefs” of viewers. She says, “Television is a cultural storyteller. Even
when viewers recognize that the content they are viewing is fictional, its
messages and images gradually shape expectations and beliefs about the real
world”. She content analyzed one episode of prime-time television entertainment
programming between September, 1999 and
Dale Kunkel in November 1993 conducted a study on
prime-time newscasts on three important television networks (ABC, CBS and NBC)
and explored 48% of violence in adolescents related stories as compared to the
other issues of concern. He later, propounded the fact that such an inequity
lowers the discernment of other important adolescent related issues of public concerns which should
have been the case (Kunkel, 1995, http://www.childrennow.org/media/mc94/news%5Fstudy.cfm [online version]).
Gordon and Singer in 1977 did a research on
news-items on television and came to a conclusion that 48.4 percent news-items
contained violence-related and conflict topics.
“Most violence depicted involves human agents (79.6
percent of all violent items) and human targets (81.3 percent of all violent
items)” (Gordon & Singer, 1977,
604).
In recent years, the stupefying quantity and quality
of violence being depicted in the television programming has been a noticeable
concern for many of the social science and communication scientists. Atkin,
Murray and Nayman, having conducted a research study on the relationship
between aggressive behavior and the preference for violent television
programming among adolescents postulated in its report of The Surgeon General’s
research program on television and social behavior in 1971 that such
relationship does exist. “Individuals who listed violent series among their
favorite shows were fifty percent more likely to have been involved in serious
fights at school or at work than individuals who did not include any violent
program in their list of favorites…badly enough to require bandage or services of
a doctor…or to have taken parts in gang fights and to have used a gun or knife as
weapon … They also reported more thefts, arson and trouble with the
police”(Howe, 1977, 81). Later, George Comstock, having carried out a number of
research on the impact of television in 1975, corroborated the following
finding:
“The observation of television portrayals can alter
the balance between the inclination to perform an act and the inhibitions
against such performance on the part of adolescents. Although, most of the
evidence to date concerns the disinhibition or stimulation of aggression, there
is little reason to think the same effect would not occur for other classes of
behavior. The actual performance of an acquired act depends on various factors
relating to the television stimuli, the viewer, and the environment. Among
these factors are the degree to which the observed behavior is perceived as
rewarded or effective, the viewer’s state of excitation or arousal, the degree
of similarity between the observed environment and the actual environment, the
availability of a target perceived as appropriate for the act, and the
perceived lack of sanction against the act. Exciting television content of a
wide variety of classes (of which violence is only one example) can probably
activate or stimulate behavior which otherwise would not be expressed at a
lower level. The trend of evidence reverses early findings that television
violence reduces aggression among young people or adolescents by inducing
catharsis.”(Comstock,1975, 28).
James Taylor in 1977, on his interpretation of the
impact of television crime drama on adolescents, postulates in his report of
The Royal Commission on Violence in the Communications Industry how adolescents
and children get influenced by television violence based on modeling and
structuralist theory. According to him, adolescents and children behave and learn by means of
imitation of what they see on television. “ It does not by and large enquire
much into how people interpret what they see or do, or how they fit social
behavior into any kind of meaning system. Structuralist theory does not deny
that individuals can learn behavior patterns by watching; it argues that many
of the most important effects of television cannot be evaluated by a simple
correlation between what happens on the screen and what viewers do immediately
afterwards….It sees the events of a television crime drama as forming an
ostensibly realistic representation of ordinary life and also as a code for
deeper meanings” (Taylor, 1977, 169-170).
Few of the even earlier studies Conducted by Bandura
confirmed that “learning behaviors could occur just as readily from watching
media portrayals as from observing real life”
(Bandura, 1965; Bandura, Ross & Ross,1961; Bandura, Ross & Ross,
1963b in Wilson, Smith, Potter, Kunkel, Linz, Colvin & Donnerstein, 2002, 6). “By the 1990s, meta-analyses of this research
demonstrated a causal link between viewing televised violence and real life
aggression” (Carlson, Marcus-Newhall & Miller, 1990; Hearold, 1986; Wood,
Wong & Chachere, 1991 in Wilson, Smith, Potter, Kunkel, Linz, Colvin &
Donnerstein, 2002, 6). “In recent years,
several professional organization (e.g. American Medical Association, Centers
for Disease Control & Prevention etc.) have comprehensively reviewed the
evidence and concluded that TV violence is harmful…” especially, for younger
adolescents (Wilson, Smith, Potter, Kunkel, Linz, Colvin & Donnerstein,
2002, 6). Research has divulged that the
effect of televised violence depends on how it is portrayed. Sometimes it has
positive effect and sometimes “negative” which depends upon how viewers
“interpret” and “responds” to it (
As children goes through a phase of transition “from
early childhood to adolescence”, they try to look for a “role model” outside
their family, in most cases to “media figures” (Campbell, 1962 in Anderson,
Hutson, Schmitt, Linebarger & Wright, 2001, 109).
Because of
their lack of experience about the “real world”, they treat television as an
“early window on the world”. In other words, they learn and imitate what they
see on television sometimes identifying themselves with the characters
(Anderson, Hutson, Schmitt, Linebarger & Wright, 2001, 109).
Television has been perceived as the “representation
of ‘culture’ in today’s society.
Television, an important component of modern media of mass communication,
categorized as cultural industry’ by Horkheimer and Adorno (1944, 144 in
Muller-Doohm, 1990, 60) “on account of the connection between cultural
communication and capitalist economy and the concomitant standardizations and
schematizations of their serial products, are integral part of society’s
cultural system”. They tend to inflict ideologies, shapes opinion and beliefs,
proliferates and shapes culture. “They are partly responsible for the cultural
milieu in society and they convey cultural interpretations, pictures of the
world, life styles” by means of “their textual, visual and acoustic productions”
(Muller-Doohm, 1990, 60).
“Cultivation hypothesis” of Gerbner and his
colleagues seems to have generated lots of enthusiasm among communication
scientists. “The cultivation thesis assumes the ‘amount of exposure’ to be an
important indicator of the strength of televisions’ contributions to people
conceptions about their environment”, in other words, the way people think and
act in the real world. Television becomes a reality and everything in the real
world revolves around television for the people who watch lots of television.
The more they watch, the more they perceive the social reality as the
“representation” of television messages (Garbner et al, 1980, 14 in Hedinsson,
1981, 158-159). Based on the research conducted by Rosengren & Windahl in
1978, “the amount of time spent watching TV does not relate in any systematic
way to the adolescents’ perception of violence, contrary to the cultivation
thesis” (Hedinsson, 1981, 162 ).
“Nielson Media Research has found that by the time children are 16 years
old, they have spent more time watching television than going to school”(Basow,
1992 in Witt, 2000, 322). “By the time, children graduate from high school, he
would have witnessed 13,000 violent deaths on television” (Gerbner & Gross,
1976 in Witt, 2000, 322). A number of studies have found a positive correlation
between viewing lots of violent television programming and aggressive behavior
in day – to – day life of adolescents or teenagers. According to cultivation
theory, individuals who watch lots of television are more likely “to hold
images and beliefs which reflects television’s dominant messages about life and
society. Previous cultivation research has found that television viewing makes
an independent contribution to the conception of violence, sex-roles, …., and
many other issues…”(Rothschild & Morgan, 1987, 304). Another study
conducted by Atkin, Murray and Nayman during 1970 to determine the relationship
between amount of watching violent television programming and aggressive
behavior of adolescents found out that individuals who watch lots of television
violence for a longer period of time are more likely “to express a willingness to resort to
violence himself, to consider violence to be effective and to suggest violent
solutions to problems”(Howe, 1977, 79).
Methodology
A content analysis would be designed and
administered in order to show the portrayal of race and crime among adolescents
in prime-time television programming. Two weeks of prime-time programming from
the three major networks: FOX, CNN and UPN between January the 15th
and January the 30th in the year 2005 would be drawn and recorded
between
Unit of Analysis
There would be two units of analysis in order to
understand the portrayal of race and crime among adolescents. The first unit of
analysis would be individual characters. Race, gender and age-group for each of
these individuals would be coded. The role played by each of them and their
locale or setting would also be coded. The second unit of analysis would be
“shot”. A “scene” is composed of a “collection” of specific “shots”, “but there
are no established limits to the length or complexity of a single shot. Shot-types
help to create the structure of visual narrative” (Gruba, 1999, 73). “Elements
of tradecraft” is used “to impose a particular style into visual narrative
through shot composition, pacing, the use of special effects or variations in lighting”
(Arijon, 1976 & Armes, 1988 in Gruba, 1999, 73).
Each program would be first viewed one time through as though the coder was an ordinary viewer. After the first run-through, the coder would determine the genre of the program characterized as Crime, Comedy, Soap Operas, News/Talk Shows, Historical, Children, Adventure and Education and code it accordingly. Then the coder would note the tone of the program and the message communicated in it and code the program, based on his/her general feeling, as serious, funny, true to life, exciting, educational, violent, suspense or/and sensual. In the second run-through, the coder will view the program episode by episode and code appropriately for each of the characters for a maximum of ten characters. Episodes could be rerun if the coders felt it necessary to do it in order to obtain all the information. However, coders would be instructed not to change any of the
responses which they coded after the first run-through about the entire program episode
even if they later felt on the basis of the detailed examination of the episode after the
subsequent run-throughs that the response(s) needed to be changed.
Age-group categories would be defined as follows:
09 – 19: Adolescents
20 & Above: Adults
Adolescents may be identified as college or school going young characters, working part-
time,sometime even full-time, dependent on their parents in most of the cases, sometimes
confused but ambitious. “Throughout adolescence appear the recurrent themes of
identity, autonomy, achievement and intimacy. As young people move through the stages
of adolescence, they meet the successive challenges of these tasks with ever-increasing
physical and intellectual maturity and can build on the learning experience of prior-
periods” (Hamburg, 1982, 3).
Their ethnicity would be characterized as:
(i) African Americans = Identified by dark or black skin.
(ii) Asians = Identified by skin color, accent, facial features and
sometimes dress. Originally from South/West/East
(iii) Whites = Identified by fair skinned/ Anglo/European.
(iv) Hispanics = Identified by medium/olive skin tone, audible
accent or Hispanic surname
(v) Native Americans = Identified by the color of their skin/facial features.
The role played by the individual characters would be defined as follows:
1. Major: The main or lead character. The story revolves around him/her, appears on the screen most of the time and/or have quite a bit of dialogues.
2. Minor: Assistant to major characters or appears in a supporting role to major character. Doesn’t remain on the screen for a longer period of time and doesn’t have much of a dialogue as compared to the major character.
3. Background: Extras or a part of scenery, have an ephemeral presence on screen such as in a camera pan or wide shot and have almost no dialogue.
Locale of the individual characters or the place where the scene or an incident takes place, would also be coded based on the categories as follows: (1) Indoors (House/Apartment, Hospital, School, College/Institute of Higher Education, Police Station, Office building, Small businesses [Shop/Gas Station, Grocery Store], (2) Outdoors, or (3) Mixed.
“The camera is always a participant in the drama, selecting not only what to reveal to us, the audience, but also subtly affecting how we respond emotionally to what we see. Actors may be the flesh and blood of the film, but the camera is its guiding spirit. Its significance within the dramatic context of a film is paralleled by the central, almost alchemy role it plays in the film’s production” (Ettedgui, 1998, 9). Therefore, a breakdown of production technique would also be included in the coding sheet and the coder would be asked to code the technique used for each of the characters. For each of the characters, the coder would be asked to note whether the cinematography involved high( looking down), eye level, and/or low camera angles (looking up). More than one camera angle may be used. The coder would also be asked to code the composition of the shot as given below:
(i) Long Shot or Extreme Long Shot: This includes the whole body of the person in relation to the environment, usually taken from fairly far away or very far way from the character, sometimes having a wide view of a landscape or a shot that defines the basic space or locale where the subsequent event will take place.
(ii) Medium Shot: This shot is not too detailed, includes part of the subject and usually includes people from head to knee or from waist-up.
(iii) Close-up: This includes detail or sometime, extreme detail of any object and in the case of a person, it is a head and shoulder shot and sometime, part of a face.
(iv) Multiple Image: Any shot which has a number of subjects or people.
The coders would also be asked to code the lighting of the shot of the character as high, medium or low. The camera movement would also be coded as regular, accelerated, slow motion or a combination of both.
For each of the characters and the ethnicity he/she belongs to, the image portrayed in the program episode recognized as powerful, competent, boring, stable, satisfied with life, active or/and wise would also be coded very carefully. Thereafter, appropriate incidents of aggression, argument, conflict and the weapons used for each of the characters typified as physical violence, psychological damage, threat or potential violence, non-violent crime and non-violent conflict (For details, see Appendix II) would be coded by the coders very carefully. The program episode may be re-run, if required. At the end, the coders will code the total number of victims of the crime, the age and race of the victims and the immediate response of the victims to crime (For details, see Appendix II).
Hence the proposed group of analysis may be stated as follows:
“Given that a goal of content analysis is to identify and record relatively objective(or at
least intersubjective) characteristics of messages, reliability is paramount. Without the
establishment of reliability, content analysis measures are useless”(Neuendorf, 2002, 141 in Lombard, Snyder-Duch & Bracken, 2004, 3). Every attempt would be made to ensure
the reliability and validity of the coding process and the data collected. The coders would be effectively trained and instructed as to how the coding process will take place and what rules they need to follow as far as the coding process, observation and completing the coding sheet is concerned. First, a pilot study will be conducted. A sample of two hours of programming will be drawn and coded to check the definition and effectiveness of the coding process. The coders will not be told that the coding process would be a part of the reliability sample process and not the actual one. Thereafter, three independent and well-trained coders, two male and one female in the age group of 20 – 35 years who have never met each other will be assigned the actual study. Among the two male coders, one of them will be in his early 20s and the other one in his early 30s to mid 30s. The female coder will be in her mid 20s. Having coded the same episode from the same TV network, the intercoder reliability will be established based on the percentage of agreement among all three of them (between the first and second coder, second and third coder and the first and third coder). The intercoder reliability will then be determined. If the percentage of agreement among all three of them is over 85% then only the data will be discussed.
Concerning the accuracy of the result and conclusion based on the content analysis of the portrayal of race and crime among adolescents in prime-time television, a big assumption has been made that the samples drawn from three major TV networks CNN, FOX and UPN are large enough to be the representative of the portrayal of race and crime among adolescents of different ethnic group committing the violent and other crime.
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Appendix I
Name of the TV Network :
Name of the Program Episode :
Day of the Coding (Month & Date) : Time of Coding: AM / PM
Type of the Program :
(i) Crime
(ii) Comedy
(iii) Soap Operas
(iv) News/Talk Shows
(v) Historical
(vi) Children
(vii) Adventure
(viii) Education
Please code the following:
Serious 1 2 3 4 5 Not Serious
Funny 1 2 3 4 5 Not Funny
True to Life 1 2 3 4 5 Not True to Life
Exciting 1 2 3 4 5 Not Exciting
Educational 1 2 3 4 5 Not Educational
Violent 1 2 3 4 5 Not Violent
Suspense 1 2 3 4 5 Not Suspense
Sensual 1 2 3 4 5 Not Sensual
Name of the TV Network :
Name of the Program Episode :
Character (Identification)[For a maximum of 10 characters] :
Gender (Male/Female) :
Age:
09 – 19 : Adolescents ______
20 & Above: Adults ______
Ethnic Group:
(iii) African Americans : _____
(iv) Asians : _____
( South/West/East
Pacific Islanders, Orientals etc.)
(iii) Whites (Anglo/Europeans): _____
(iv) Hispanics : _____
(v) Native Americans : _____
Locale (Settings)
(1) Indoors
(i) House/Apartment
(ii) Hospital
(iii) School
(iv) College/Institute of higher education
(v) Police Station
(vi) Office building
(vii) Small businesses (Shop/Gas Station, Grocery Store)
(viii) Other (Specify) __________________
(2) Outdoors
(3) Mixed
Role Played :
(1) Major
(2) Minor
(3) Background
Production Technique Used :
(1) Camera Angle
(i) High
(ii) Low
(iii) Eye Level
(2) Spatial Aspect
(i) Long Shot or Extreme Long Shot
(ii) Medium Shot
(iii) Close-up
(iv) Multiple Images
(3) Lighting Key
(i) High
(ii) Medium
(iii) Low
(4) Action
(i) Regular
(ii) Accelerated
(iii) Slow Motion
(iv) Combination
If African American,
Please code the following:
Powerful 1 2 3 4 5 Powerless
Competent 1 2 3 4 5 Incompetent
Boring 1 2 3 4 5 Not Boring
Stable 1 2 3 4 5 Unstable
Satisfied with life 1 2 3 4 5 Dissatisfied with life
Active 1 2 3 4 5 Passive
Wise 1 2 3 4 5 Foolish
If Asian,
Please code the following:
Powerful 1 2 3 4 5 Powerless
Competent 1 2 3 4 5 Incompetent
Boring 1 2 3 4 5 Not Boring
Stable 1 2 3 4 5 Unstable
Satisfied with life 1 2 3 4 5 Dissatisfied with life
Active 1 2 3 4 5 Passive
Wise 1 2 3 4 5 Foolish
If White,
Please code the following:
Powerful 1 2 3 4 5 Powerless
Competent 1 2 3 4 5 Incompetent
Boring 1 2 3 4 5 Not Boring
Stable 1 2 3 4 5 Unstable
Satisfied with life 1 2 3 4 5 Dissatisfied with life
Active 1 2 3 4 5 Passive
Wise 1 2 3 4 5 Foolish
If Hispanic,
Please code the following:
Powerful 1 2 3 4 5 Powerless
Competent 1 2 3 4 5 Incompetent
Boring 1 2 3 4 5 Not Boring
Stable 1 2 3 4 5 Unstable
Satisfied with life 1 2 3 4 5 Dissatisfied with life
Active 1 2 3 4 5 Passive
Wise 1 2 3 4 5 Foolish
If Native American,
Please code the following:
Powerful 1 2 3 4 5 Powerless
Competent 1 2 3 4 5 Incompetent
Boring 1 2 3 4 5 Not Boring
Stable 1 2 3 4 5 Unstable
Satisfied with life 1 2 3 4 5 Dissatisfied with life
Active 1 2 3 4 5 Passive
Wise 1 2 3 4 5 Foolish
Please code the following for the character (if applicable):
(1) Physical Violence
(i) Body
§ Assault
§ Homicide
§ Falling
§ Rape & other sexual offenses
§ Robbery
§ Others (Specify) _________________________
(ii) Weapon
§ Small Firearms
§ Heavy Guns/Rifles
§ Small Household Devices ( Kitchen, Knife, Rope)
§ Small Non-household Devices (Club, Spear, Sword, Whip etc.)
§ Vehicles
§ Explosives
§ Object not intended for aggression
(Furniture, Slippery Material)
(iii) Alcohol
(iv) Drugs - (a) Legal
(b) Illegal
(v) Poison
(vi) Suicide
(vii)
Fire (
(viii) Use of other agents to deliver aggression(Insects,Rats,Hit man etc.)
(ix) Act of Nature
(x) Water (Drowning etc.)
(xi) Mode unclear/Off screen (Please Specify ___________________)
(2) Psychological Damage
(i) Direct verbal Abuse
(ii) Sarcasm or mimicking a deficiency
(iii) Brain washing/Hypnosis
(iv) Harassment (Repeated Obscene Phone Call / Invasion of Privacy)
(v) Indirect Verbal Abuse (Slander/Bigotry)
(vi) Discrimination, Denial of rights or opportunity or threat of denial based on sex, class, race, national origin
(3) Threat / Potential Violence
(i) Explicit Verbal Threat
§ Direct Verbal Threat
§ Indirect Verbal Threat
§ Threat of use of other source
(ii) Explicit non-verbal threat
§ Gestures (Shaking Fist, Slashing-gesture across throat etc.)
§ Chasing
§ Brandishing a weapon
(iii) Implicit Threat
§ Person physically or otherwise restrained
§ Person says they are afraid but there are no explicit or non-verbal threat
§ Kidnapping (No Ransom Demand)
§ High jacking (No Ransom Demand)
§ Hostage taking (No Ransom Demand)
(4) Non – Violent Crime
(i) Destruction of property
§ Intentional
(a) Yes
(b) No
(ii) Theft
§ Thief
(a) Single
(b) Group
§ Victim
(a) Single
(b) Group
(iii) Extortion (Kidnapping, Hostage taking for ransom, favor etc.)
(iv) Fraud
(v) Blackmail
(vi) Environmental Damage
(5) Non – Violent Conflict (Ideological)
Total number of the victim(s) of the crime :
Age of the victim(s) of the crime :
(i) Child (0 –10) ___________
(ii) Adolescent (11 – 19) ___________
(iii) Youth (20 – 35) ___________
(iv) Older People (36 & above) ___________
Gender of the victim(s) of the crime
(i) Male _________
(ii) Female _________
Race Of the Victim(s) of the crime :
(i) African Americans : _____
(ii) Asians : _____
( South/West/East
Pacific Islanders, Orientals etc.)
(iii) Whites (Anglo/Europeans): _____
(iv) Hispanics : _____
(v) Native Americans : _____
Immediate response of victim(s) to the crime :
(i) Physically unable to respond (completely confined,
unconscious,dead)
(ii) Withdraws from encounter, disengages
(iii) Submits unconditionally
(iv) Calls for help
(v) Tries to conciliate or deflect
(vi) Introduces arbitrator
(vii) Responds with violence
(viii) Responds with psychological aggression
(ix) Resists by verbal aggression
(x) Submits conditionally (Intends to escape, plans counter-aggression
or other measure of retaliation)
(xi) Unknown
Total number of Characters in the program :
Total number of African American adolescents in the program :
Total number of Asian adolescents in the program :
Total number of White adolescents in the program :
Total number of Hispanic adolescents in the program :
Total number of Native American adolescents in the program :
Total number of Female Adolescents in the program:
Total number of Adolescents committing the crime : Violent Other
(Non-violent crime/
conflict, threat
psychological etc.)
______ ______
Total number of the African American adolescents committing the crime :
Violent Other
(Non-violent crime/
conflict, threat
psychological etc.)
______ ______
Total number of the Asian adolescents committing the crime :
Violent Other
(Non-violent crime/
conflict, threat
psychological etc.)
______ ______
Total number of the White adolescents committing the crime :
Violent
Other
(Non-violent crime/
conflict, threat
psychological etc.)
______ ______
Total number of the Hispanic adolescents committing the crime :
Violent Other
(Non-violent crime/
conflict, threat
psychological etc.)
______ ______
Total number of the Native American adolescents committing the crime :
Violent Other
(Non-violent
crime/
conflict, threat
psychological etc.)
______ ______
Total number of the Female Adolescents committing the crime :
Violent Other
(Non-violent crime/
conflict, threat
psychological etc.)
______ ______
Total Number of African American victims in the crime & their age group :
Total Number of Asian victims in the crime & their age group :
Total Number of White victims in the crime & their age group :
Total Number of Hispanic victims in the crime & their age group :
Total Number of Native American victims in the crime & their age group :
Total Number of Female victims of the crime: