Date of Award

Spring 2022

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

School of Journalism and Mass Communications

First Advisor

Kenneth Campbell

Abstract

This dissertation presents a Critical Race Conceptual Model of Implicit Racial Bias to representations of African Americans in mass media to illustrate how stereotypical depictions and racist ideologies arise in media content, including by Black content creators. By bridging the concepts of implicit bias, framing theory and concepts from critical race theory through the conceptual model, I contend that content creators implicitly share racially biased beliefs. Moreover, Black content creators in expressing the authentic experiences of the Black community also do the same. Thus, Black content creators further stereotypes, majoritarian narratives as well as deficit perspectives about the Black community while defining Blackness for outside groups. I apply my Critical Race Conceptual Model of Implicit Racial Bias to illustrate how implicit racial bias reveals itself in three different types of content created by varied Black media content creators: Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN., Black sports columns in Andscape and in my journalistic coverage on the Black community.

Rights

© 2022, Christina Lauren Myers

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