Shawna Racino, Post 3

While reading Chapter 3 in the Marger text. One section really interested me was the Mass Media and Stereotypes section. It discussed how the media portrays minorities so that it continues to reinforce stereotypes. What came to mind as I was reading this, was the television shows my 12 year old sister watches on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. In my opinion, many of the shows that are aired on Disney and Nickelodeon are not really ethnically diverse. Of course these channels have different types of ethnicities/races. But very rarely do we see a main character who isn't "white". And even though these channels do have multiple ethnicities in their shows, some are still left out. For example, I couldn't find a show on these channels that had a character who was Asian American or Native American.

The book also stated how the mass media could also convey "exaggerated positive images". This is where characters could be portrayed in much more favorable terms. I think I found an example of these on Nickelodeon with a show called Ned's Declassified. Here is a link to the descriptions of the characters. Let me know if you agree that Cookie, a black student, is an example of exaggerated positive images in the media.

http://www.teennick.com/shows/neds-declassified/characters/ned_neds.html