Media Messages What Film, Television, and Popular Music Teach Us About Race, Class, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

1. The Connections: Life, Knowledge, and Media
Personal Experience
Reconstructing Knowledge
The Process of Socialization
Entertainment Media
Chapter Summary
Glossary of Key Terms
Reflection, Summary, and Analysis
Bibliography

2. Gender: In Pink and Blue and Vivid Color
Personal Experience and Gender
Reconstructing Knowledge and Gender
Gender and Entertainment Media
The Complexity of Gender Targeting
Gender Diversity and Social Power
Chapter Summary
Glossary of Key Terms
Reflection, Summary, and Analysis
Bibliography

3. Is the United States a Classless Society?
Personal Experience and Class
Reconstructing Knowledge and Class
Early U.S. History
The Twentieth Century
The Twenty-First Century
Entertainment Media and Class
Chapter Summary
Glossary of Key Terms
Reflection, Summary, and Analysis
Bibliography

4. Racing in America: Fact or Fiction?
Linda's Story
Leon's Story
Meeting at the Crossroads: How Our Stories Converge
The American Racial Discourse: Then and Now
Reconstructing Knowledge and Race
Stories of Race, Racism, and Resistance in the United States
Chapter Summary
Glossary of Key Terms
Reflection, Summary, and Analysis
Bibliography

5. Stories of Race in Popular Culture
Entertainment Media and Race
American Indians in Entertainment Media
Asians and Pacific Islanders in Entertainment Media
Latinas/Latinos in Entertainment Media
African Americans in Entertainment Media
Chapter Summary
Glossary of Key Terms
Bibliography

6. Sexual Orientation and the Fabrication of "Normal"
Personal Experience
Reconstructing Knowledge and Sexual Orientation
Terminology and Its Evolution
Theories and History of Sexual Orientation in the United States
Sexual Orientation in U.S. History
Religion and Sexual Orientation
Summary of Reconstructing Knowledge
Sexual Orientation and Entertainment Media
Chapter Summary
Glossary of Key Terms
Reflection, Summary, and Analysis
Bibliography

Biography

Linda Holtzman, Professor Emeritus at Webster University, has been a leader in media and diversity program development and teaching for 25 years. A weekly guest on the St Louis NBC affiliate, she has reviewed diversity messages in film and television and received grants for her work in the U.S., Israel and Palestine; analyzing media misinformation, stereotypes, and human rights activism. She serves as an anti-racism facilitator for local and national organizations and school districts and has received numerous awards for her work, including the Martin Luther King Award presented personally by Coretta Scott King.

Leon Sharpe is an adjunct professor at the Webster University School of Communications where he teaches courses that examine the role of film and other media in establishing and reinforcing patterns of social power. He is also founder and principal of The Praxis Group, a strategic consulting firm that specializes in building organizational capacity, developing effective leaders, training high-performance teams, leveraging workforce diversity, and managing institutional change. He has successfully designed and implemented employee efficacy and process improvement programs for a broad range of corporations, universities, school districts, government agencies, charitable foundations, social service providers, and community-based groups.

Joseph Farand Gardner, also know as J. Owl Farand, is a writer and Black Media Analyst for Owl’s Asylum and operates the design agency J. Farand, LLC. Mr Gardner attended Ranken technical College in St. Louis where he obtained an Associates Degree of Science in Web Development and graduated from St. Louis’ Webster University, earning a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in Media Communications and serving as a Research Assistant to Professor Linda Holtzman.

"Authors Holtzman and Sharpe quote one of their students: 'Humanity is our basic understanding; compartmentalizing people is something that's taught.' Then, through a thoughtful blend of textual interpretation, self-reflection, social science theory, and cultural analysis, they produce a wonderfully written critique of film, television, and popular music in our time of controversial new laws that open the door to legal discrimination under the guise of standing your ground, eliminating voter fraud, or protecting certain religious beliefs. While not a media literacy book per se, Media Messages encourages readers through examples, evidence, and exercises to think critically about media's--and our own--contributions to how we construct our realities of gender, class, race, and sexual orientation." -- Stanley Baran, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, Bryant University

"The second edition of Media Messages is a welcome update to the groundbreaking original. Holtzman and Sharpe's readings of Hollywood movies and popular television shows help the reader understand the pervasiveness of class differences in American culture and make visible the many fault lines that crisscross our society." -- Louis Alvarez, Director of People Like Us: Social Class in America (PBS)

"Holtzman provides a comprehensive survey of the major issues framing the ongoing debate regarding the social and cultural implications of the struggles over identity politics in contemporary media. Her approach appropriately combines ideological readings and a detailed examination of everyday life worlds. An important contribution to this evolving literature." -- Hal Himmelstein, Brooklyn College (on the previous edition)

"Countless examples from each genre will resonate in some way for every reader, and questionnaires throughout help individuals explore his or her own values, definitions, beliefs, and perspectives. A vast amount of historical and media research is synthesized into thought-provoking and instructive material. Those with an interest in society and the media will find this quite appealing, and it will serve as an excellent text for college-level communications programs." -- Library Journal (on the previous edition)