Lecture 17: Social Categorization

Question 1

“Media repertoire” (Webster and Kxiazek 2012)

Answer 1

• Audience sharing and content overlapping

Question 2

Social media as a means of cultural production and circulation

Answer 2

• Examples
  
  • Selfies and online profiles: encoding role stereotypes
  • Avatars and game plays: Enactment of gender role expectations
  • Representation of teh offline social word via Instagram, Snapchat, FB, etc.

Question 3

Gendered communication

Answer 3

• Content analysis of 1,000 messages of 2010 top five teen chatrooms
• Offline patterns: male-initiating; aggressive;
  
  • Females engaged in more reactive acts.
  • Famles engaged in more info- exchange acts.
  • Males engaged in more manipulative actws

Question 4

The World of MMO’s Study & Results

Answer 4

• MMO’s= Massively Multiplayer Online Games
• Content analysis of unique characters in multiplayer games
  
  • White males dominate
  • Both from the game and user-controlled
  • User-created media tends to follow gender and race bias.

Question 5

Goffman: Gender Advertisements

Answer 5

• Sex vs. sexism
• Male gaze
• Repetition

Question 6

Sex vs. Sexism (Goffman)

Answer 6

• Ideology involving putting negative evaluations to physicial attributes
• Proves justification for inequality

Question 7

Male gaze (Goffman)

Answer 7

• The way visual arts are structured around a masculine viewer; describes the tendency to depict the world and women from a masculine point of view and in terms of men’s attitudes.
• Male gaze manifested in media depictions of women: images of men looking at women, female body objectified in order to sell product/idea/lifestyle to men
• Looking at members of a social group from a particular vantage point.

Question 8

Between-group Equality in Media Representation

Answer 8

• Visibility
• Diversity
• Substantitve Comparability
• Experiential Comparability

Question 9

Visibility (Between-Group Equality in Media)

Answer 9

• To what degree the grou pis represented as diverse & heterogenous
  
  • Are there socially marginalized groups in tv/media?
• Can analyse through counting the numbers of heads (is a social group represented in the media?).

Question 10

Diversity (Between-Group Equality in Media)

Answer 10

• Can count the number of people
  
  • Is a social group represented heterogeneously in the media?
• The degree to which each group is represented as diverse, the percents are usually not equal

Question 11

Substantive Comparability

(Between-Group Equality in Media)

Answer 11

• Whether representations reflect the reality, substantive (logical) characteristics
• Whether the media treats one group same as another group.
  
  • Ex: media representing women as housewives, and men as lawyers would not be substantive
  • When the media tries to portray different categories (white/black/asian), and the consistency in their descriptions.
    
    • Ex. Whites are usually categorized as family oriented, strong etc.

Question 12

Experiential Comparability

(Between-Group Equality in Media)

Answer 12

• Whether the media treats specific group as they actually treat them in reality.
  
  • Ex: women can be CEOs, but on the media they are portrayed as vulnerable and lower roles (receptionist/nurse etc.)
  • Ex 2: Stating that every Asian is as athletic as Jeremy Lin
  • 10% of women in real life are police officers, in the media, only 3% of female characters are police officers, would be not experiential

Question 13

Glassock 2011 (Some Stats)

Answer 13

• Shows gender distribution of Primetime TV characters
  
  • Gender gap- underrepressentation of women
  • But general trend in narrowing gender gap
  • Males more likely to be placed in powerful occupations (substantive comparability)
  • Females more likely to be in occupations that provide assisting services.

Question 14

Dixon & Linz 2000: Race & Ethnicity

Answer 14

• Looked at 200 TV newscasts in LA Market 1996
  
  • Victimization Comparisons (Compairing actual victimization rate w/ TV citimitzation rate)
    
    • Blacks & Latinos: victimization underrepresented
    • Whites: victimization overrepresented
  • Perpetrator Comparisons (Comparing arrest rate vs. TV perpetrator rate)
    
    • Blacks: overrepresented
    • Whites & latinos: underrepresented
    • LA riots: only black vs. white people
    • ***But 96-97 Latinos were just underrepresented in general.
      *

Question 15

Travis Dixon 2006 Results

Answer 15

• Effect: induces fear of blacks?
• Comparing when majority of suspects are blacks/ no race ID/ whites
  
  • Basically no race ID.. or blacks were in support of the police
  • But blacks scored slightly higher on mis-memory than no ID
    
    • (Mis-memory measures memory impairment due to traumatic experiences).

Question 16

Stereotyping as a process

Answer 16

• Cognitively social association
  
  • Based on a view attributes
  • Tendency to be “essentialized” or “reified”
  • Intoned with negative and positive evaluations
  • Formed with cues of social differentiation
• Basis of when stereotype activated
  
  • Info processing
  • Judgments & evaluations
  • Interactions
• Interacting with social goals
  
  • Motivated reasoning
  • Misperceptions and misattributions

Question 17

Types of Categories (stereotyping)

Answer 17

• Exemplar-based
• Prototype-based
• Counter-stereotyping

Question 18

Exemplar-based stereotyping

Answer 18

• Concrete case or member of a category, similarity of cases
  
  • Ex: TV depictions: Gwyneth Patlrow, Jennifer Anniston, Angelina Jolie
    
    • All white glamorous Hollywood actresses
  • Subtyping

Question 19

Prototype-based stereotyping

Answer 19

• Prototype based on abstract information of typical attributes
  
  • TV depictions: A “typical” perpetrator

Question 20

Counter-stereotyping

Answer 20

• Social experiences of inter-group interactions
• Priming via exemplars or prototype

Question 21

Mastsro & Tukachinsky 2011

Answer 21

• Central question: Can positive exemplars (ex. Jimmy Smitts) and positive stereotype (ie. prototype or narrative) lead to positive evaluations of Latinos?
• Three studies
  
  • Common DV measures: work ethic, intelligence, criminality, sexuality
• Manipulation
  
  • Photo of Jimmy Smitts
  • A news article of a fake sitcom
  • Combo of the two
• H1: A positive exemplar activates the effect of one’s positive racial attitude.
• H2: A positive prototype bring sout teh effect of the relevant value.
• H3: Exemplar + protoype –> even greater effects

Question 22

Intergroup Contact Theory

Answer 22

• Intergroup contact
  
  • Interactions across social boundaries, exposure to diversity & heterogeneity –> positive outcomes (low prejudice & discrimination) if:
    
    • Equal status
    • Common goals
    • Intergroup cooperation
    • Support of authorties, law, or custom

Question 23

Meta-Analysis

Answer 23

• Robust across methods, measures
• Stronger effect with structured programs
• Robust beyond racial or ethnic groups

Question 24

Summary of Social Categorization

Answer 24

• Prevalence of social media
  
  • Additonal means and venues for image production and circulation
  • Diverse and creative participation of users
• Opportunities and risks
  
  • Pro-social and anti-discriminatory vs. divsive and hurtful voices and images
  • Building common vs. building walls
• The power of
  
  • Representations (traditional media)
  • Enactment (social media)