PoliSci Final

Question 1

How do Bobo’s and Hall’s theories of audience reception challenge or revise Marxist theories of media?


Answer 1

They challenge Marxist theories because that theory emphasizes power of the media but deemphasizes power of the audience. Bobo and Hall both suggest that it is up to the audience how they interpret the information being presented, and different audiences will perceive the message differently regardless of how the presenter was trying to make it come across.

Question 2

• What are three central tenets of neoliberalism?

Answer 2

-Privatization, personal responsibility and consumerism

Question 3

o What are three themes, keywords, or rhetorical strategies, of neoliberal discourse?

Answer 3

-Intrusive govt., freedom, free/liberated people, personal responsibility and consumer choice

Question 4

• What are the economic, social, and political effects of neoliberalism? (Discuss 2 of
each.)

Answer 4

• Economic: elimination of jobs, weakening of workers union, lower wages, bigger gap between rich and poor.
• Social: Defunding & privatization of social and physical infrastructure- public services we used to count on (welfare)
• Political: Diminishes public sphere, diminishes public good/ community value, and diminishes conception and practices of democracy through market model of politics, restriction of voter’s real choices.

Question 5

o Despite the fact that Klein rarely refers to ‘neoliberalism,’ what neoliberal principles and goals does the ‘shock doctrine’ articulate?

Answer 5

• Privatization, personal responsibility- don’t rely on government, take away sense of community, and personal wellbeing, corporatism

Question 6


o How does the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans illustrate many of the central tenets of neoliberalism?


Answer 6

• -eliminates sense of community and public good, personal responsibility, privatization

Question 7

What are the central tenets of the post-feminist rationality

Answer 7

• 1. Feminist efforts have succeed in everyway (education, employement, reproductive rights)
• 2. Feminsit values are now widely shared; achieved status of common sense, mainstream (Serena Williams)
• 3. Thus feminist agendas, analyses, and polices are no longer needed.

Question 8

What critiques of post-feminism do McRobbie, Tasker and Negra advance

Answer 8

• Inaccurately frames feminism as fully successful
• Celebrates women empowerment and earners and consumers, but ignores their economic reality.
• Person freedom, personal choice and thus personal responsibility.

Question 9

What are some of the discursive themes (key messages and buzzwords) of post-
feminist rationality that the authors identify?


Answer 9

• Choice, freedom to choose, personal responsibility, sexual liberation, hetronormative

Question 10

What are the broad economic changes leading to these social changes?

Answer 10

• post-industrial ecomony
• women are better equipped for high pay jobs in todays economy
• opportunities for women are changing in how we date, and marital roles

Question 11

Structural racial inequality

Answer 11

This is the cumulative effect of institutional polices that co-operate to constrain minorities opportunities. The result of structural racism is racial disparities in “life chances”. Structural racism is the result of institutional racism that persist in many domains, including education, employment, and wealth.

Question 12

What is the difference between racial prejudice and structural racism

Answer 12

Racial prejudice is explicit and intentional racism, whereas structural racism is where institutions race-neutral policies and practices can have unintentional effect of disadvantaging certain racial and ethical groups

Question 13

o How does residential segregation lead to racial disadvantage in the areas of education, employment, wealth, health, and law enforcement?

Answer 13

-Education: Children attend local public school, so kids in segregated neighborhoods attend segregated schools. Public schools are funded by city revenue from property taxes, so if local taxes are low, the schools will be underfunded and won’t have proper recourses to recruit top teachers or have enrichment programs. Graduates of underfunded schools are not equipped to excel in college.
-Employment: Blacks urban isolation limits access to quality education and social networking that leads to job opportunities. There are very few living wage jobs in postindustrial economy that don’t require higher education. Unemployment rates among black Americans is consistently 2X the rate among white Americans.
Wealth: White people have money from generations whereas black don’t.
Health: Most minority neighborhoods are more likely to have lower quality housing, with more healthy hazards, few recreation centers, infant mortality for black is 2X white, Breast cancer, heart disease, obesity
Law enforcement: Blacks are 10x more likely to be incarcerated for drugs, b/c of neighborhoods,

Question 14

What are some indicators of current racial disparity in each institutional realm (employment, wealth, law enforcement, etc)? What are some indicators of the racial leadership gap?

Answer 14

Corporate leadership: 6 out the 500 fortune ceo’s are black

2 black senators, 44 black members of congress, 1 black president.

Question 15

Post-racism as a dominant political rationality

Answer 15

• Frames civil rights reforms as having fully succeeded in outlawing race-based discrimination and in establishing racial equality of opportunity.
• Celebrates success of civil rights reforms in order to argue that further legal and conversational references to racial difference and racial inequality are both unnecessary and counter productive. These thereby maintain racism in the system.

Question 16

What are the central tenets of the dominant political rationality of post-racism?

Answer 16

• First central tenet is that the reforms won by the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s outlawed race-based discrimination and instituted equal opportunities. Because of this minorities are no longer victims of segregation and discrimination- systematic racial biases are no longer codified/ protected by laws.
• The second central tenant is the belief that because of the successes of the reforms, US is a colorblind society. Because of this a vast majority of Americans now reject racist principles and stereotypes. Anti racist values have been mainstreamed such that overtly racist comments/ portrayals will be widely criticized.
• The third tenet is that race- conscious laws and references are unnecessary and counterproductive.

Question 17

What are three ‘frames’ that the ideology of colorblindness provides for people to draw upon to justify ongoing racial disparities

Answer 17

-Frame one discusses race-related issues in language of liberalism-exalts equal opportunities, advocates meritocracy, this allows white to appear moral while oppressing remedies of racial inequality. It ignores structural disadvantages faced by minorities
-Frame 2: minimization of racism, attributes minorities social standing to anything besides racism, claims that discrimination basically disappeared and emphasizes the prevalence of reverse discrimination/ reverse racism. Implies racism and resentment instills among those targeted is symmetrical.
Frame 3: Cultural Racism –Justifies race-related disparities by referring to cultural traits inhibits and values allegedly shared by blacks and or latinos ex. Blacks lack motivation, Mexicans don’t put emphasis on education.

Question 18

What are three other discursive themes or strategies of post-racism?

Answer 18

1) Celebrates individual empowerment and invokes person responsibility. It emphasizes individual accountability for personal success/failure, now that no formal barriers block minorities.
2) Asserts whites and nonwhites are symmetrical, implies that racism works both ways the same. Race based discrimination and race preferential affirmative action are equivalent not distinct in their aims.
3) Celebrates and portrays diversity and multiculturalism

Question 19

What are three ironies that emerge in the purportedly ‘post-racial’ era?

Answer 19

1) Minorities are victims of affirmation action. People of color can be cast as victims harmed by programs that seek to redress racial disparities
2) Whites can portray themselves as victims of reverse racism and discrimination – College admission, hiring, promotions
3) The charge of racism can be redirected by those in power against those historically victimized by it. – Sonia Sotomayor.

Question 20

What, according to Bonilla-Silva, is the down side of Obama’s election and the fact that it symbolizes ‘monumental change’ in US race relations?

Answer 20

-Obama’s victory legitimates whites assertion that the US is now a land of equal opportunity and that society has moved beyond the need to take race and racial disparities into account.

Question 21

o White normativity

Answer 21

Often unconscious and invisible ideas and practices that make whiteness appear natural and ideal. Whiteness is a blank slate. These ideals are taken for granted and un-interrogated in post-racial discourses. White norm achievements ideals, standards of behavior are extended to people of all races. Americans of color are welcome to assimilate to white normatively. This implies that others norm and ways of being should be left behind to assimilate whiteness.

Question 22

o White privilege

Answer 22

Set of benefits and comfort conferred to white people simply on basis of skin color. It is an invisible package of unearned assets that whites can count of cashing in every day and are meant to go un-interrogated. All whites receive these benefits regardless of whether they are disempowered on other bases, they plated no part in producing past systems of racial advantages and even if they consider themselves non-racist.

Question 23

Exceptional multiracial:

Answer 23

A person’s ability to constantly shift racialized codes fetishes by post- racial discourse fetished by post-racial discourses because he/she embodies true national racial progress and supports fantasies about America as finally post- race, and racial transcendence is valued as a marketable ability

Question 24

How are positive images of the exceptional multiracial (for instance, president Obama), which promote the idea of America as a post-racial society, actually implicitly racist and thus decidedly not post-racial?

Answer 24

-The positive images of him being bright smart clean guy imply that typical black men are the opposite and it works to demonize black masculinity

Question 25

In what sense can ANTM be read as a progressive media text

Answer 25

It emphasizes that race is constructed, fluid and malleable. Presents race as a beauty trait.

Question 26

In what ways can ANTM be read as a media text that serves the ideology of post-racism?

Answer 26

1. Implies that all racial categories are open to and exchangeable by all people, and asserts symmetric field.
2. Covers over the fact that although it’s a social construct, race has had significant material effects. Fiction of race has been basis of discrimination and inequality. Celebration of race being malleable.
3. Despite its premise that race is inconsequential the show relies on authentic signifiers, which are truly racialized stereotypes in order for the racial masquerade to work, because switching of race involves embodying stereotypes.
4. It values and depicts racial transcendence as the processing of losing or the ability to lost blackness. It reinforces blackness is bad and needs to be hidden.

Question 27

What are some similar ideals, values, and effects common to neoliberalism, post-feminism, and post-racism?

Answer 27

-Both PF and PR imply that gender and racial identities are facilitated by commodity consumption and performances, which support consumerism, , commodity based identity and profit accumulation by corporation which is also a neoliberal principle. Both PF and PR historicize feminism and race as concepts that belong to our parent’s generation. Both also emphasize personal responsibility as result of individual empowerment and legal equality, which supports neoliberal programs of dismantling welfare.

Question 28

McIntosh

Answer 28

White Privilege Unpacking the invisible Knapsack, list of benefits

Question 29

Joseph

Answer 29

TITLES: Transcending Blackness, and Recursive Racial Transformation. America’s next Top model, Multiracial, race is all about the looks, embodying sterotypes, transending blackness

Question 30

Bonilla Silva

Answer 30

The Sweet Enchantment of Color Blind Racism in Obamerica.

-Colorblind, transend blackness to become national hero

Question 31

Lopez

Answer 31

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