Ethnic Media 101: Part IV in an ongoing series

Central Michigan University professor Alice A. Tait teaches JRN 380, Racial Diversity: Mass Media’s Role, which covers the media’s portrayal of racial groups and gender from historical and contemporary perspectives in addition to exploring the racial groups' self-portrayals in their own media. Tait created this course in 1984 at the University of Detroit and ten years later it was accepted in the communications department at Central Michigan University as a permanent course. It's wildly popular and as a result, is offered every spring and fall semester.

KD: What indications inspired the need for the course?
AT: Well, there was a need to look at how African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans were portrayed in mass media. There was a lot of information and a lot of discussion of the media’s coverage especially at that time of African Americans before the course began at Central. Then the interest broadened in terms of all of these groups; there was simply a lot of discussion about how the media was portraying these groups and the representation of these groups in the industry. It was a discussion that had started way back in the 60s even before the Kerner Commission report.

KD: Initiating a course about race and media seems like it was a pretty progressive idea in 1984. Did you feel any resistance from the department when you initially created the course?
AT: I did not receive any resistance. In fact, in '84-85 when I developed the course, it was my chair who suggest it be taught. When I came to CMU there was no resistance. I taught it first as a special topics course. About that time, ACEJMC was requiring departments, before they could become accredited, to provide evidence that they were integrating information about the coverage of these groups in the curriculum.

That was one driving force and also the need to have courses that look at the effects of racism and discrimination in general at the university, for accreditation purposes. The incentive that came from the University wanting to be accredited also helped. And the incentive from the university to have a group of courses that would satisfy studies of racism and cultural diversity in the U.S. also helped. With those two forces and the general push in society at that time, the political climate, it was a natural. It’s been a very profitable course for the department. Each semester since 1994 we've taught at least 6 sections every semester with 70 students or more enrolled in the course.

KD: Do you know of any impact it has had thus far, in terms of encouraging students to pursue careers in ethnic media?
Not particularly. We do have a summer program for high school students who gain exposure to ethnic media through the program.

KD: Do you see, for the future, the possibility of developing a course that is completely devoted to studying ethnic media at CMU?
I can see that happening. For example, we at Central are trying to get an African American studies minor, and I can see having a course called Ethnic Media in America that's offered as a journalism, ethnic studies and African American studies credit.

Alice Tait is an award-winning professor of journalism at Central Michigan University