CONNECTING THE DOTS: TOUCHING THE INTERSTICES OF MEDIA
CULTURE, SOCIETY AND SELF
by
FELICIA LYNNE HARRIS
(Under the Direction of Elli Lester Roushanzamir)
ABSTRACT
Scholarship, poetry and conversations are interwoven with personal narrative to
explore the intersection of media culture, society and self. The author offers personal
experience as social commentary. Topics analyzed and reflected upon include how media
culture confines Others to specific roles in society. However, critical media literacy skills
can empower individuals to challenge and examine the origins of controlling images.
INDEX WORDS: Mass media, Media literacy, Media culture, Personal narrative,
Postmodernism, Representation, Poetry, Controlling images
CONNECTING THE DOTS: TOUCHING THE INTERSTICES OF MEDIA
CULTURE, SOCIETY AND SELF
by
FELICIA LYNNE HARRIS
B.A., Columbus State University, 2010
A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Georgia in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
ATHENS, GEORGIA
2012
© 2012
Felicia Lynne Harris
All Rights Reserved
CONNECTING THE DOTS: TOUCHING THE INTERSTICES OF MEDIA
CULTURE, SOCIETY AND SELF
by
FELICIA LYNNE HARRIS
Electronic Version Approved:
Maureen Grasso
Dean of the Graduate School
The University of Georgia
May 2012
Major Professor:
Elli Roushanzamir
Committee:
Peggy Kreshel
Pat Thomas
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Elli Roushanzamir, and my committee
members, Professor Patricia Thomas and Dr. Peggy Kreshel, for their endless wisdom,
inspiration, and occasional refuge from my whispering insecurities. I would also like to
thank my family and my best friends, Stephanie Feely and Patrice Valentine, for their
unwavering support and encouragement.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. iv
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1
BACK STORY .................................................................................................................. 4
Media Culture ........................................................................................................ 4
Readerly vs. Writerly Texts .................................................................................... 5
Postmodernism and Personal Narrative ................................................................ 7
CHAPTER
1. CRYING MY EYES OUT ON A FRIDAY NIGHT ........................................... 10
2. CLUELESS .......................................................................................................... 15
3. MEDIA ILLITERATE ......................................................................................... 21
4. EMERGENCE OF SELF AS AN “OTHER” ...................................................... 30
5. SITTING BESIDE MYSELF ............................................................................. 40
6. CUTTING THE STRINGS ................................................................................. 51
7. LOVING MYSELF ON A MONDAY MORNING ............................................ 61
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 65
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 68
1
INTRODUCTION
In the Fall of 2010, I entered a graduate program in Journalism and Mass
Communication wide-eyed and eager to learn. Within a few weeks, the brightness in my
eyes gave way to shock, disbelief, and often tears. As a millennial and an avid media
consumer, my struggle was two-fold. I was grappling with feelings of discomfort in my
graduate program while striving to become media literate – to understand how powerful
the media are in constructing, and not just representing, reality – at once. To my surprise,
conquering the two challenges meant understanding that they were intricately
intertwined. As a black female engaged in learning how the media constructs me as the
lesser half of two widely accepted binaries, it occurred to me that media culture had
undoubtedly contributed to my feelings of discomfort inside and outside the classroom.
As I came to accept myself as an Other, I experienced emotional responses to academic
texts and personal experiences that many of my white and/or male counterparts would
not, and I believe could not share.
In academia, I haven’t been able to connect with many Others like me, and I
don’t mean that solely on the basis of gender and race. In addition to those widely
accepted binaries, I also come from a background of a broken family, lower
socioeconomic status, and working class individuals. If you combine these characteristics
and search in the media for an outcome similar to mine, I don’t think you will find it.
Trust me, I tried. Instead, you will find similar commonly portrayed roles, call them
2
stereotypes or controlling images, displayed on different backgrounds and in different
environments.
Through mis- and/or underrepresentation of particular cultural groups the mass
media have the ability send symbolic messages to viewers/readers about the societal
value of individuals that comprise that group (Tuchman 154). This symbolic annihilation
absents others like me from higher education and other higher status environments.
Media culture helps individuals develop their sense of identity and becomes the
foundation for perceptions of the world (Kellner 1). When members of an othered group
attempt to step outside the roles of controlling images, they are met with opposition both
internally and externally. Not only does society believe that particular individuals don’t
exist outside stereotypical confines, but Others may also fall victim to the frame of
thinking that they shouldn’t exist outside of those confines.
In my first semester, feelings of what I call “media culture shock” often urged me
to abandon my graduate program. Without the guidance of faculty members and peers
who confirmed my belief that critical media literacy skills were worth acquiring, I might
have never empowered myself as an Other and found alternative sources of strength or
been able to navigate what I perceived unchartered territory – at least by anyone like me.
When it came time to choose what type of media research to pursue, I knew
immediately that I wanted to focus on the process of othering. Media literacy turned out
to be my best means for combating marginalization, objectification and othering layered
on by the media. I wanted to share the lessons I learned by gaining critical media literacy
skills in a manner that illustrated how the systemic strands of society cannot be simply
taken apart and observed, but must be collectively examined for a complete
3
understanding of their complexity. To do this, I sought out alternative approaches to
traditional academic research and writing.
In Ethnicity and the Post-Modern Arts of Memory, Michael Fischer explains that
ethnographies which juxtapose several voices affect the reader on both the conscious and
unconscious levels, providing an opportunity for mutual criticism and mutual revelation
from both traditions (8). This text juxtaposes the voices of the academy, personal
narrative, remembered conversations and poetry. Using these various voices/languages at
once in this form of writing increases the possibility of the text speaking to multiple
readerships. Instead of being dependent on one specific form of rhetoric (academic,
personal, conversational, etc.) the combination provides several portals of access to an
authentic message (Fischer 8), narrated from my own, very personal vantage point, the
interstice between media culture, society and personal experience.
“One can talk about what we are seeing, thinking, or listening to; a space is there for
critical exchange. It’s exciting to think, write, talk about, and create art that reflects
passionate engagement with popular culture.”
- bell hooks
4
BACK STORY
Media Culture
Douglas Kellner explains the emergence of a media culture when he states “radio,
television, film, and the other products provide the models of what it means to be male or
female, successful or a failure, powerful or powerless” (1). The media have long been
viewed by critical/cultural researchers as a source of systematic power that is able to
shape perceptions, cognitions and preferences by signifying and representing reality for
the powerless in a manner so persuasive that they begin to accept the order of things
(Hall, “The Rediscovery of Ideology” 75). For those who are deemed the powerless,
media culture happens to them in ways that are beyond their individual control, yet
affects every aspect of their lives.
In today’s society, media and culture cannot be separated. Whether one is
watching television, listening to music or reading a magazine, existing in today’s world
means constantly being exposed to media messages. Media culture dominates our
everyday lives and is the “ubiquitous background” through which we navigate society
(Kellner 3).
Stuart Hall says the media generates “representations of the social world, images,
descriptions, explanations and frames for understanding how the world is and why it
works as it is said and shown to work.” More specifically, Hall says “the media construct
for us a definition of what race is, what meaning the imagery of race carries, and what the
‘problem of race’ is understood to be… The media are not only a powerful source of
5
ideas about race. They are also one place where these ideas are articulated, worked on,
transformed and elaborated” (91). The same could be said about gender constructs.
This is problematic because those in power, often white males, construct most of
the mainstream media with building blocks that keep the status quo standing. James Lull
builds on Gramsci’s theory of ideological hegemony when he asserts that, “mass media
are tools that ruling elites use to ‘perpetuate their power, wealth, and status (by
popularizing) their own philosophy, culture and morality.” He continues: “the dominant
class sets the limits – mental and structural – within which subordinate classes ‘live and
make sense of their subordination in such a way to sustain the dominance of those ruling
over them” (62). For those coming of age in today’s ubiquitous media culture, it is
almost impossible to recognize the process of othering. Without being able to recognize
this process, it is difficult to challenge it. This is the source of a sense of powerlessness.
By existing in the controlling confines of positions as the Other, one can unknowingly
perpetuate their own inferior standing in society.
Readerly vs. Writerly Texts
At the moment of reading, emotional responses to a text are unavoidable. In The
Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes described responses ranging from boredom to
opposition, community, or as was my case upon my arrival to graduate school, a split
between the self and what is read. This is an experience where “the text unsettles the
reader’s historical, cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his tastes,
values, memories…” (14). For me, it was hard to accept that media scholars were experts
on my life’s very personal experiences. Could they really know how dominant ideologies
6
seamlessly weave their way into the lives of Others and materialize in our everyday
lives?
Barthes also noted that much of what we feel when reading a text depends on
whether the writer has constructed a “readerly” text or a “writerly” text. A readerly text is
one where “instead of functioning himself, instead of gaining access to the magic of the
signifier to the pleasure of writing, [the reader] is left with no more than the poor freedom
either to accept or reject the text: reading is nothing more than a referendum.” Traditional
texts, including the majority of media research literature, are readerly texts (S/Z 4).
Whereas a readerly text seems to happen to a reader, the value of a writerly text is
found when the reader transcends the role of being merely a consumer and becomes also
a producer of a text. In this experience, the text happens with the reader. The readerly text
is a product, but a writerly text can be seen as a production. The writerly text is described
as “a perpetual present, upon which no consequent language… can be superimposed; the
writerly text is ourselves writing, before the infinite lay of the world… In this ideal text,
the networks are many and interact, without any of them being able to surpass the rest.”
He adds, “it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances,
none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one” (Barthes, S/Z 4-5).
Ultimately, reading is a labor of language (Barthes, S/Z 11). Because language is a
social enterprise, not just a literary convention, it is important to construct texts that give
readers access to the fullest meaning possible. Laurel Richardson adds to this notion
when she writes: “Language does not ‘reflect’ social reality, but produces meaning,
creates social reality. Different languages and different discourses within a given
language divide up the world and give it meaning in ways that are not reducible to one
7
another.” She adds to this “what something means to individuals is dependent on the
discourses available to them,” (518). Writers who fail to acknowledge the importance of
discourse and language leave room for reader interpretations and responses to texts that
were not intended during the magical process of writing.
Postmodernism and Personal Narrative
According to Fischer, writers have had to find ways to incorporate, acknowledge,
and exploit increasingly empirical understandings of the context, perspective, instability,
conflict, contradiction, competition, and multilayered communications that characterize
reality (26). To achieve this in my own work, I decided to take a postmodernist approach
to my writing and include personal narrative as a component that was integral to my
understanding of media culture.
Seeking to explain why things are as they are, I always felt one could point the
finger at stereotypes, sexism, the glass ceiling. The world as it was derived from
ignorance, living in the Bible Belt, or maybe it was my own fault. Never had I imagined
that what I lived had sprung from a media culture re-presenting reality and setting the
standards for how individuals navigate society. Therefore, graduate school for me
brought moments that tore down my old frames of thinking, assembled new ones and
revealed that most of what I thought I understood as truths were media constructs.
Altered perceptions caused me to reexamine critical personal moments, memories and
experiences through the lens of a larger, more informed method of thinking.
In her essay Postmodern Blackness, bell hooks asserts that the scarcity of black
women authors in postmodernism and scholarship explains the lack of references to black
8
experience. According to hooks, if postmodern discourse has “opened up a theoretical
terrain where ‘difference’ and ‘Otherness’ can be considered legitimate issues in the
academy,” then art written, spoken or produced by black women should be better studied
and recognized (455). There is no doubt that difference and otherness have been, and
continue to be, of interest to academic media research. According to hooks, “the overall
impact of postmodernism is that many other groups now share with black folks a sense of
deep alienation, despair, uncertainty, [and] loss of a sense of grounding even if it is not
informed by shared circumstances” (457). As I prepared to enter this area of research, I
sought to create a text that would add to the literature in ways that shared my own
experiences as a black woman in the academy.
According to Stuart Hall, postmodernism represents an important shifting of “the
terrain of culture to popular – toward popular practices, toward everyday practices,
toward local narratives, toward the decentring of old hierarchies and the grand
narratives.” He continues by adding that popular culture “has connections with local
hopes and local aspirations, local tragedies and local scenarios that are the everyday
practices and everyday experiences of ordinary folks” (“What is ‘black’” 472). In this
text, I speak as an other, narrating my everyday experiences from a vantage point that is
credible because it is lived and genuine. This is a sharp as a contrast to works by authors
who observe and report the experiences of others by doing research.
By exploring personal, lived experiences and applicable academic discourse, my
hope is to portray othering in ways that are neither objective nor objectifying. Richardson
tells us that a postmodernist stance allows an author to know something without claiming
to know everything. An author can still use partial, local or historical knowledge as a
9
method of knowing and tell about the world as she perceives it (518). This form of
honesty is what I give to readers in the form of my own memories and conversations with
family members and friends. My honest perceptions and reactions are interwoven with
threads of critical theory to create my understanding of how media culture shapes in
social formation. The absence of extensive discussion or background relating to critical
theory applicable to my experience mirrors my perception of my introduction to media
research. According to Richardson, writing from the self should strengthen the
community of qualitative researchers because it allows us to be more present in our work,
as well as more honest and engaged (516).
My hope for this text is that it will add to the body of research being done by
Others who present themselves through non-traditional methods. I want to provide an
experience that does not split readers across gender, race, values or beliefs but offers a
starting point for discussion across those boundaries about these processes and how we
all can begin invalidating their perpetuation.
10
CHAPTER 1
CRYING MY EYES OUT ON A FRIDAY NIGHT
Friday, August 13, 2010 - Blog Entry #1
Maybe if I write all my fears down on paper it will help me to sort them out in my
head. Never have I ever been so afraid of so many intangible things… and ideas. What
demons have I had in my head that now present themselves daily? And how long have
they existed? What fears are my own and what fears are results of others’ fears
transposed on me? It feels as though I have the weight of centuries past, present and
future on my shoulders and I don’t know why, yet these fears stain my being. As I walk
the streets of Athens, Ga., I carry memories of things that are all in black and white. And
it’s all black and white. In my mind, I’m screaming at others: “How can you not see this
division?” But since so many don’t, or fail to acknowledge that they do, I whisper to
myself in a voice much quieter… “Where is the division?”
The division is in my mother’s childhood, where her heroes lost their lives
fighting for my right to walk down this path. As the first college graduate in my family, I
bear this weight. I have embraced my forefather’s struggles and taken on the personal
challenge to refuse to let those struggles go in vain. With this challenge, I have also taken
on many pains. If I fail, do they fail? If I fail, does my mother fail? If I fail, will my son
fail?
The division is in our neighborhoods, in our statistics, in our reputations and
within our culture, where years later Willie Lynch’s slave-like mentality still penetrates
11
the minds of many – including me, because I sometimes look at others with the same skin
color as myself and resent them almost as much as I resent the person who spits
derogatory terms out at me like venom on his tongue. Why must they make my journey so
hard? All I ever wanted to be was something. Yet I have to work twice as hard to be
somebody because historically, the chances of me becoming anything of value to society
are slim.
I’ve been told repetitively that I can do whatever it is that I want to do; be
whoever it is that I want to be. But who do I know that has fulfilled this proclamation?
Who do I know that has laid this path out for me? Is there anyone tangible? There’s
Oprah. And then there is Maya and authors and speech givers, but whom have I met? I
know no one. All around me I see – not failures – but people who were not strong
enough, unsupported people who tried and couldn’t see the journey through, people
whose circumstances and situations stumped their ambitions – they are the people I
know.
And now I’ve thrown myself into a world where the finite population of thinkers
like me congregate together and abandon what we know in hopes of embracing that
which we do not. We are here to learn; yet this process is the same one that pains me. In
a room, we mix and mingle and bask in each other’s presence. This is nice for the
moment, and then, I remember what I know. This room is not reality. We are all looking
away from truth. But everyone is content looking in this direction; I chastise myself for
glancing back over my shoulder to observe where I come from. I remember the division.
My father is a black man, the typical kind. He is an alcoholic. He put my mother
through hell. He abused my sister. He lived his life separate from ours. My mother is a
12
black woman, the typical kind. She was a single mother. She never finished college
because she had four kids to raise after her husband abused her daughter and they
divorced. She did this all with the poise and grace of a swan and never let us see her
sweat. My family is a black family, the typical kind. My sister is addicted to cocaine. She
and my brother are felons. At one point we were homeless. We are all broken.
And then there is me. I am a black woman. And I see all of this, when I look back
over my shoulder. How can I look past this, as I look to my future, the not-so-typical
kind?
***
I had been waiting anxiously for months to begin my graduate career at the
University of Georgia, a premiere, predominantly white institution (PWI) known across
the state for its research and academic rigor. Over the course of my first week, I attended
two orientations and several socials, meeting and greeting with other students and faculty
and staff members. I spoke eloquently with scholars about my future goals and research
interests, and even looked over the first pages in my McQuail reader in mass
communication theory without feeling completely overwhelmed by the literature. So why
then, did I find myself in front of my laptop - writing, questioning my decision of coming
to graduate school and crying my eyes out on a Friday night?
A different world was opening up before my eyes, a beautiful world in which I
had every right to live, but I had never felt more undeserving. Though I had yet to sit
through an entire class, the foundation of what would become a painful learning process
was already taking shape. Now, looking back on this first entry, I cringe at the
problematic words that crafted such a passionate plea of desperation. Because of
13
messages, stereotypes, and ideologies perpetuated in the media and society, I felt as
though the personal experiences of alcohol and drug abuse, poverty, and brokenness that
I had experienced in my family were somehow typical. Even though I attended socials for
students of color, where everyone in the room was busy networking and pursuing similar
dreams, I still felt as though I was different. In a world where people were actively
pursuing self-advancement, I was certain that black girls like me simply didn’t belong. I
would often ask myself: Is this real life?
“For reality could no longer be viewed as simply a given sets of facts: it was the result of
a particular way of constructing reality. The media defined, not merely reproduced,
‘reality’. Definitions of reality were sustained and produced through all those linguistic
practices (in the broad sense) by means of which selective definitions of ‘the real’ were
represented. But representation is a very different notion from that of reflection (Hall,
“The Rediscovery of Ideology” 64).”
It was the second week of my graduate program when I ran my highlighter across
these words from renowned critical/cultural theorist Stuart Hall. In our classroom
discussion about the text, my professor noted the difference between representation and
re-presentation in the media, in which the latter emphasizes the media’s ability to
construct messages and present them to audiences as a representation of real life. Hall
explains representation as “the active work of selecting and presenting, of structuring and
shaping: not merely the transmitting of an already-existing meaning, but the more active
14
labour of making things mean… The media were signifying agents” (Hall, “The
Rediscovery of Ideology” 64).
I was on an underlining frenzy as my mind began to race with questions. Could
the feelings of shock, discomfort and disbelief that I was feeling about graduate school be
the result of the media? Had my sense of reality about what life for black girls like me
should be been constructed and given to me? And even more, how had I bought into and
brought into being these notions of ‘the real’?
15
CHAPTER 2
CLUELESS
August 27, 2010 – Blog Entry #4
Before class earlier this week, I spoke with an international student who calls
herself Joy because she feels her name is too hard to pronounce or be remembered by
Americans. Joy and I briefly talked about culture shock and some differences between her
culture and ours. In a different class, another international student shared that her
introduction to American media had also induced a case of culture shock. She wonders if
we, as Americans, had taken our “freedom of speech” too far; also, she fears that she
will not be able to implement what we are learning in her home country, China.
Speaking with international students often forces me to reflect on my current
situation. No, I do not come from another country, but I definitely came here from a
different world. (Hums song: “from where you come from.”1) These students are so
eager to get here, so grateful to have arrived, that they are more than willing to lay aside
their cultural identities (including their names) and prior knowledge to obtain the quality
of education being offered here at the University of Georgia. I question myself, should I
be just as eager?
***
1
The theme song for A Different World, a spinoff of The Cosbys where the kids attend college. The second verse of
the theme song’s lyrics were: Here's a chance to make it /If we focus on our goals./If you dish it we can take it/Just
remember you've been told/It's a different world from where you come from./It's a different world from where you
come from (http://www.crazyabouttv.com/differentworld.html).
16
One month before I wrote that blog entry, I was eager. In fact, I had been eager
for months. My acceptance letter to the Grady College of Journalism and Mass
Communication at the University of Georgia had sat atop the beer cooler at Texas
Roadhouse for about two weeks straight. I was a bartender there – the only black one –
and I made sure to show off my access granted pass to all of my regulars. The fact that
UGA was a PWI didn’t cross my mind more than once. I was used to looking around and
seeing few or even no one else who looked like me. I was used to seeing it on television
or in the movies too.
In my mind, I was Lisa (Lark Voorhies) in Saved by the Bell; Dionne (Stacey
Dash) in Clueless. When I was in elementary and middle school, I would come home and
watch Lisa breeze through the halls of Bayside High with her trendy outfits and big, curly
hair. I can’t count how many times I’ve watched Dionne in Clueless, prancing around
with her designer bags and shoes, and making everyone fall in love with her catchy oneliners. Both Lisa and Dionne were the easy-going, generally likeable characters in their
casts. And like them, I was just as fashionable, witty, attractive and attention getting as
any of my counterparts in any situation. Behind the bar, I could pull off cowboy hats and
big belt buckles with pigtails dangling past my shoulders and all the customers loved me.
I was very seldom aware of the color of my skin.
Fast forward, and not even one month into my graduate career, I had never been
so aware of the color of my skin in my life. If the media were truly responsible for
making things mean, I ached for meaning behind my struggle with adjusting. I started
wondering how would Lisa or Dionne handle college? Then it dawned on me, besides
dating college boys, my two favorite characters had never made it to college. Somehow,
17
Lisa didn’t appear with the rest of the cast during Saved by the Bell’s college years and,
sadly, Dionne’s story line in Clueless had ended when the credits rolled. Because I didn’t
personally know any black women who had gone on to obtain advanced degrees, I begin
to scan the list of imaginary role models that I had while growing up. Still haunted by
those awful assertions made by Stuart Hall, I decided to talk over the possibility of media
influence with my best friend, Stephanie:
Me: Do you remember all the shows that we grew up watching? What were some of your
favorites?
Stephanie: Well, we were raised on The Cosby Show, A Different World, Living Single,
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Moesha…
Me: And what about Saved by the Bell, Clarisa Explains it All, Home Improvement, and
all of those after-school shows?
Stephanie: Ehh… We watched those too.
“Rather, reality is brought into existence, is produced, by communication; that is, by the
construction, apprehension and utilization of symbolic forms… While some environments
are easier to feature than others – hence trackless deserts – space is understood and
manageable when it is represented in symbolic form. The map stands as a representation
of an environment capable of clarifying a problematic situation. It is capable of guiding
behavior and simultaneously transforming undifferentiated space into configured, that is,
known, apprehended, understood space (Carey 12, 17).”
18
Once I took the time to consider the television programs we watched as children,
the patterns jumped out. The casts of these shows were either all or mostly black, or all or
mostly white. Moesha and A Different World had characters in college, but they attended
Historically Black Colleges or Universities (HBCUs), and the plot centered on the social
aspects of school, and not really academics. I couldn’t remember Moesha or Whitley
Cooper sitting in actual desks and interacting with professors like the characters in One
Tree Hill. Perhaps, it was harder to construct a plot including black female college
experiences than it was to envision many other environments.
I scanned my mind for images of black females in college, and although I could
come up with a handful, the number paled in comparison to representations of white
males and females in college. When, or if, television shows or movies (i.e. Higher
Learning), showed black females in college they were often on the campus of an HBCU.
The re-presentation of college environments implied exactly what I had been feeling all
along: black females didn’t belong in college, and if they were at college it should
probably be an HBCU. Could this be why I had felt so out of place?
Me: What about the first time you realized that society was so divisive? Do you
remember that?
Stephanie: What do you mean?
Me: I mean, when did you realize that things were truly divided among race lines… that
there was such a difference between being black and being white?
19
Stephanie: Uhmm… hmm… I guess… Well, that didn’t really hit me until I got to
college.2
Me: ... Me neither.
“The mass media, especially television, is one way that negative images of black
womanhood continue to be impressed upon all our psyches… Negative images of black
women in television are not simply impressed upon the psyches of white males, they affect
all Americans. Black mothers and fathers constantly complain that television lowers the
self-confidence and self-esteem of black girls (hooks, “Ain’t I a Woman” 65-66).”
I began reading bell hooks after I confided in a doctoral student in my department
the challenges that I was having adjusting to graduate school. After weeks of searching
for someone to share my woes, I was happy to discuss things with her because she was
also black and I hoped she would have some advice for how I could navigate the trackless
desert that stretched ahead of me. Instead, she wanted to help me make sense of the
challenges that I was experiencing by reassuring me that larger forces definitely
contributed to my despondency.
I watched a YouTube clip of hooks speaking on Cultural Criticism and
Transformation3 and was floored. The opening captions warned of strong language, but
what hit home for me were strong ideas. In hooks’ discussion, she laid out differences
2
Stephanie enrolled in Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga. in 2006; another predominantly white
institution.
3
bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation. Video. Media Education Foundation. Web.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQUuHFKP-9s>.
20
between students she taught at Yale and those she taught in inner city Harlem. According
to hooks, what differentiated the two was not their intellectual ability, but their sense of
being entitled to a positive future.
In the months that I had spent preparing for graduate school, I thought I felt
entitled to my positive future. However, the reality was that the moment I found myself
in what the media fails to portray as a likely environment, my self-esteem and confidence
plummeted as I struggled to find my place.
The more time I spent in the classroom highlighting and underlining the words of
scholars like Stuart Hall, James Carey and bell hooks, the more excruciating became my
discomfort. The process of becoming media literate is painful. For me, it meant
understanding and accepting that my role as a black female pursuing an advanced degree
didn’t feel real simply because it had not been constructed and/or given to me as a
plausible reality. For twenty-two years, I had unknowingly navigated the world using
cues from the media, symbolic forms, on how to act like a woman, a black woman, a
mother or a daughter. But I had been given no cues about how to deviate from what were
commonly portrayed, negative and stereotypical images that I had accepted to be typical.
And without those cues, I was clueless.
The more I experienced this discomfort, the more I questioned the roles I had
previously inhabited with ease. The way that I viewed myself, and the way that I viewed
the world, began to change rapidly. My life had become subject to the scrutiny of my
new, more informed mode of thinking. I was in media culture shock.
21
CHAPTER 3
MEDIA ILLITERATE
September 1, 2010 – Blog Entry #6
Yesterday I posted as a Facebook status that a part of finding yourself is losing
yourself in who you want to become. I believe I’m losing myself. It’s like little pieces of
the old Felicia are being ripped off of me every day.
I believe it comes from being in this environment and the self-realization that
comes with it. I have to force myself to answer deep questions about why this black and
white thing is such a problem for me. And when I answer those questions, I answer myself
truthfully… I feel like I have to if I ever want to find peace within my current situation.
While trying to get approved for TriCare insurance, I had to speak openly about
my father, something I’ve never had to do. The woman on the other end of the phone
wanted to know why my father couldn’t appear in person or on the phone to sign me up
for my benefits… “Ma’am,” I paused, “my father is an alcoholic.” I don’t think those
words have ever left my mouth. I am almost positive that they haven’t. But it’s true. Last
week, my mom revealed to me that my dad had even resorted to drinking mouthwash –
that’s how serious his disease is. It’s amazing because until I got here and began thinking
about what separates me from everyone else, many of these issues floated underneath the
radar, unnoticed and unrecalled.
***
22
It was true that I was losing pieces of myself daily. Looking back at this post I’m
amazed at how accurate my word choice was when I used self-realization to describe the
process that was occurring in my new environment. I was probably only rambling at the
time, but I was accurate in my description of what would happen in graduate school: the
development and fulfillment of my potential. Even if it was potential that I questioned,
and question, daily.
I was knee-deep in the process of becoming media literate, which included
learning how to critically analyze media messages for exactly what they were: cues. I was
also understanding for the first time what the media doesn’t re-present: reality.
“Critical media literacy involves cultivating skills in analyzing media codes and
conventions, abilities to criticize stereotypes, dominant values, and ideologies, and
competencies to interpret the multiple meanings and messages generated by media texts
(Kellner and Share 372).”
For me, the first part of this process was completely doing away with my use of
the word typical. I had somehow come to believe that having a raging alcoholic and
absentee father was typical – no big deal in the black community. Likewise, I don’t think
I even blinked when I got the phone call that my brother was being held at the county jail
on a possible felony drug charge and needed my help to bond him out. Despite the fact
that about a year earlier he was one of the highest scorers on the ASVAB (The Armed
Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery test) and had entered the United States Navy with a
$40,000 plus signing bonus, his debut at the county jail was to be expected too.
23
We’d all grown up watching the story line being played out on the big screen in
popular black films of the 90s – Boyz in the Hood, Friday, Menace II Society, Juice, and
the one closest to my brother’s story, Dead Presidents. Black men trying to make it out
the ‘hood, with few actually doing so. Unlike the plots of cheesy romance movies, which
seldom come to fruition in real life, the plots of the films we grew up watching were
being mirrored in thirty-minute segments on the news. Seeing my father with a beer can
constantly glued to his hand or my brother in handcuffs was like watching CNN in real
life – minus the commercial breaks.
“News viewing may be part of a process that makes the construct or cognitive linkage
between Blacks and criminality frequently activated and therefore chronically accessible.
Prior content studies have revealed that Blacks are linked with criminality more often
than Whites in news programming (Dixon 107).”
Ironically, it was my father, a retired soldier, who introduced me to the news; he
is the reason why I still tune in on nightly news programs several times each week. When
I was younger, and before his alcoholism got out of control, we visited him every few
years and the only channels he watched were news. I remember questioning him about
his odd viewing behavior:
Me: Daddy, how come you only watch the news?
24
Him: Because baby, the news is how you know what’s going on in the world… When I
was a soldier, and we were in the field, the first thing you’d do in the morning is grab a
newspaper so you’d know what was going on.
Me: You guys read newspapers in the field?
Him: …And that’s about it. You can get mail and you can get the paper, and if you
wanted to know what was going on right then, you’d grab the paper.
And I believed him. Of course I was a fan of television, and I loved the rare
occasion of a family movie night, but whenever I wanted to know what was going on in
the world, I watched the news or grabbed a newspaper. Over the course of my lifetime,
how many times had I watched the nightly newscast or picked up the paper and shaken
my head at criminals and others who I felt were giving “us” a bad name? So many times
that I joked about popular stereotypes and failed to question them. I had succumbed to the
mindset of “that’s just the way it is.”
“Largely, the processes work unconsciously, rather than by conscious intention.
Ideologies produce different forms of social consciousness, rather than being produced
by them. They work most effectively when we are not aware that how we formulate and
construct a statement about the world is underpinned by ideological premises; when our
formations seem to be simply descriptive statements about how things are (i.e., must be),
or of what we can “take-for-granted” (Hall, “The Whites of Their Eyes” 90).”
25
I was one of them.
It hit me like a ton of bricks while sitting in class discussing media culture. Me,
Felicia Harris, black woman aged twenty-three; I was one of those people in society who
had helped contribute to and perpetuate negative stereotypes re-presented in the media.
How so? Because I had bought into those stereotypes by believing in them. Because
when the time came for me to tell my father or my brother that they could honestly be
more, achieve more and do better, I hadn’t believed it any more than they did. And it
wasn’t just with my brother and my father that I had held such low standards, but also
with other members in my family, and even myself.
“Some commentators argue that the media’s greatest impact is its influence on our
pictures of the world… But great media power may reside elsewhere – in media’s ability
to shape our cognitions and beliefs (Wartella et al 310).”
I was 18 years old and a freshman in college when I found out I pregnant. I was
extremely upset, but I wasn’t surprised. I was the youngest of three daughters but the first
one to graduate high school without a baby. True, we were a group of teen mothers but I
had always considered myself a lady. Maybe. My oldest sister, Melissa4, an on-again offagain cocaine user, announced she was pregnant the month after me. This was her fourth
child, her fifth pregnancy. I was living in a small apartment in a big renovated house near
the historic district of Columbus, Ga. She, along with her three sons, was living rent-free
on the other side of town in a government-aid home. I remember thinking ill thoughts,
4 Names of family members have been changed. 26
ones I dare not repeat here, about her when she told me that her due date was one month
after mine.
“At its core, the image of the welfare mother constitutes a class-specific, controlling
image developed for poor, working-class Black women who make use of social welfare
benefits to which they are entitled by law (Hill-Collins 78).”
Patricia Hill-Collins listed the welfare mother as one of several controlling images
that contribute to the oppression of black women. She says: “Portraying AfricanAmerican women as stereotypical mammies, matriarchs, welfare recipients, and hot
mommas helps justify U.S. Black women’s oppression,” (Hill-Collins 69). When my
caseworker offered me Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other
government benefits, I refused to accept them. I remember how badly I wanted to avoid
working the system like my sister.
Sometimes we would ride up to the health department together, to pick up our
WIC or check on her food stamps. We would wait for hours before being seen, in a
waiting room with several other young black mothers. Every now and then, I’d see a
Hispanic mother or a white mother, but mostly black. Somehow, I had managed to go
from graduating from high school with honors to sitting in the same waiting room chair
that my sisters had sat in when they were eighteen. However, like my brother’s arrival to
the county jail, I was certain that my arrival at the county health department was to be
expected as well.
27
When my sister prematurely delivered my niece three days after I had given birth
to my son, both she and my niece tested positive for cocaine. The doctors believed it
might have been a coke high that made her water break prematurely. I’m not sure. I
remember the waddle-like walk I did down the hall to check on her. I had barely
recovered from my twenty-two hour labor and delivery process, but I was deeply
concerned about my sister and my niece. I remember wondering if I would meet some
white social worker in her room, questioning her and holding my niece, threatening to
take her away.
Losing Aloni, I coined the process in my head. I wondered if my sister would
bounce back like the cocaine-addicted Khaila Richards did in Losing Isaiah. That movie
was a hit, it still is, and Halle Barry shined. In the hospital, my sister’s hair was
disheveled like Halle’s was when she went scrambling through the alley, throwing boxes,
searching for her newborn she had left in search of a high the night before. Her eyes had
the same dark circles. My niece’s eyes had the same look of innocence as Isaiah.
I chose to leave before the social worker came. I wasn’t sticking around for that
part of the movie. But she came.
White like innocence
Infant cheeks ruby red like
Nose bleeds
She’s got the shivers
So swaddle her close
28
Please
Just to get another hit
Prematurely born, like death
Passing through too soon
Columbian pure and new
Clean like
Powder, baby
From my father’s absenteeism and alcoholism to my sister’s drug addiction, my
life mirrored critical media moments. I had read the same stories in the news and seen
them on the TV screen. I had joked with friends about how it was never going to change,
and told my brother and sister, angrily, how they would never change. In my graduate
courses, I hid behind the shame that accompanied the memories of those conversations as
we discussed ways to challenge this exact frame of thinking in a media illiterate society.
How could I actively engage in these conversations when I had, up until my arrival in
graduate school, been media illiterate myself?
Memories that had lain dormant now presented themselves daily. I began to
remember my brother telling me how as one of the few, higher-ranking black sailors in
his unit, he was often targeted for behavioral issues and attitude problems, even when he
was on his best behavior. Ultimately this led to his honorable discharge a month or so
before he landed himself in jail. Years earlier, I had overheard my sister recounting how
29
she was constantly scowled at and mistreated by the elderly patients she took care of as a
certified nursing assistant prior to her drug addiction and babies number three and four.
Eventually she was let go, deemed basically unemployable as a CNA, and while jobless
was cared for – along with her children – by the man who would eventually introduce
her to cocaine. And the rest of the story played out just like it always does in the movies.
30
CHAPTER 4
EMERGENCE OF SELF AS AN “OTHER”
“In telling us about the world – what is true, what is important, what aspects of problems
are critical, what positions various groups have on particular issues, what other people
are thinking or doing, and what they think are appropriate ways of behaving – the media
have the potential to exert enormous influence. The potential is great for an obvious
reason: People have just three ways to learn. These are personal, direct experience;
interpersonal interaction and the media (Wartella et al 311).”
And here I was thinking that so much of what I had learned was the result of
spending eight-hour days in school for 14 years of my life. It was difficult for me to
grapple with the realization that most of what I believed to be true came from messages
in the media. Especially since most of my personal experiences and interpersonal
interactions largely mirrored what I saw in the movies and on the news.
The identity crisis that had rocked me since I arrived graduate school exacerbated
my love/hate relationship with discussions of representation and identity. How is race
represented in television show X? How is gender? Are these portrayals positive or
negative? And most important to me, are these representations accurate? In class, I
listened intently when these subjects arose, but backed away from conversations. I was
afraid to reveal that I was a product of media culture’s immanent power.
31
During conversations, and as I blogged or wrote in my journal, I repeatedly
wanted to reach out to someone ‘like me.’ Not having anyone like me close by magnified
my growing awareness of who I was (and I wasn’t). I was experiencing another important
process that happens in several aspects of our everyday lives, but especially through the
media: otherness. While other-ing occurs in various aspects of our lives, Douglas Kellner
explains how it is particularly evident in media culture:
“Radio, television, film, and the other products of the culture industries provide the
models of what it means to be male or female, successful or a failure, powerful or
powerless. Media culture also provides the materials out of which many people construct
their sense of class, of ethnicity and race, of nationality, of sexuality, of “us” and “them”
(Kellner 1).”
The classification of people into “us” and “them” is the foundation of an other-ing
process that the media feeds, building widely accepted binaries in which one side is
deemed to be greater or more powerful than the other. It’s one thing to have a strong
hunch that something is happening all around you, but being able to recognize a process,
and identify it by name, is an unnerving experience. I was onto something when I pushed
my friend Stephanie to discuss when we first realized that society was so divided, but I
lacked the evidence or the vocabulary to name what I saw and experienced. This was
beyond girl talk.
The division that had hit me during my first week in graduate school was a
symptom of emerging as an other. From that first Friday evening, spent crying my eyes
32
out, I knew that my journey was going to be a struggle. I would trudge through entire
days of discouraging thoughts and feelings of loneliness, hiding all this until it crashed in
on me during the drive to my apartment. Through tears, I would call someone from home
– a family member, friend or old classmate - people who I felt were most like me, and
bemoan my predicament. When I described the many wrongs I had suffered, they would
agree.
I reached out most often to Stephanie, who had already faced culture shock while
completing her Bachelor’s degree at Georgia Southern. Not only could she understand
where I had come from, but she was the one person who could really understand what I
was going through. Until we arrived on predominately white campuses, Stephanie and I
inhabited a world where there appeared to be only an “us,” with no signs of “them.” We
had never questioned our positions in society because we hadn’t identified any
contrasting group. In my graduate courses, I found myself in direct contact and
conversation with a different group, and my urge to reach out and identify with others
like me grew stronger.
“A social group is a collective of persons differentiated from at least one other group by
cultural forms, practices, or way of life. Members of a group have a specific affinity with
one another because of their similar experience or way of life, which prompts them to
associate with one another more than with those not identified within the group (Young
43).”
33
At this point it was no secret that I felt like I didn’t belong in graduate school.
Being one of very few black females definitely contributed to that. In addition to the
color of my skin, I was also confronted daily with other differences that I had never
dwelled on before. My broken family, my lower- to middle-class lifestyle growing up, the
fact that I was a first-generation college graduate; all of these factors had united me with
my friends and neighbors back home, but now set me apart in the classroom.
“Group identification arises, that is, in the encounter and interaction between social
collectives that experience some differences in their way of life and forms of association,
even if they also regard themselves as belonging to the same society (Young 43).”
At the same time I began viewing myself as an Other, in class I was learning
about the media’s large role in shaping perceptions of othered groups. It embarrassed me
that I, too, had succumbed to media messages about what the lives of people “like me”
were supposed to be like. Especially when it came to portrayals of family issues such as
my sister’s drug addiction, my father’s alcoholism and my brother’s growing criminality.
How had I not noticed that larger social structures, set firmly in place, made it that much
harder for individuals, including my own family members, to break free of controlling
images? I experienced first hand how difficult it was to navigate what Carey compares to
a barren desert – the graduate student that is never portrayed in the media – and I can
honestly admit that each day I was tempted to throw in the towel and try my hand at
something society would view as a better fit for a black woman.
***
34
September 3, 2010 – Blog Entry #7
Nervous breakdowns are becoming a weekly ritual. Today was the first time that I
actually felt like I might not be able to do this.
In class, we were discussing research paradigms and somehow the conversation
became a sorted mixture of thoughts on class structure, race relations, substance abuse,
and nearly every other topic that I care not to discuss. Left and right, my classmates were
spurting out what they believed to be “truth” or “fact” – what they think about all of
these issues (based on their prior knowledge). All the while I sat in the back, with a lump
in my throat that felt as large as a fist.
As comments tore through the air and real characters begin to show, I almost
wanted to say that they were ignorant, but they’re not. And that’s what pushed me over
the edge. I don’t know how to explain the panic, the fear, that I felt when I realized that
just as sure as I am black, and that my name is Felicia, other people are grounded in
their beliefs – no matter how offensive or damaging they are to me. And what’s even
worse is that they don’t realize they’re offensive, nor do they mean to be; it’s just who
they are.
I politely excused myself from class and rushed down the hall to the door of the
single African-American instructor in my department. She wasn’t there. I rushed to the
bathroom just in time to catch the tears in the mirror. Get it together, Felicia. I fought
with my emotions internally.
***
It was all becoming way too much for me to handle. Until this particular day of
intense classroom discussion, I had been able to manage my nervous breakdowns. But
35
somehow, what I had been struggling with personally was interjected into the academic
discussion and that brought me to my boiling point.
I was pulling it together: the media had denied us role models, or what Hall would
call signifying agents, affirming black women truly belong in higher education. I was
also beginning to understand that in place of a road map for graduate school, the media
had provided a set of negative controlling images. My family members had succumbed to
these, and I had failed to question them because they were so pervasive. Through our
immersion in a media culture, powerful ideologies are transferred and never questioned.
Until we start to figure out what questions we should be asking, that is. I was eager to
discover how I could learn more about the media’s role in social formation and
anxious/scared/excited about my role as a budding media researcher. Once I had begun
to identify myself as an Other, I wanted to critically examine how other-ing works in
everyday life.
In our research seminar, we discussed how various paradigms differ in their
approach to research. Ultimately, an individual’s inquiry into knowledge results from his
or her particular view of the world. In order to pose questions about the power of the
media or the media’s role in social formation, we had to start by answering questions
much larger in scope. How did one view the diffusion of power in the world as a whole?
What about the nature of social formation and class structure? My class, as usual,
consisted of mostly white females, a handful of white males, one black male, and me, the
sole black female. Around the table, my classmates gave answers to these questions
openly.
36
“The ability for students to see how diverse people can interpret the same message
differently is important for multicultural education, since understanding differences
means more than merely tolerating one and other (Kellner and Share 375).”
We were undertaking a pivotal conversation in our career as budding media
scholars. As Carey explains, “to study communication is to examine the actual social
process wherein symbolic forms are created, apprehended, and used,” (17). As our
professor guided us through our conversation, it became evident that one reason I felt so
far removed from these people was that we viewed the world differently, and extremely
so. I had witnessed my sister’s downward spiral with drug addiction, and although I
harbored some ill feelings toward her, I also understood that her decisions had been
shaped partly by factors out of her control. I just couldn’t name them at the time. I had
also grew up teetering on the line that separates middle and lower class, and I had
watched first-hand how my mother did everything in her power to stay on the upper side
of that line, but for the struggle was never ending.
As a consensus about power and social formation began to grow around the room,
so did the lump in my throat. The comments that I heard, over and over again, disturbed
me. One classmate shared her ideas for an easy solution to our society’s war on drugs
while another discussed how hard work paid off in the long run if an individual only put
forth the effort. I wonder if my complete silence signaled that I disagreed. I refused to
join in the discussion because I didn’t see where I could interject. If my classmates
honestly believed what they were saying was true, how could I change their perceptions?
Not only did I feel defeated and overwhelmed, but I also felt alone.
37
“Much murky water has flowed under the bridge provided by this concept of ideology in
recent years… I am using the term to refer to those images, concepts and premises that
provide the frameworks through which we represent, interpret, understand, and “make
sense” of some aspect of social existence (Hall, “The Whites of Their Eyes” 89).”
Did I have it all wrong? Had I been mistaken? Had the people in the classroom
missed the movies I grew up with, showing there really was no way out of the ‘hood? Did
they not see that certain individuals simply had it harder than others? When I went
searching for the only black professor in our department, I was really searching for some
back up. When she wasn’t there, I pulled it together and went back into the class,
determined to sit back and listen, participate in the discussion, and try to understand how
our perceptions of truth could be so different. I realized that if my personal experiences
mirrored ideological media constructs, it was time to I lean on my last leg of learning:
interpersonal experience.
“One can teach how media culture provides significant statements or insights about the
social world, empowering visions of gender, race, and class or complex aesthetic
structures and practices, thereby putting a positive spin on how it can provide significant
contributions to education. Yet we ought to also indicate how media culture can advance
sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, homophobia, and other forms of prejudice as well as
misinformation, problematic ideologies, and questionable values, accordingly promoting
a dialectical approach to the media (Kellner and Share 373).”
38
Looking back, I understand that my emotional reaction to our classroom
discussion was a consequence of my emergence as an Other. Although we were all
educated and produced in the same society, this my first introduction to what Hill-Collins
refers to as binary thinking: “In such thinking, difference is defined in oppositional terms.
One part is not simply different from its counterpart; it is inherently opposed to its
‘other.’”
Hill-Collins further defines binary thinking as “a way of conceptualizing realities
that divides concepts into two, mutually exclusive categories, e.g., white/black,
man/woman, reason/emotion, and heterosexual/homosexual,” (Glossary) in which one
side of the binary is always seen to be dominant. Binary thinking relies on the individual
propensity to identify as a member of a specific group that has an opposing counterpart.
Until this classroom discussion, I had never realized just how many taken for granted
“truths” I had about the social world. Furthermore, I had never questioned how I had
arrived at those conclusions. Ultimately, it wasn’t a matter of who had it wrong and who
had it right, but how we arrived at our opposing versions of “truth,” and brought those
truths into being, that struck me. This was the first critical moment in which it began to
dawn on me how powerful a teaching tool the media is. Suddenly I saw how much there
is to learn from engaging in meaningful conversation about how, and what, the media
teach.
“Ideologies are, of course, worked on in many places in society, and not only in the
head… But institutions like the media are peculiarly central to the matter since they are,
by definition, part of the dominant means of ideological production. What they
39
“produce” is, precisely, representations of the social world, images, descriptions,
explanations, and frames for understanding how the world is and why it works as it is
said and shown to work (Hall, “The Whites of Their Eyes” 90).”
40
CHAPTER 5
SITTING BESIDE MYSELF
September 29, 2010 - Blog Entry #9
Friday afternoon, before getting on the road I finally met with one of my
professors to discuss switching my degree track from thesis to non-thesis. Of course she
asked me (like everyone asks me): “So, how’s it going?” But for some reason, in her
office – with bookshelves, pillows, pictures, and a couch – I felt compelled to be honest. I
cried. I told her about my struggles and how at least once a week I debate going home
and leaving the pursuit of this degree right here.
I told her that I think what bothers me is that even the black people here are not
black like me – as crazy or as ignorant or as rude as that may seem. That’s how I feel.
She found it interesting because a lot of research has been done in media studies about
the labels of “blackness” versus “whiteness” and feels like that might be an area of
interest for me. But it drains me to discuss this. It hurts me…
Later, while on the phone with my mother, I finally broke down and told her the
truth. I told her this is hard. I told her that I don’t know if I can do this. And it makes me
mad. My mother told me that I’m at a point in my life that she faced while in high school.
As a “yellow” negro, with freckles and green eyes, my mother was too light-skinned to be
accepted by the black kids, and too black to be accepted by the white kids. Now, I find
myself at a point where I’m too educated to go back to where I come from, and fit in
amongst the crowds – yet, still, I won’t find many like me in the direction that I’m going.
41
***
I headed home for the weekend with so many thoughts in my head. I had come to
graduate school to hone my skills as a journalist and join the work force in two years,
with an added credential and a stronger résumé. However, the more I learned about the
power of the media, the more I wanted to be sure I completely understood the power I
would hold in my hands as a reporter. By no means did I want to continue to contribute
perpetuating dominant ideologies, the stories that bolster sexism, racism, ethnocentrism
and other misinformed views. I was willing to work to understand how powerful social
processes – such as othering, marginalization and objectification could be deconstructed
and their genesis understood. Driving home, I decided that more coursework focused on
the theoretical foundations of the media, and some thesis work, could only make me a
better contributor to media culture.
In class, I posed questions to my professors and classmates to help make sense of
these very big theoretical processes. So when we speak about “the dominant” class,
ideologies, social group, etc… just who exactly are we talking about here? And, so then,
whom do they exert their power or control over? And how do we know that this “power”
is working? I struggled to understand the word dominance in the scope of our
conversations: dominant (adjective) – most important, powerful, or influential;
overlooking others. Commonly listed antonyms include subservient and submissive. I
could understand the differences that comprised binary groups, but I struggled with
accepting that in order for one end of the binary to be dominant, it’s opposition had to be
somehow lesser than or inadequate. But this is how objectification comes into being.
42
“Objectification is central to this process of oppositional difference. In binary thinking,
one element is objectified as the Other, and is viewed as an object to be manipulated and
controlled (Hill-Collins 70).”
The deeper that I dug into theory, the harsher the words were that I unearthed:
manipulated, controlled, subservient. Sometimes I felt like throwing my academic texts
off my second-floor balcony and forgetting about what I was learning. But at the end of
the day, what I was learning in the classroom mirrored what I had felt since my first day
as a graduate student. The more media literate I became, the more my emotions reflected
scholarly definitions: I felt as though for years I had been manipulated, controlled,
subservient. It had gotten to the point where I could no longer enjoy watching the nightly
newscast, for fear of falling subject to yet another skewed re-presentation of reality. It
became a game to flip through primetime television shows and look for black women,
men, Latinos or homosexuals and determine whether or not their characters a.) existed, or
b.) fell into the category of a common controlling image. It felt like I was going crazy.
Just when I began to think that I was succumbing to some sort of paranoia, I took a
vacation from the textbooks and group discussions and went home for what I thought
would be a break.
***
February 8, 2011 Blog Entry #14
How hypocritical of me to write against silence only to disappear from my very
own blog for more than two months? Very.
43
The truth is, as usual, I’ve gone back and forth about continuing this public
expression of thoughts – wondering what’s the point of it all? What’s MY point in it all?
What am I trying to achieve, prove, discuss, etc.?
But, then I reread my first entry and remembered that I started writing this for
myself. As a coping method to a phenomenon that I had no idea of how to approach, let
alone conquer. And, in doing so, this has helped me immensely.
Over the break, my sister read this blog and told me I was a racist and had issues
and even suggested that perhaps UGA was not the place for me. (This was very much so
one of the occasions where I debated taking it down and never writing again.) But, I
know that neither implication of that statement was true. I am not a racist, and, UGA is
definitely the school for me.
I returned to Athens this semester at an historical time: the 50th anniversary of the
desegregation of the university. Walking on this campus, I look at the posters. Over the
weeks, I’ve attended the events, sat in admiration while watching documentaries and
reading memoirs, books and other literature about the courageous few who were the first
black students to step on this campus – and I feel honored to follow in their footsteps.
Looking at my feet on ice the first day I returned to campus, I slipped near the
Arch. The arch where just 50 years prior riots broke out and white students shouted “24-6-8, We don’t want to integrate!” However, on this day, a white male student offered
me a hand. . . Imagine that. The gravity of that moment, when you think about it, well…
there are no words.
***
44
Racist. That was the word that I had been trying to tip toe around throughout the
whole year. Sure, I had never been more aware of race in my life, but I’ve always
avoided pinpointing race as an issue, let alone the issue. I never wanted to admit that in
the binary of white/black, white dominated. Nor had I wanted to admit that in the case of
male/female, male dominated. What would that mean for me as a black female? For most
of my life, I believed that who I was, internally, mattered. On the surface, society
encourages us to believe that each individual matters. Now, however, my media theory
courses drove me to confront structural variables, such as race and gender, as factors that
construct our intimate thoughts and actions in ways that contradict the idea that
individualism actually matters. Identifying race and/or gender as factors in my
experiences shook my sense of who I was, as an individual, and I resisted facing that.
Consequently, I headed home for school break aiming to single handedly change
members of my family, seeking to prove that we were indeed bigger than the societal
constraints around us.
I started with Marie, my sister who was closest in age to me. She was the one who
had stepped up to the plate to care for my father in the worst stage of his alcoholism, and
who took in Melissa’s children after the social worker visited her and my niece in the
hospital. Some years earlier, Marie had started an adult education program at the local
university that could have put her on track to get an undergraduate degree. But she soon
dropped out. Given my recent graduate experience, I couldn’t honestly say that I blamed
her. As soon as I arrived home, I told her that I could give her my computer and help her
look for jobs. She told me that she wanted to go to nursing school and I encouraged her
that anything was possible. “If I’ve made it as far as I have with this program, I promise
45
you can do it,” I told her. I wanted to let her know that even if the only black nurse we
ever saw was on Grey’s Anatomy, she could do it.
Next, I set my eyes on a larger task. My oldest nephew, David, who was also
Melissa’s oldest son, had been struggling in school. He fit the stereotype of a coming of
age black boy: he exhibited behavioral problems, had a bad attitude, and displayed a
blatant disregard for his work. At least that’s what his teachers told me in a conference.
I didn’t know if I could believe them or not – it took several attempts for me to
get his teachers to meet with me, and when we did, they clearly did not expect David to
improve. When David and I discussed what his teachers said, he shared another side of
the story. He was juggling an enormous amount of responsibility at home; waking up in
the middle of the night to take care of his younger brothers and sister, keeping the house
clean and sometimes even cooking for the family while my sister slept in the back room.
He was only 12. To make matters worse, he confirmed my worst fears about his
academic environment. He told me the teachers and administrators could care less about
him, and one teacher had told him in front of the class that she didn’t care if he learned or
not because he was going to end up in jail or on drugs anyway.
There go those controlling images, I thought. She, too, must have grown up
watching those gangbanger movies Boyz in the Hood, Friday, Menace II Society, Juice
and Dead Presidents.
Poor little black boy
Living in the hood
With your mama on crack
Boy
46
Skip class
smoke weed
Tote a ghat boy
Oh, little black boy
Your daddy left
ten years ago
And never came back boy
the man in your house
at ten years old –
that’s life being black boy
sucks for you
go’on turn your back boy
no need to man up
a black Man is still a black boy
Headed toward prison
Selling mamas crack
boy
Skipping out on women
Leaving trails of black
boys
47
Stepping into the role of social activist, I pleaded passionately with my mom and
Marie for a plan to help save David. I told them it might be too late for my father or my
brother, but not for him. If I could step in now and counteract the expectations crowding
in on him, then all might not be lost. I even suggested that he could come live with me,
and I’d help get him back on track. My mom didn’t seem to think this was such a good
idea.
Mom: Felicia, you think you can just come in and save him, well I’ve had four children
and I’m telling you it’s not that easy!
Me: But mom, we’ve got to do something! If Melissa doesn’t care and his teachers don’t
care and no one tells him he can be anything else he’s just going to fall into this trap,
don’t you see that?
Mom: That boy probably done came and filled your head with lies… I’ve had David in
my home before and he’s hardheaded and he’s a troublemaker; you can’t believe
everything he says!
Me: I know that he’s probably been acting up, but I know a lot of it is because everything
that he sees tells him that all he is ever going to be IS a trouble-maker! Mom, I’m
learning about this in school and I see it everywhere around me… It’s on the T.V., and in
the news, and in the movies, and if we don’t show him that there’s something else in the
world how is he going to know?! I just can’t sit back and let this continue to happen
around me and not do ANYTHING!
Mom: You think you know more about what’s right and wrong in the world than I do?! I
might not be formally educated but I’ve been living in this world for fifty-two years so
48
don’t you go throwing that education into this! School can’t teach you about what’s
going on out here…
And just like that, I was no longer one of “us” either. My mom had been onto
something when she alluded to my fence straddling: one foot in academia and one foot
out. But I never expected her to be the one to harshly drive that realization home. I was
reminded of an article that my advisor had handed to me earlier in the semester, while I
sat on her couch drying my tears. In it, a former student of hers attempted to reconcile
one of her first experiences going back home after entering into a doctoral program, and
finding herself a visitor:
“We can talk cash-trash over three-way cell phone calls rehashing “remember when”
stories, but I no longer live there. And that matters… The taken-for-granted articulation
of sameness is an artifice much like the boundaries of the field or the borders between the
researcher, research, and researched (Durham 154).”
The lines that once separated the roles of researcher, research and researched had
long since become blurry in my mind. I often felt as though I was sitting beside myself,
critically examining me through the eyes of someone else. Throughout the semester I had
been carrying my othered self to class, analyzing academic texts through the lens of my
personal experiences. And on the day of that intense argument with my mother, I found
what I thought was my dormant academic self emerging to help make sense of a very
personal predicament. Neither side of me could find comfort in the other. After I had
49
gotten off the phone, I was clearly shaken and my sister did her best to offer what she
thought were words of comfort:
Marie: Felicia, you can’t stress yourself out trying to come home and change everything.
Our dad is an alcoholic, your sister is addicted to drugs, your brother has anger issues,
and you can’t talk to mama about anything. But you just have to forget about it… there’s
nothing you can do; that’s just the way it is. I say, just focus on you and get your degree
so you can live your life.
Me: But Marie, you don’t know what it’s like sitting in those classrooms, being analyzed
by people and not knowing what to say. It’s like we’re a class project, our family is a
project that everyone looks at and explains how and why we are who we are. And
everyone has the answers except for us.
I excused myself from the conversation and went off to a separate room. Once I
got alone, I began to weep. The few remaining concepts that I had struggled to
understand in the classroom had finally clicked.
“Hegemony is the power or dominance that one social group holds over others… [it]
requires that ideological assertions become self-evident assumptions. Its effectiveness
depends on subordinated people accepting the dominant ideology as “normal reality or
common sense… in active forms of experience and consciousness (Lull 61- 63).”
50
When my attempts were shut down and my help shut out, I was forced to realize
that I hadn't been making things up, nor was I crazy to imagine that the concepts we
explored in the classroom directly impacted my life. Although I wanted to believe that I
had existed unharmed by social constraints, my family visit made concepts such as
marginalization and objectification glaringly real. I wasn’t just having a hard time
adjusting to college life in a new town; I was becoming painfully aware that dominant
ideologies determine, to a large extent, others’ roles in society. Once again I found
myself grappling with a lesson on how societal constraints impact our sense of
individuality. My awareness of this conflict heightened and was marked by a bruised ego
and a silent stream of tears, only this time my home had served as the classroom.
51
CHAPTER 6
CUTTING THE STRINGS
It took the remainder of my school break to get past the fight with my mother and
the conversation with my sister. The experience was so emotionally painful that it was
mind numbing, and it days passed before I was able to journal about the big fight as a
learning experience. When I was finally able to revisit what had happened, I was struck
by the weird feeling of satisfaction in my responses to my relatives’ unconsciousness of
the larger processes that shape our perceptions of the social world. The conflict agitated
me, but I was okay with accepting my troubles at home as growing pains – evidence that
I really was learning something.
Just a few months before my visit home, I had been clueless and had struggled to
cope with feelings of powerlessness. Now, there was some comfort in the fact that I could
identify why I had seen myself as powerless and why my family members still did. I
found strength in no longer being manipulated or controlled or subservient in relation to
widely accepted “truths” of the world. Certain that the worst part of the learning was
process behind me – tearing apart preconceived notions and demolishing any personal
boundaries of comfort – I returned to school zealous to learn more.
Pull the strings of me
internally
Direct my moves to
52
appease
I make believe
I am in control
My gestures effortlessly
take the shape of my own
How little do I know?
Yarn work of manipulation
Wrap my mind
Give thoughts to my brain
Allow me to believe
One day I will be more than
A puppet
Cut these strings and live
A human set free
“Consequently, the gaining of critical media literacy is an important resource for
individuals and citizens in learning how to cope with this seductive cultural environment.
Learning how to read, criticize, and resist media manipulation can help individuals
empower themselves in relation to dominant media and culture. It can enhance individual
sovereignty vis-à-vis media culture and give individuals more power over their cultural
environment and the necessary literacy to produce new forms of culture (Kellner 2).”
53
Although adjustment to life in Athens, Ga. remained a struggle, I was finally
finding my place in the classroom. I no longer sat quietly, doubting my legitimacy the
academic space. My test scores and academic achievement attested that I deserved to be
exactly where I was; I no longer needed to confirm my role as a student with images of
black women commonly portrayed in the media. Instead of looking to my fictional role
models Dionne and Lisa for cues about how to feel or act in certain situations, I now
thought critically and for myself. My two selves – the othered and the academic – had
united and I benefitted from the convergence of their viewpoints.
“Critical media literacy involves cultivating skills in analyzing media codes and
conventions, abilities to criticize stereotypes, dominant values, and ideologies, and
competencies to interpret the multiple meanings and messages generated by media texts.
Media literacy helps people to use media intelligently, to discriminate and evaluate
media content, to critically dissect media forms, to investigate media effects and uses,
and to construct alternative media (Kellner and Share 373).”
Although I was aware of othering factors around me such as racism and sexism, I
was now less deeply troubled by their existence as I was by how the media helps
perpetuate such “isms.” Because of this, I was able to see moments where black women –
including myself – were objectified as educational opportunities to raise awareness in
others and myself. The more I wrote and incited conversation amongst others, the more I
gained a sense of fulfillment. Not only was I learning how to critically analyze and
54
interpret media messages in the classroom, but as a blogger I created alternative media
that challenged the status quo.
My writing gained importance as a tool to share with others in my life, not in
academia, how controlling images in the media subconsciously sabotage our psyches. I
used reflective writing and poetry to capture an evening spent dancing in downtown
Athens, where it was evident that the DJ and others saw me as merely a sexual object for
their preying. I felt myself shoved into the confines of a popular controlling image, but
instead of lashing out in anger and shame, I could examine the situation through my
newfound lens of critical thinking and be unapologetic for being myself.
“Rooted in the historical legacy of jezebel, the contemporary “hoochie” seems to be cut
from an entirely different cloth. For one, whereas images of Black women as sexually
aggressive certainly pervade popular culture overall, the image of the hoochie seems to
have permeated everyday Black culture in entirely new ways (Hill-Collins 82).”
The truth is, I have always been big on dancing. I almost find it difficult to believe
that any person could sit unaffected by a lively tempo and upbeat musical arrangement.
For me, it almost comes natural. I was in the 1st or 2nd grade when my oldest sister taught
me how to do this new dance called “the Tootsie Roll.” It was a popular song and dance
craze by a group called the 69 Boyz, and as a high schooler she knew it well.
A brand new dance so,
Grab a partner and get on the dance floor
55
And work them hips a little bit
and do that dip a little bit
Oh yeah, you got it, no ifs, ands, no buts about it
And you over there with the long hair
Keep workin that derriere, cause it ain't hard…
And it wasn’t hard. As a matter of fact, I took pride in being able to do the Tootsie
Roll well. I would even add flares and gestures to make it my own. I’d swirl my hips and
move my legs back and forth with the beat of the song. I could Tootsie Roll all the way
down to touch the ground and then pull back up. My favorite part of the song was a very
emphatic and energetic refrain:
Now dip baby dip, come on let's dip baby dip
Dip baby dip, just dip baby dip baby dip just dip
I feel a whoop comin on, a whoop comin on,
I feel a whoop comin on, a whoop comin’ on,…
My mom, who around that time was busy working two jobs to pay the bills, was
seldom around, and spending time with my sister perfecting my “dip” was a more
convenient alternative to sitting alone in my room doing homework.
56
At my elementary school, during recess, a group of us young girls would gather
round in a circle and do various chants, clapping our hands and stomping our feet, taking
turns jumping in the middle of the crowd to replicate those dances that we saw on the TV
screen. Dances that our older sisters taught us at home in the mirror. Dances that we
would do with our cousins and our friends at family barbeques. We didn’t realize that the
gyrations and pelvic thrusting we saw on the TV screen were the result of black women
being hyper-sexualized and misrepresented. We just knew that dancing was fun, and that
it was something we could all do together.
The first time I read Hill-Collins’ explication of the jezebel, whore or “hoochie,” I
cringed at how I had previously been a part of the culture that accepted those images in
the media. I’ve always had a love for dance and always wanted to be a dancer. I can’t
deny that watching music videos while growing up undoubtedly contributed to that
dream. In elementary school I went to a junior Kangarette (the local high school band’s
auxiliary) camp where I danced with pom poms at a football game for the first time. In
middle school, I praise danced at my church. In high school, I was a Tigerette and danced
to the band at the football games. In college, I would just go out on the town and dance.
Over the course of time, and through formal instruction, I matured and learned
what movements were highly inappropriate and what movement signified actual dance
technique. However, I was fully aware that others who weren’t privy to the art of dance
wouldn’t be able to differentiate between Hill-Collins’ “hoochie” and me. I used my blog
as a platform to share a piece I wrote in an attempt to articulate the conflict between an
innate love of dance and the fear of being viewed as sexual deviant.
57
left, right. left, right…
a stereotype come-to-life I glide
across the dance floor shakin' my thang.
left, right. left, right…
married to the beat, I am "hoochie mama"
a representative of ALL black women
and oh, yes, me
left, right. left, right…
with my thighs gyrating, I
see your eyes, spectator
feel your sighs, black sister
but, this is my song
left… right…
"She wants to fuck tonight!"
58
boasts the DJ not quite, my brother
I just want to dance.
left, right. left, right…
without the traditional sounds of the conga
my now-untraditional conga isn't quite as exotic
my people have 'come to America'
now I'm from this, America,
and my dance is cause for shame
left, right. left, right…
my hips are stereo-found
by the stereo-sound
I can't help that I am
A black woman
(left)
innate rhythm
(right)
I crave movement
(left)
59
and I am proud
(right)
and I am proud
Right?
What may have been born out of popular black culture’s acceptance of the video
hoochie has since matured into a genuine love for movement. I refused to allow myself to
feel ashamed about something I love, no matter how others frame my sexuality. I am
proud to say that I’m a hip swaying, sometimes pelvic thrusting, hair swinging, armsraised-in-the-air dancer. I knew that several of my friends and family members who
follow my blog could relate to this experience, and was pleased by the conversation that
ensued after the post went live. I received e-mails, text messages, and inbox messages on
my various social media accounts from people who shared how my blog posts and poetry
had helped them to view something differently. Those lengthy posts I had once written,
full of pain, disdain and anxiety, were becoming further apart and fewer. And I was glad.
“When groups often under-represented or misrepresented in the media become
investigators of their own meanings the learning process becomes an empowering
expression of voice and democratic transformation (Kellner and Share 372).”
Finally, I felt free. Inside the classroom, I found solace in the research-as-activism
approach to learning about media culture. My presence as an other at the table afforded
me the opportunity to engage in countless eye opening and transformative conversations.
60
Sometimes I shared a lesson with others, but many times I found myself absorbing
knowledge. Outside the classroom, I shared my critical thinking tips and ideas with
others around me – in the coffee shop, during long phone conversations with friends like
Stephanie, and during trips home to visit my family.
With every class meeting and conversation, I felt myself becoming more
empowered. I no longer feared falling prey to the manipulation and control of dominant
ideologies in the media. Slowly, I regained my affinity for the news and television
programming – it was mostly for alternative forms such as independent filmmakers or
non-profit journalism – and with my academic self and othered self forging together as
one, I was confident that I would no longer be as susceptible as I had been before.
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CHAPTER 7
LOVING MYSELF ON A MONDAY MORNING
As a poet and blogger, the shift in my perception of the world was evident in my
writing. In August, I had spent my first Friday evening crying my eyes out because I had
felt so uncomfortable in my skin and environment. My blog posts and journal entries
from that time reflect exactly how I was feeling: lost and hopeless. In my second
semester, the pieces I wrote revealed a more confident, hopeful person.
On a Monday morning in February, I stood in front of hundreds of university
stakeholders and prestigious community members to read a poem entitled “The Color of
Courage” at UGA’s annual Freedom Breakfast. I had written the poem in honor of the
three African-American students who had desegregated the university fifty years prior –
heroes that I hadn’t heard about or read about in the media, but since my arrival at UGA
had become some of my metaphorical pillars of strength.
My skin is brown
The color of courage
The very essence of what it means to believe
To strive
To achieve
To look straight ahead when chaos surrounds me
To laugh to keep from crying
62
To fall down on knees To die
Before ceasing trying
My skin is brown
The color of courage
When I look in the mirror I see
So many heroes
Heroines
Legacies
Stories
Such strength
In front of me
I see the dreams of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The resistance of Rosa
The persistence and dedication of Harriet
The ambition of Oprah
The intellect of Frederick
The truth of Sojourner
The change from Obama
The resilience of . . . My mama
63
My skin is brown
The color of courage
I am rich like mahogany
My mind is deep like ebony
My soul is sable
Yes, I’m black, and because of that
I am more than able
I am more than a shade
I am more than my race
I am more than just brave
I. Am. More.
My skin is brown
The color of courage
My existence and my presence here
Is the evidence of courage
My existence and my presence here
Is the culmination of courage
My existence and my presence here
Is the perpetuation of courage
My skin is brown
The color of courage
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It had all started with my brown skin.
It was my skin that had served as the driving force behind my path toward media
literacy. I often wonder had I not been black, had I not been a woman, had I not been so
disgustingly uncomfortable in my graduate program, would I have spent the time
necessary, endured the pain necessary, to become a researcher of mass media? Or would I
have skipped out on the theoretical stuff and focused my energy on getting the inverted
pyramid down pat – as was the original plan?
“Critical media literacy not only teaches students to learn from media, to resist media
manipulation, and to use media materials in constructive ways, but is also concerned
with developing skills that will help create good citizens and that will make individuals
more motivated and competent participants in social life (Kellner and Share 372).”
Looking back, I realize that I took an unusual path toward my goal of becoming a
successful reporter, but I believe that my journey was more than necessary. I took a
detour with hopes of understanding the power that I would have in my hands as a
contributor to the media, and along the way regained my power as an othered individual
in society. The result has not only been finding my will to forge on in academia, but also
realizing that I can use my reporting and writing as a tool to give a voice to the voiceless
and challenge commonly accepted truths.
65
CONCLUSION
When I originally pitched the idea of using my personal narrative as a means of
exploring how the media does othering, how cultural differences are largely related to
media constructs, and how gaining critical media literacy skills can help individuals wage
the war against those confines, I had no idea how difficult it would be to do just that. As a
matter of fact, I was not able to succinctly articulate my goal until this very moment. And
even now I may not have said it succinctly – it’s debatable.
Writing this thesis has showed me that the ties between the mass media and
culture (or media culture), the inner workings of society, and self are extremely tightwoven. I’m not certain that using experimental writing methods, incorporating academic
discourse, and revisiting extremely personal memories and conversations have truly
conveyed what I now know and hoped to tell about the world.
Once I began writing, I often revisited questions that Laurel Richardson poses as
problematic to the postmodernist writing process – “How do we put ourselves in our own
texts, and with what consequences? How do we nurture our own individuality and at the
same time lay claim to “knowing” something?” (517). For me the consequences were
both mentally and emotionally challenging. Holding myself to standards of honesty, I had
to revisit troubling experiences that were a part of my learning process and retell them
through my writing. At times, that meant writing with tears in my eyes, and at others it
meant tearing down the mental block that I had put up so that I could forget the powerless
place from whence the more-informed Felicia has emerged.
66
In regard to “knowing,” I would find myself examining excerpts from academic
discourse that I knew belonged here and asking myself out loud: “This is true, but how do
I know this?” The answer would come in the form of those memories; unforgettable
conversations, experiences and moments that I spent inside and outside the classroom
connecting the dots, or as my chair would say, touching the interstices, between media
culture, society and self. When I looked up the definition of interstice, it made perfect
sense and applied directly to the academic terrain that I had set out to conquer: an
intervening space, especially a very small one. How do we separate ourselves from what
we see in the media? How does the mass media affect how we see ourselves? There is
indeed a very thin line between the answers to those questions. A line that I sought to
explore through my writing.
I wanted to share my story, as my own form of research-as-activism. I wanted to
offer up my truth as one version of many truths, because I know that many will relate. I
also know that for those who won’t be able to relate, at least they may be able to
understand, and quite possibly even alter their version of truth.
Just this weekend, my mother made her first trip to Athens; we’ve come a long
way since our big argument. While she was here, we tackled her usage of the word
“ordinary” as it pertained to black people, in the same fashion that I used the word
“typical” when I first arrived to graduate school. I shared with her my story and asked her
to consider, if there was such a thing as an ordinary black person, what am I? What are
the other hundreds of black students who join me on this campus? She replied by stating
that what she meant was stereotypical and I smiled at my small victory. We added the
phrase “commonly portrayed” to her vernacular. I explained to her that our absence is a
67
failure of interest from the mass media industry, but we're here in the rich complexity of
our being, and we belong.
68
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