Jaimie's Post!

Jaimie's Post!

Quite frankly, my research topics have blossomed from my interests (or actually strong aversion to certain things), cultural background, and my future professional aspirations.

As I think I’ve mentioned in class and in my last post, I absolutely loathe BET and most of what it represents. http://www.bet.com It is my personal opinion that they don’t do enough to uplift and enlighten the African American community. I have come to hate all the “rump shaking” videos and the continuous stream of music content. I have to give them credit for a portion of their Sunday and daily early morning line-up, however. They do make a conscious effort to show several hours of religious content via morning preachers and Christian music videos on Sunday. Yet, over the years, Uncut (the three a.m. showing of videos that can’t be shown because of FCC decency regulations), http://www.fcc.gov/eb/oip/ , and the other programs that bombard viewers with images of women in tiny clothes have become degrading to women. Yet, BET seems to endorse these images because they allow them to be perpetuated on their network. Furthermore, the advertisements in between segments showcase many women of different ethnicities practically naked attempting to get viewers to call and chat on date lines and with fortune tellers. AND… their show hosts represent the slums of black culture… I dare not elaborate. It’s interesting to me that they don’t have wholesome companies like Pillsbury, Johnson & Johnson, or even automobile manufactures vying to push their products on the BET network. I wonder why????

Anyway, needless to say, as an African American woman striving to be a media professional, it saddens me to see such a prominent “symbol” of African American society go to waste. Lately, their content has moved slightly away from 24 hour videos and now to silly, trivial and even MORE non-educational shows. I wonder does their parent company VIACOM (http://www.viacom.com/ourbrands/medianetworks/betnetworks/Pages/default.aspx) have anything at all to do with the new and “improved” content????? Please notice, that their blurb on BET does not say anything positive about black culture… it just mentions that it broadcasts black culture to consumers across the globe. I will hang my head in shame now!
Thus, all my venting above had led to my major research interests. I want to look at how African Americans are portrayed on television (newshttp://www.yaaams.org/editorials/articles/localnews.php). This website was created and is maintained by young African Americans, like myself, who abhor the way some media outlets portray black culture.

In my opinion, the best way to develop a research topic is to start with a topic that you are passionate about and can read an endless amount of research (as Dr. Carstarphen mentioned). I am examining theories in gatekeeping (http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Media,%20Culture%20and%20Society/gatekeeping.doc/) and framing (http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Communication%20Processes/Framing/) to help show holes in these theories as they relate to African American media portrayals.

Additionally, this is my first time developing a research topic so, I’ve used this site to help me! (http://ciips.ee.uwa.edu.au/pub/HowToWriteAThesis.pdf) Maybe it will be of some assistance to you all too!