Lind, R. A. (2005). Understanding the historical context of race and gender in electronic media. In D. G. Godfrey (Ed.). Methods of historical analysis in electronic media. (pp. 187-205). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Rebecca Ann Lind is a professor in the communications department at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Her article looks at the role of race and gender in the media. She advocates looking beyond the usual studies to those that have examined race and gender in media. Lind says that the three major aspects of media are production, content and audience. The production component is what she focuses on in her article.

Historical evidence is divided into artifacts, such as scripts and tapes, or life stories, such as diaries. Technology develops quickly, and that which we have now is relatively recent. Due to this, there is a lack of artifacts, because they’ve been lost.

Artifacts were rarely kept from radio and television programming. “The challenges of creating and preserving media artifacts are only made worse when the people involved are too busy “doing” to document what they are doing.” (pg. 245) The examples that she gives are the stations that focus on activism. In other word, finding primary sources have always been challenging to find in the study of women and people of color in broadcast media. Historically, programs were not recorded, or were recorded over, because of a lack of space. However, there can be other artifacts. Even with new technological innovations, things happen and artifacts are lost. There are fires, floods and space issues. Because of this, it is difficult to study what existed and its impact.

The author explains that whenever researchers are conducting studies on minorities there is always going to be a lack of documentation, because of their historic lack of rights. In these situations often times researchers must dig up personal collections, rather than traditional places where artifacts are found. These may include private homes spread throughout the whole country. Any information that can help a researcher understand the history of the class, race, and gender of their subjects, will help them develop stronger oral histories. Oral histories allowed women of color and other minorities a chance to explain their own experiences themselves. Life stories become very key when looking at these groups that are subordinated. This allows the person to speak in their own voice, especially for groups that are often silenced. To counter this, the chapter continues with a literature review of contributions by women and minorities.

The lack of opportunities for women continued its way until it reached broadcasting. They were accepted more so as performers than managers. Lind then transitions to radio and its egalitarian original approach. Here, too, opportunities for women decreased. Equality for races did not come about until later, if at all. There’s a brief telling of the history of broadcasts involving African-Americans, including the racist show Amos ‘n’ Andy, where Blacks were portrayed as buffoons and crooks. Cooper was an innovator for Black radio, and “created many programming strategies still in use today.” This was in contrast to the poor portrayals of Amos ‘n’ Andy. However even Jack L. Cooper’s career in the radio industry began because no one knew he was black. It was not until he decided he wanted to be a “black” radio personality to a black audience. So he left Washington for Chicago and began working at the WSBC on the All Negro Hour.

It was interesting to see how Lind emphasized how women and minorities were allowed into new media technologies and were given opportunities. However, once the majority realized the importance, power and staying factors of these media, those opportunities dissipated. She concluded her study by discussing the importance of synthesis. Lind explains how without synthesizing all types of people, we will never fully reach an accurate depiction of our social world. By uncovering all of our unique histories, the author believes it will only better our futures. It would have been interesting to see what the more in-depth implications of all of this was for women and ethnic groups, rather than just the surface that certain people wrote about these things. How did women and African-Americans, for example, get these jobs? What did it mean for them when they got them, or were denied? How did it impact them when those opportunities were taken away from them? What did this mean for the audiences? What were the true cultural implications, as far as a lack of this kind of media, and those alternative media that did exist?

Edited by Catherine Sobolewski