Say It Loud!: African American Audiences, Media and Identity

In a collection of essays based on direct interview research, Say it Loud! amplifies the voice of ordinary African-Americans as they respond to media presentations of Black society. Each chapter investigates ways in which African-American identity is constructed, maintained, and represented in mass media and how these portrayals are interpreted within the African-American community. Together the essays cover a vast array of media messages in television, film, music, print and cyberspace. From the Boondocks comic strip, The Cosby Show, and The Color Purple to the music of rap artist DMX and original testimony from a Menace II Society copycat killer, the material included in this volume is examined as context for the African-American struggle to achieve definition, meaning, and power. Say it Loud! offers rare insight into how this struggle is both helped and hindered by the representation of race in our media culture.

Table of Contents:
Foreword, Herman Gray Acknowledgments 1. Introduction, Robin R. Means Coleman 2. Keepin' It Real and/or Sellin' Out to the Man: African American Responses to Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks , Nancy C. Cornwell and Mark P. Orbe 3. Black Audiences, Past and Present: Commonsense Media Critics and Activists, Catherine Squires 4. Media Messages, Self Identity, and Race Relations: Reader Evaluations of Newsmagazines Coverage of the Million Man March, Debbie A. Owens 5. House Negro vs Field Negro: The Inscribed Image of Race in Television News Representations in African-American Identity, Jennifer F. Wood 6. DMX, Cosby, and Two Sides of the American Dream, Chyng F Sun, Leda Cooks, Corey Rinehart and Stacy A. S. Williams 7. Its Just Like Teaching People Do the Right Things: Using TV to Become a Good and Powerful Man, JoEllen Fisherkeller 8. The Cosby Show : The View From the Black Middle Class, Leslie B. Inniss and Joe A. Feagin 9. The Color Purple : Black Women as Cultural Readers, Jacqueline Bobo 10. America's Worst Nightmare: Reading the Ghetto in a Culturally Diverse Setting, Celeste A. Fisher 11. The Menace II Society Copycat Murder Case and Thug Life: A Reception Study with a Convicted Criminal, Robin R. Means Coleman

About the Author :
Robin R. Means Coleman is Assistant Professor of Media Ecology in the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University. She is author of African AmericanViewers and the Black Situation Comedy (Routledge 1998).

Review :
"The book is distinct and significant because it offers diverse audience-centered analyses of various media representations of African American Life and culture from the perspective of African American scholars. In doing so, the book privileges African American voices in offering insights into how media treatments impact and play a major role in the social formation of African Americans' cultural identity." -- J.D. Hamlet, CHOICE