Minorities Representation in Prime Time: 2000 to 2008

Abstract

A content analysis of eight week-long samples of network prime time programs broadcast between 2000 and 2008 found a significant decreasing linear trend in the proportion of Black characters, due primarily to the decrease in the number of situation comedies broadcast at the end of the decade. There was a corresponding, significant increasing linear trend in the proportion of White characters. Other minority groups and Hispanics appeared very infrequently. Although Blacks, in the middle of the decade reached a level of parity with their numbers in the U.S. population, it was a representation of segregation and isolation, particularly for Black women. Overall, messages about diversity and tolerance on prime time television are almost nonexistent, fostering a continued sense that minorities and Whites have little in common. Prime time network broadcast programs at the end of this decade were less racially representative of the U.S. population than they were at the beginning of the decade.