67% of African-American and Caucasian women 18-24 say African-American women are depicted negatively in the media. In 2017, the AAF and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. commissioned a study, performed by the University of Missouri's School of Journalism, on the effects advertising, news, reality television and other media have on the perceptions of African-American women.
In response to the data and to facilitate institutional changes in the way African-American women are depicted in the media, we've developed a step-by-step guide to help you organize and implement panel discussions in your community. Our goal is to gather ideas from the panel discussions and use the research to develop guidelines for critical thinking in order to assist consumers in discerning content.
Use the Toolkit
Research theories that can be used to understand current media effects; key discussion points from the Watch Party series; connections between the advertising industry and images displayed in ads and in programming, with a targeted focus on advertising ethics; and suggestions from participants on tackling the problem of media misrepresentation
Panel discussions on the research findings on the effects advertising, news, reality television and other media have on the perceptions of African-American women.