Our Discussion on Emerson's Study

Okay, so it seemed like there were two opposite views on the reading, “Where My Girls At?” during the class discussion last Tuesday – which is great! The opposing perspectives and different ideas regarding the ultimate effectiveness of the study really helped me to look at the objective of the article differently, which was very beneficial to my understanding.

To expand on my takeaway from Rana A. Emerson’s piece, I found that its most effective discovery was raising awareness of the stereotypes and deeper messages of music videos in an attempt to persuade audiences to view this form of media in a more analytical manner. However, the lack of coherent and conclusive evidence left me feeling slightly unsatisfied by the end of the study. After 20+ pages of reading, I found myself expecting one encompassing statistic that pertained to all of the coded variables (an overarching message or result). That was not the case and I was hoping for more. Ultimately, the diverse spread of the variables seemed to throw off what I perceived to be the goal of the study: what percentage of primetime music videos display negative images or communicate negative messages about Black womanhood and what percentage of these videos portrayed a positive or hopeful message. My expectation was not met (and that’s my fault for making an early assumption) but I found some sort of clarity after further discussion. 

People raised excellent points by stating how the article could be perceived as a study that opens up areas for other studies (hopefully I am interpreting this correctly). Maybe the huge undertaking was intentional or merely the beginning of something much bigger. Rather than be disappointed in the lack of concrete and coherent evidence that provides some form of resolution, looking at it as sort of a starting point makes much more sense. This piece raised awareness for certain issues with stereotyping and inequality in the media. Now that observations with some statistics have been made, each individual coded variable can be analyzed more closely.