Week 3 Summary article An examination of the portrayal of race and sexuality in music videos
Introduction
●This paper describes results from two quantitative content analyses of 140 music videos collected from
five popular U.S. cable television stations to foster a better understanding of the ways race relates to
differences in sexual content and sex role stereotyping in music videos.
●Social cognitive theory provides a theoretical foundation for the studies’ findings and directs attention
to content most likely to be modeled by certain groups of young music video viewers.
●The popularization of the music video is one of the most significant developments from the 1980s and
1990s cable television proliferation and it remains a prominent and important televised format today.
●Social cognitive theory main thrust is that humans can learn vicariously through the observation of
actions taken by others, called models in SCT.
●Bandura argues that television and other visual media are particularly influential modeling agents
because of their vast popularity and their disinhibitory powers. Bandura suggests that televisions and
other media obscure and distort the relationship between actions taken and the effects they cause.
●Television contributes to psychosocial sex role development by influencing adolescents’
understanding of their own gender identity through portrayals of their respective sexes acting in a larger
society.
●The focus of the current study is on attentional processes and motivational processes, two of the four
subfunctions that govern observational learning.
●Attentional processes suggest that for a mediated model to have a legitimate chance at gaining the
attention of a potential attendee, that model must be salient, striking, conspicuous, and/or prominent.
●In addition to a model’s prominence, video producers gain young people’s attention by making the
models (muscisians and performers) attractive.
Do sexualized music videos have effects on young viewers?
●Watching violent and sexist music videos not only affect young people’s view of overt sexual and
violent attitudes and behaviours but can also affect viewers’ more subtle attitudes towards their own
gender’s sex roles as well as those of their partners in intimate relationships.
●Specifically, past research has shown that even brief exposure to particularly sexualized and gener-
stereotyped images in music videos can lead to liberal sexual attitudes.
Study 1
●Past music video content analyses have shown that typically African American genres tend to feature
increased levels of sex when compared to typically white genres.
●H1: African American music videos will feature significantly more sexual content than white music
videos.
●H2a: African American regular characters will be significantly more likely to dress in provocative
clothing than white regular characters in music videos.
●H2b: African American background characters will be significantly more likely to dress in provocative
clothing than white background characters in music videos.
●Of the six musical genres, videos that mixed Rap and R&B displayed sexual content the mot frequently,
followed by R&B itself and rap by itself. Country videos depicted sexual content least often, followed by
Rock and Pop.
Introduction
●This paper describes results from two quantitative content analyses of 140 music videos collected from
five popular U.S. cable television stations to foster a better understanding of the ways race relates to
differences in sexual content and sex role stereotyping in music videos.
●Social cognitive theory provides a theoretical foundation for the studies’ findings and directs attention
to content most likely to be modeled by certain groups of young music video viewers.
●The popularization of the music video is one of the most significant developments from the 1980s and
1990s cable television proliferation and it remains a prominent and important televised format today.
●Social cognitive theory main thrust is that humans can learn vicariously through the observation of
actions taken by others, called models in SCT.
●Bandura argues that television and other visual media are particularly influential modeling agents
because of their vast popularity and their disinhibitory powers. Bandura suggests that televisions and
other media obscure and distort the relationship between actions taken and the effects they cause.
●Television contributes to psychosocial sex role development by influencing adolescents’
understanding of their own gender identity through portrayals of their respective sexes acting in a larger
society.
●The focus of the current study is on attentional processes and motivational processes, two of the four
subfunctions that govern observational learning.
●Attentional processes suggest that for a mediated model to have a legitimate chance at gaining the
attention of a potential attendee, that model must be salient, striking, conspicuous, and/or prominent.
●In addition to a model’s prominence, video producers gain young people’s attention by making the
models (muscisians and performers) attractive.
Do sexualized music videos have effects on young viewers?
●Watching violent and sexist music videos not only affect young people’s view of overt sexual and
violent attitudes and behaviours but can also affect viewers’ more subtle attitudes towards their own
gender’s sex roles as well as those of their partners in intimate relationships.
●Specifically, past research has shown that even brief exposure to particularly sexualized and gener-
stereotyped images in music videos can lead to liberal sexual attitudes.
Study 1
●Past music video content analyses have shown that typically African American genres tend to feature
increased levels of sex when compared to typically white genres.
●H1: African American music videos will feature significantly more sexual content than white music
videos.
●H2a: African American regular characters will be significantly more likely to dress in provocative
clothing than white regular characters in music videos.
●H2b: African American background characters will be significantly more likely to dress in provocative
clothing than white background characters in music videos.
●Of the six musical genres, videos that mixed Rap and R&B displayed sexual content the mot frequently,
followed by R&B itself and rap by itself. Country videos depicted sexual content least often, followed by
Rock and Pop.
