Session 2: Sex and Race in Prime Time: Five Decades of Research -- Featured Speaker: Nancy Signorielli, University of Delaware
Dr. Signorielli will discuss the trajectory of her career, with an emphasis on examining images relating to sex and race in prime time dramatic programs broadcast from the 1970s to 2013. Using data collected as part of the Cultural Indicators project as well as data she collected between the mid-1990s and 2013, she will examine trends in portrayals looking particularly at patterns of under- and/or over-representation. The analyses will focus on sex and race in relation to age, marital status and occupations, again looking at patterns of representation. Using Cultivation Analysis and theory as the overarching theoretical focus, she will also explore what we know about how these images influence viewers' conceptions of social reality.
Beginning with her dissertation research, an in-depth methodological examination of television characters, Nancy Signorielli has conducted research on images in the media and how these images are related to people's conceptions of social reality (cultivation analysis) for the past 50 years. An original member of the Cultural Indicators Research Team, Signorielli published one of the first (and frequently cited) studies of characterizations on television ("Patterns in Prime Time," Journal of Communication, 1974). A prolific researcher, she has written and/or edited seven single- and co-authored books, more than 90 journal articles and book chapters, has made over 150 conference presentations at invitational conferences as well as the annual conferences of the discipline's major organizations, and has testified at the House Energy and Commerce committee's subcommittee on telecommunications and finance oversight hearing on television violence and its impact on children. She received the BEA's Distinguished Scholar Award in 2010, and was named a Centennial Scholar of the Eastern Communication Association in 2009. Her current research includes examinations of portrayals of aging, sex roles, occupations, minorities, and violence on prime time network television and children's programs.
Featured Speaker: Nancy Signorielli, University of Delaware
Moderator: Susan L. Brinson, Auburn University