“Fixing”; stereotypes in news photos: A synergistic approach with the Los Angeles times

thnic, gender, and age stereotypes have been identified as a problem in the news media for at least the past five decades. An abundance of scholarly studies on this topic can attest to the magnitude and seriousness of this problem. In our review of the literature on this topic we noticed that the majority of these studies have employed i content analysis as a way of describing how individuals are i depicted in the mass media. In fact, content analysis has 6—si! been cited as a necessary first step to understanding the "lay of the land" before the problem of stereotyping can be "fixed. " Perhaps this is why scholars have called for more content analyses on mediated depictions. Although we agree that content analysis is a useful, even essential, tool for understanding media content, we disagree with the manner in which many past content analyses have been carried out. In the first place, we do not believe the problem of stereotyping can be "fixed" unless the individuals who make content decisions are included in the "fixing" process. Not only would this input be valuable from a conceptual standpoint, it could engage and benefit the people actually responsible for delivering the news—the editors, reporters, and photographers. This involvement may, in turn, inspire these individuals to be aware of and guard against using ethnic, gender, and age stereotypes when reporting the news. The end result could be better, less biased coverage for news consumers. Rodgers, Thorson, and Antecol have argued, that content analysis can be a useful prescriptive method, to "diagnose" and "treat" stereotyping problems, if used in this manner. To that end, a group of individuals at the Missouri School of Journalism teamed up with top executives, editors, reporters, and photographers at the Los Angeles Times to discuss how a content analysis might be used to better understand and, perhaps improve, the content of one of the nation's great newspapers. We then used this input to develop a series of content analyses that tapped into relevant topics of interest and concern. Among the series undertaken was a content analysis of news photographs, the focus of the current research. One of the biggest concerns expressed during the initial meetings in L.A. was a need to understand how individuals of differing genders, ages, and ethnicities are portrayed in Times' photographs. Initially, the Times asked us to compare adult, Caucasian males, a group thought to dominate the news pages, against other subgroups, such as minorities, females, children, teens, and seniors. Once the initial study established the "lay of the land," follow-up content analyses would then be undertaken to probe other important issues, such as the visual display of health and crime news. The current research, however, will focus solely on findings from the initial content analysis, leaving follow-up analyses for future discussions. We should point out that the literature on stereotypes had informed us, prior to our initial visit to L.A. Not only was this body of literature critical for understanding stereotyping patterns, we found it provided a broad and well-developed framework on which to base our suggestions and recommendations to the Times. In short, Times' executives asked us to do what researchers have been doing for decades—analyze news content in an "unbiased," systematic fashion. Only this time we were equipped with "insider" information that helped us provide findings that were directly useful and relevant to the Times. What resulted was an exciting, synergistic relationship between practitioners and academics, working together to attempt fundamental changes in the news process. The Importance of News Photos. With few exceptions, researchers have found that photos are one of the first items on a news page to catch the reader's eye, and may be noticed even when the accompanying story is not read. Photographs help readers judge and make sense of the news stories to which they associate. In fact, public criticism of inappropriate use of photos can attest to the importance consumers place on the details found in news photographs. Thus, it stands to reason that the content of news photographs is at least as important as the stories themselves. Given the "flat" circulation numbers and declining profits in recent years at the Times,^ analyzing photo content has obvious practical significance for the Times. Critics have argued that one reason women and minorities are dropping newspaper subscriptions in such large numbers is because of stereotyped content. Knowing how various gender, age, and ethnic groups are represented in Times' photos would inform executives about changes needed to remedy and guard against possible stereotyping or bias, possibly even adding to the bottomline. Overview of Past Studies. Because our emphasis here is a synergistic approach to content analysis, we will only briefly highlight relevant stereotyping patterns identified in media content. First, we defined bias as an inequality of recognition. This just means that, proportionally speaking, one group did not receive as much coverage as another. A stereotype was defined as an oversimplified opinion, and can be identified by examining the "dispersion" of a particular subgroup across the category of interest. If we find that a particular group mostly appears within one category (e.g., African Americans as athletes), then we typically conclude that an oversimplification has occurred and, subsequently, a stereotype is present. In general, studies have found a bias toward Caucasian, adult males, who tend to outnumber females and all other ages and ethnicities depicted in news photos. Stereotyped representations have been identified for females, and various age and ethnic groups. One pattern that has been shown consistently across studies is that males tend to be more evenly dispersed than females across topic and occupation categories, with females appearing more frequently in stereotyped occupations and topics (e.g., nurse, secretary, homemaker; human interest, health, social issues). Although fewer in number, studies on age stereotypes typically have found that adults outnumber all other age groups depicted in