In recent months, a debate between advocacy groups, television critics, and media executives has begun to take shape around issues of diversity on television. The organization's examination of 26 new fall programs revealed no people of color in any starring roles. At the beginning of this century, a few networks have begun to outline their long-term plans for increased diversity. However, a thorough examination must reach beyond numbers to analyze such substantive issues as the types of roles that people of color inhabit, the ways in which their characters are developed, and the story-lines in which they appear. Both the quantitative and qualitative components of Fall Colors will provide substantial added value to academics, advocates, and the television industry as an assessment tool that measures progress on diversity from year to year and over time.
TV programming is central to American culture.
For better or worse, its relentless images and messages shape our belief systems about ourselves and the world around us. Now is the time to look critically and carefully at how and whether our diverse nation is reflected on television. It matters to every segment of the audience, but particularly to the youngest and most impressionable consumers of mass media.