Reveals how African Americans used cable television as a means of empowerment. While previous scholarship on African Americans and the media has largely focused on issues such as stereotypes and program content, Struggles for Equal Voice reveals how African Americans have utilized access to cable television production and viewership as a significant step toward achieving empowerment during the post–Civil Rights and Black Power era. In this pioneering study of two metropolitan districts—Boston and Detroit—Yuya Kiuchi paints a rich and fascinating historical account of African Americans working with municipal offices, local politicians, cable service providers, and other interested parties to realize fair African American representation and media ownership. Their success provides a useful lesson of community organizing, image production, education, and grassroots political action that remains relevant and applicable even today. 1438444796

When to Stop the Cheering? documents the close and often conflicted relationship between the black press and black baseball beginning with the first Negro professional league of substance, the Negro National League, which started in 1920, and finishing with the dissolution of the Negro American League in 1957. When to Stop the Cheering? examines the multidimensional relationship the black newspapers had with baseball, including their treatment of and relationships with baseball officials, team owners, players and fans. Over time, these relationships changed, resulting in shifts in coverage that could be described as moving from brotherhood to paternalism, then from paternalism to nostalgic tribute and even regret. [Brian_Carroll]_When_to_Stop_the_Cheering_The_Bl_BookZZ.org_

Gone is the era of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, when news programs fought to gain the trust and respect of a wide spectrum of American viewers. Today, the fastest-growing news programs and media platforms are fighting hard for increasingly narrow segments of the public and playing on old prejudices and deep-rooted fears, coloring the conversation in the blogosphere and the cable news chatter to distract from the true issues at stake. Using the same tactics once used to mobilize political parties and committed voters, they send their fans coded messages and demonize opposing groups, in the process securing valuable audience share and website traffic. Race-baiter is a term born out of this tumultuous climate, coined by the conservative media to describe a person who uses racial tensions to arouse the passion and ire of a particular demographic. Even as the election of the first black president forces us all to reevaluate how we think about race, gender, culture, and class lines, some areas of modern media are working hard to push the same old buttons of conflict and division for new purposes. In Race-Baiter, veteran journalist and media critic Eric Deggans dissects the powerful ways modern media feeds fears, prejudices, and hate, while also tracing the history of the word and its consequences, intended or otherwise. 0230341829rb

Since the start of this century, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Chad, Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda have all held pluralist elections in the aftermath of armed conflict. Organized with the support of the international community, the polls were viewed as a crucial step in peace-building. During the campaigning season and on voting day, the local media were supposed to play a critical role in ensuring that the elections were actually ‘free and fair’. Giving a voice to African journalists and analysing their work during these elections, African media specialist Marie-Soleil Frère explores whether the local media fulfilled their duty. In doing so, she reveals the challenges facing journalists at a time of intense political pressure and when much is expected from the media. Insightful and comprehensive, Elections and the Media in Post-Conflict Africa underlines both the importance and the fragility of the role of the media in a democratic system. Elections_and_the_Media