| Asian Americans are the fastest growing minority in the United States comprising nearly 3 percent of the population. This dissertation is broad in scope and studies the relationship between mass media and this important minority, including: (1) examines the scope and type of coverage afforded Asian Americans in mainstream newspapers through a content analysis of twenty leading newspapers for the year March 1, 1994 to February 28, 1995; (2) examines the opinions of Asian Americans who work in print, radio, and television media both in mainstream media and specialized Asian American media, through a survey asking their negative and positive experiences on the job as related to their ethnicity, and their opinions on how well the media cover Asian Americans; and (3) a historical examination of Asian Americans and media treatment of Asian Americans, and specialized publications serving Asian Americans.;The method is a content analysis of twenty newspapers, and a survey of 520 Asian American media professionals. Of those surveyed, five hundred are members of the Asian American Journalists Association, and twenty are editors of leading publications for Asian Americans. The content analysis searches 193 keywords and 123 names of prominent Asian Americans and produces 635 total articles on Asian Americans. The response rate of the survey is a low 19.5 percent.;The dissertation finds three strong positive correlations between: (1) percent of Asian Americans in a city's population and percent of Asian Americans working at a newspaper covering that particular city, (2) percent of Asian Americans in a city and coverage of Asian Americans by a newspaper covering that city, and (3) percent of Asian Americans working in a newsroom and coverage of Asian Americans by that newspaper. The content analysis does not find an abundance of stereotypical articles, such as gang violence or Asian Americans as the model minority, even though those surveyed predict an abundance of such articles. It also finds the most coverage to be on Asian Americans as a whole entity, followed by articles on personalities, and then on each of the five largest ethnic groups of Asian Americans, according to the U.S. Census. |
