ABSTRACT

The study presented in this chapter assesses audience’s analyses of media content as part of a system of meaning making for Black youth. In particular, our focus is on male high school students: how they construct and make (non)sense of their identities in the context of friendships, family, education, community, and popular culture. We also consider the implications of this meaning-making activity for their success as adults in a White-dominated society. Our concern is with the ways the teens voice their relationships about people who are significant in their lives, as well as about the institutions, such as the media and school, that create, reinforce, or negate their everyday lives. In our analysis, we move between an ideological analysis of media content and Black identity, and the boys’ own ways of negotiating the paradox between their experiences of discrimination, alienation, and isolation and hope for their future. We begin with a discussion of ethnographic research on urban youth, bringing together several concepts important to our study: ethnic or subcultural identity, identification with dominant/mainstream values (as portrayed in the media or taught in schools), and idealism about the future. Following the discussion of theoretical and methodological considerations, we turn to our analysis of six focus groups of boys with diverse levels of academic achievement from three different high schools. We address the junctures and disjunctures between critical cultural theories of the media and Black identity and the boys’ own assessments of these same concerns. Finally, we offer some conclusions and address several implications for future studies in this area and for audience research of the media in general.