ABSTRACT
In 1989, the National Research Council (NRC), through a special Committee on the Status of Black Americans, provided a comprehensive identification and assessment of the areas in which the gaps between black and white Americans had changed since 1940. The relationship between African-Americans and the criminal justice system (CJS) had already reached a crisis stage by the late 1980s. While black people are among the most active consumers of mass media content, they differ in the extent to which they attend to, and rely on media that are targeted to African-Americans. It also seems unlikely that the mainstream media can serve as the primary medium for delivering these stories to African-Americans, or to those who might be recruited as allies within this social movement. Regina Lawrence has examined the ways in which health problems, especially obesity, have been framed within the media.
