This volume explores and clarifies the complex intersection of race and media in the contemporary United States.

Introduction: The Contours of Race and Media

(Jason A. Smith and Bhoomi K. Thakore)

Part 1: Structures and Contention

1. Failure to Communicate: The Critical Information Needs Debate

(Randy D. Abreu)

2. Courting Minority Commodity Audiences: Bounce TV in the Age of Media Conglomeration

(Leah P. Hunter and Jennifer M. Proffitt)

3. New Media & New Possibilities: The Online Engagement of Young Black Activists

(Nathan Jamel Riemer)

Part 2: Navigating Contention Behind the Scenes

4. Black, Asian, and Latino Directors in Hollywood

(Maryann Erigha)

5. Is Carlos Mencia A White Wetback?: Mediating the (E)Racing of U.S. Central Americans in the Latino Imaginary

(Maritza Cárdenas)

6. Sofía Vergara: On Media Representations of Latinidad

(Salvador Vidal-Ortiz)

7. Color-Blind Racism in Media: Mindy Kaling as an "Honorary White"

(Sheena Sood)

Part 3: Visual Representations of Contention

8. Drifting For Whiteness: Hollywood Representations of Asian Americans in the 21st Century

(John D. Foster)

9. Consuming Black Pain: Reading Racial Ideology in Cultural Appetite for 12 Years a Slave

(Jennifer C. Mueller and Rula Issa)

10. Racial Ideology in Electronic Dance Music Festival Promotional Videos

(David L. Brunsma, Nathaniel G. Chapman, and J. Slade Lellock

Part 4: Perpetuating Contentious Ideologies

11. The Rise of the Racial Reviewer, 1990-2004

(Bianca Gonzalez-Sobrino, Devon R. Goss, and Matthew W. Hughey)

12. Successful Immigrants in the News: Racialization, Color-Blind Racism, and the American Dream

(Jorge X. Ballinas)

13. Black Studies in Prime Time: Racial Expertise and the Framing of Cultural Authority

(Seneca Vaught)

14. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Muslim: Media Representations of 'Islamic Punk' through a Postcolonial Lens

(Saif Shahin)

Conclusion: Looking Ahead

(Bhoomi K. Thakore and Jason A. Smith)

Jason Smith is a PhD Candidate in Public Sociology at George Mason University, USA. Past work has been featured in the International Journal of Communication, Journal of Black Studies, International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, Sociation Today, and the edited volume Agenda for Social Justice: Solutions 2012.

Bhoomi K. Thakore will be joining Elmhurst College in Fall 2016 as Visiting Assistant Professor and Director of the Sociology Program. Her research interests broadly cover structural inequality, with particular focus on race/ethnicity/gender and media. In her forthcoming book, South Asians on the U.S. Screen: Just Like Everyone Else? (Lexington Books, 2016), she examines the ways that South Asian characters and actors in popular entertainment reinforce a racialized hierarchy on Screen and in society.