Black Youth and Mass Media: Current Research and Emerging Questions

Young African Americans have not participated as long as their white counterparts in the media culture industry (Nightingale 1993). In truth, it is difficult to discern a substantive relationship between black youth and the mass media prior to the 1960s. The initial exclusion of blacks from popular media culture is attributable to two main factors: 1) a lack of discretionary income on the part of black youths and their families and, 2) racial exclusionary practices on the part of the culture industries. Important economic and educational advances since the 1960s have sharply increased black household and discretionary income (Farley and Allen 1987) and also help to establish a viable African American consumer culture.