Page 75 - Middle Georgia State University - Knighted 2019

other media outlet. However, blacks and Latinos were unaffected, and crime-related television
drama elevated perceptions of crime among African Americans, while no one else was affected.

Purpose
It is a known fact that race is disproportionately represented in television and film. It is
also known that on the off chance that an underrepresented race is depicted, it is often in negative
light. Stereotypes are nearly a staple of television. This Is Us was chosen due to its large
following as well as its status as an award-winning television program. Therefore, the purpose of
this project is to A) find how proportionately race is represented in This Is Us, and B), find how
this show depicts different races of people through its characters.

Methodology
To answer these questions, a content analysis was designed that would identify items of
interest based on a viewer’s initial interaction with a character. The surveyor viewed the first
three episodes of This Is Us in order to find how these characters are initially portrayed to the
audience and focused on characters with pertinent speaking roles. Each character’s race was
identified, then their character’s moral portrayal, their perceived class, and finally any history of
drug or alcohol use. Each character’s profile survey was broken down onto a multiple-choice
questionnaire as shown below.

Race: E) White
A) American Indian or Native Alaskan F) N/A
B) Asian Character Moral Portrayal:
C) Black or African American
D) Hispanic or Latino A) “Good Guy”
B) “Bad Guy”

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