Say it Loud! African American Audiences, Media and Identity, edited by Robin R. Means Coleman is an up to date (published in 2002) examination of African American audiences and their response to how the various media (TV, movies, music, radio, comics, print, cyberspace) present Black identity. The ten essays in the book (including one by Coleman), reveal how African Americans are treated in all media, and ôhow such media treatments impact upon, and play a role in, African AmericansÆ livesùsocial formation, the meaning making of reality, and power relationsö (2). The bookÆs title comes from the famous James Brown song, ôSay it Loud, IÆm Black and IÆm proud.ö
Coleman has solid credentials for a book of this scope, as an African American writer and scholar. She is an Assistant Professor at New York UniversityÆs Department of Culture and Communication, and has authored books and articles on African American culture and the media.
A major concern of ColemanÆs is the lack of diversity in the images of African American culture shown on television and other media. Coleman criticizes entertainment coverage and news stories because they discuss ôBlack representations and reception in terms of fixed and unchanging images, characters and situationsö (viii). Another notion is the social context of meaning making. As pointed out in Celeste A. FisherÆs essay, ôAmericaÆs Worst Nightmare,ö meaning is not constructed in a vacuum of isolation but through the interplay of individuals and their cultural contextsö (247).
Although dealing with popular mass culture, the bookÆs tone is scholarly, and the theoretical and methodological frame of the book is based on sociological theory. Many of the essays deal with race theory, film theory, gender theory and media theory. Coleman is influenced by Stuart HallÆs theory of ôhegemonically preferred meanings,ö and how it can be used to discover the impact of cultural forms on ôide...