Body Beautiful: Deconstructing Media Messages [05/19/2008]

by Judi Jetson

In a project funded by the USF Collaborative Faculty Grant Program, a collaboration among USF’s Department of Special Education, College of Visual and Performing Arts and Carl Sagan Academy, conducted a participatory action research project engage African American girls in examining media messages. Performance was the way the girls shared their findings.

Four of the girls identified hip hop music as a topic to study. Although most felt that there was little impact on girls who listen to this music, the group decided to conduct their own research. The twelve and thirteen year old girls developed a research agenda which included interviewing students and faculty at USF. Then, they came to the USF campus and approached students from all backgrounds to find out more about various opinions of hip hop.

Then, they met with four African American female professors at the College of Education to discuss the impact of hip hop music on young women of color. Through shared dialogue they gathered information, including one professor’s comment, “If all a person knows about people of color is what they see in videos, what do you think they are going to assume about you when they meet you?” The ideas shared caused the girls to rethink their former opinion about messages in music because the thought that they might be stereotyped as a result of videos or song lyrics had not occurred to them.

The work of each group culminated in two performances consisting of skits, public service announcements and poems. The first was shared with the community at the school site. The second was held at the Black Box Theatre on the USF campus and delivered to a standing room only audience comprised of families, students and supporters of these young women. In addition, clips from the interviews at USF were shared and audience members were invited to respond to questions as well as pose their own to the ladies.

For more information on the project and outcomes, please contact Professor Patty McHatton, USF College of Education, (813)974-9595 or mchatton@coedu.usf.edu.