Review of Journalism and Mass Communication, 1(1), pp. 01-13.
Abstract
This article explores the ways in which newspaper editorials frame the Italian-American cast of MTV’s popular reality television, Jersey Shore. Jersey Shore debuted amid large amounts of controversy regarding the ways in which the show represents Italian-Americans. Previous researchers (Gamson, 1989; Iyengar, 1991; Entman, 1993, 2004, 2007) have approached framing analysis from a variety of perspectives. This article uses a qualitative analysis based on Entman’s (1993) approach to media framing, with the goal of understanding how editorial writers reacted to and subsequently framed the Italian- American stars of the reality show. Findings show that the frames that emerged in this study do not represent an evolution from the historical popular culture stereotypes of Italian Americans. Hence, familiar stereotypical and distorted depictions of Italian Americans (re)emerged and dominated the majority of the editorials
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Giannino, S. Steven. (2013). Guidos and Guidettes: Exploring Editorial News Media Frames of Italian-Americans on Jersey Shore. Review of Journalism and Mass Communication, 1(1), pp. 01-13.
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Steven S. Giannino is an American mass communication scholar with a focus on media and society. He is currently affiliated with Mercer County Community College teaching Gender and Communication. He completed his Masters degree at the University of Miami and will return to graduate school to pursue a PhD in 2014. Steve has several articles published exploring the intersections of media representation, race, gender and sexuality and won top paper awards at the Broadcast Education Association Annual convention in 2008 and 2010. He has also presented research at the National Communication Association convention as well as the International Communication Association convention. Steven’s research continues to focus on the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, and media.
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