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Jones’ comments reflect a general consensus among TV critics and viewers that: 1) the black women who command the most attention on reality television tend to portray stereotypical, Sapphire-like characters; 2) as audiences consume such portrayals, there is a consistent line of argument from producers that insists “pitting [black women] against each other” is expected or “what the people want;” and 3) black female reality TV stars are willing to indulge the Sapphire fantasy if it means they will be able to further a personal and/or professional agenda. These are important themes to interrogate, especially given the history of mass mediated representations of black Americans, as well as the present-day “evolution” of black characters and other characters of color on unscripted and scripted American television. However, because attention is primarily focused on arguably “negative” portrayals, there has not been much critical analysis of “alternative” or more nuanced portrayals of black women in the televisual sphere. This chapter represents an attempt to fill in some of that blank space by focusing attention on an underexplored and relatively new consortium of reality television programming that features black women who are defined by their roles as mothers and entrepreneurs.

The display of spirituality, faith and religion is not a new phenomenon among black women in the United States, nor is it new to the world of media. Africans came to the Americas with their own sense of spirituality and religion, and the awareness of a higher being became the mortar that bound the community together during the trials of enslavement and subsequent oppression. Not surprisingly, this legacy of worship continues to provide solace and strength, with black women at the helm.

It is near impossible to have a discussion of black women in reality television without mentioning the infamous Angry Black Woman (ABW). In fact, some critiques have argued reality television is damaging for black women since many shows focus heavily on this character. 1 This stereotypical characterization of black women is long-standing, due largely to its constant inclusion in media messages. As noted in chapter one, audiences were first officially introduced to her in the 1920s as Sapphire Stevens from the Amos ‘n’ Andy Show ; and her character continued to resurface throughout the years, across several different genres. Despite the many time periods through which this image has traveled, the key characteristic of the Sapphire— her unexplainable anger and aggression— seem to resonate in many modern day images of black women.

Reality programs rose to prominence based on claims that the shows depicted “real life,” but in recent years many shows have come under fire for being anything but “reality.” Orbe (1998) suggests viewers are drawn to such programs based on the notion that they show “real people in everyday interactions,” and there is a certain level of “unpredictability that comes with reality.” However, what has become predictable and potentially problematic, over the past two decades, are the negative stereotypes associated with African American women on these programs. This skewing of reality is particularly significant when we consider the limited opportunities these shows provide viewers to witness the many facets of black womanhood. From the head-bobbing and finger-waving of Alicia Calaway on season two of the hit show Survivor to the on-and-off-air mudslinging between Kenya Moore and NeNe Leakes of Real Housewives of Atlanta fame, black women are portrayed as disloyal, bitchy, lazy, difficult to work with, and a threat to others.

Although African-American women are still underrepresented in narrative television, reality television appears to be a site where one can find many portrayals of them. As other scholars have explained, the representations of African American women in reality television are usually negative, generally presenting them as loud, angry, and without “class.” However, there has been little research on the complicated relationships of black motherhood, black wifehood, and their portrayals on reality television. One black mother who illustrates this tense interaction is Tameka “Tiny” Harris, nee Cottle, formerly of the 1990s girl group Xscape, and star of two reality television programs— BET’s Tiny & Toya , and VH1’s T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle . Though both programs prominently feature Cottle, BET’s program constructs Tiny as an emotionally strong and pragmatically capable business woman who maintains the emotional health and financial stability of her family while her relational partner/husband, rapper Tip “T.I.” Harris, is serving time in prison. However, upon T.I.’s return home, The Family Hustle presents Tiny as having little business savvy and as overly permissive with their blended family. This is a dangerous portrayal, given that reality TV purports to disseminate some version of “reality” to its viewers.

Tyra Banks, supermodel and producer, is the creator of the reality show America’s Next Top Model ( ANTM ), which is now in its twenty-second cycle, and features contestants who present themselves to a panel of judges for modeling critique. ANTM has been nominated for twenty-nine awards, including the GLAAD Media Award and Image Award, and the show has received five awards in 2009 from the Teen Choice Award and the Director’s Guild of America Award. Further, ANTM is currently shown in over 120 countries. The winner of each cycle receives a featured spread in a magazine, a modeling contract with a prominent agency, and a $100,000 modeling contract from a cosmetics company. In 2005, however, there was an infamous episode— dubbed the “Tyra Tyrade,” —where Tyra Banks yelled at a contestant whom she had just eliminated from the show. This episode was parodied more than any other ANTM episode, with the penultimate parody shown on a 2007 episode of Family Guy (a primetime cartoon television show with millions of viewers each week), where Tyra turns into a lizard and eats the model. While this episode is now nine years old, parodies from as recently as 2014 continue to live on and, as we argue, perpetuate negative stereotypes of black womanhood, particularly as related to the Sapphire mediated stereotype— loud, bossy, angry black woman. From the various interpretations of the “Tyra Tyrade,” it is clear that those who created the parodies covertly and overtly ventured into maintaining white supremacist stereotypes of black womanhood— where one is supposed to be beautiful, a jezebel, or a mammy, but not a Sapphire. Continuing the marginalizing mediated tradition, in almost every parody, the Tyra character becomes the object of ridicule for being “excessively black” and outside the parameters of her hegemonically prescribed role, because she demonstrated negative emotions resulting in an assertion of her power as the expert.

An old adage prescribed that “art imitates life.” If one believes this to be true, then it is plausible that entertainment is a source from which information about everyday life can be gleaned? Can U.S. television shows provide a looking glass into how Americans perform certain aspects of their lives? For a “real” look into how careers are performed, I have examined content from a reality television show which bears a title that implies something about the cast— the Bravo Network’s Real Housewives of Atlanta series. This show was chosen for two reasons. First, The Real Housewives of Atlanta is the most popular show among the “Housewives” franchise. Thus with each airing of the show, those who watch have the opportunity to learn more about the career aspirations, roles, and behaviors, of the cast members. Second, this is the only show within The Real Housewives franchise that features a primarily black cast. As such, the question emerges— can this show provide insight into the way black women construct their career roles? Another goal of this study is to determine how cast members construct notions of housewifery. Hence, throughout this chapter, readers will see that these women are not the typical “housewives,” rather they have reinvented what it means to be a housewife in the modern age.

The premise of the show revolves around six preachers in the Los Angeles area. They each pastor churches ranging from 3,500– 4,000 members; however, one pastor’s church has nearly 20,000 members (season 1: episode 1). A multitude of cameras follow the stories of each of the pastors’ lives, their relationships with each other, as well as their wives relationships with one another. The show has five black male preachers and one white male preacher. In season 1, all of the pastors— except for two— are married; one of the unmarried pastors is engaged to the mother of his child, and the other has a long-standing relationship with a female friend who frequently appears on the show. As viewers watch the show, they are given a glimpse into the world of evangelical preachers. Although at first glance the show seems to only focus on the men, the women provide an interesting glimpse at what it means to be a preacher’s wife, fiancée, or female companion. There were a total of eight episodes that aired over the course of two months. This chapter explores how black women and their friendships are portrayed on Preachers of L.A. — including the one white woman on the show. It also examines their discourse between one another— using critical race feminism to analyze the roles of these women as first ladies (a term used to describe the wives of pastors), their relationship with one other, and the conversations they have surrounding sex, marriage, relationships, and friendships. The chapter focuses on the first season of the show, which began in the fall of 2013. The show was later renewed for a second season, which began airing late summer 2014. This critique attempts to bring awareness to black women in the church and the discourse that perpetuates the stereotypes of black women on television. It also aims to initiate further conversations on various stereotypes— regardless of context— that have the potential to bear negatively on black women.

Since Nell Shipman wrote and starred in Back to God's Country (1919), Canadian women have been making films. The accolades given to film-makers such as Patricia Rozema (I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, When Night is Falling), Alanis Obomsawin (My Name Is Kahenttiiosta, Walker), and Micheline Lanctot (Deux Actrices) at festivals throughout the world in recent years attest to the growing international recognition for films made by Canadian women. With Gendering the Nation the editors have produced a definitive collection of essays, both original and previously published, that address the impact and influence of a century of women's film-making in Canada. In dialogue with new paradigms for understanding the relationship of cinema with nation and gender, Gendering the Nation seeks to situate women's cinema through the complex optic of national culture. This collection of critical essays employs a variety of frameworks to analyse cinematic practices that range from narrative to documentary to the avant garde.

“Internet addiction” in China and elsewhere is considered a serious social problem. In China, some psychiatrists have claimed 10% of all Internet users—60 million—are potentially “addicted” to the Internet. Following on the heels of the publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), this qualitative-based research article critically investigates the new concept Internet gaming disorder, a category recently included in the DSM-5 as a condition “warranting more clinical research and experience before it might be considered for inclusion in the main book as a formal disorder.” This article takes up this challenge and responds in the following way: When we investigate the social existence of online gamers labeled Internet addicts in China, and then subject their social existence to the DSM’s own definition of a mental disorder, we discover not a clearly understood mental disorder called Internet gaming disorder but more so an issue of social deviance.

This study critically assesses the Chinese online games industry through problematizing the creativity of Chinese games. I find that between 1995 and 2001, Chinese online games were mostly developed by amateurs, noncommercial, and considerably creative. Between 2002 and 2005, industrial growth allowed some room for local creativity despite commercialization and dominance of imported games. Current scholarly, business, and media discourses unfairly ignore creativity in these first two periods and yet praise the Chinese game industry’s commercial success since the late 2000s. I challenge these discourses by illustrating that between 2006 and early 2009, a new, ethically dubious, and uniquely Chinese business model emerged, became domestically dominant, and quietly and profoundly impacted on global online game design. From mid-2009 to 2015, there is ongoing corporatization based on the dubious Chinese business model on the one hand, and a reemphasis on creativity motivated by browser and mobile game formats on the other.

Since the late 1990s, there has been a crucial and substantial transformation in China’s television system involving institutional, structural and regulatory changes. Unravelling the implications of these changes is vital for understanding the politics of Chinese media policy-making and regulation, and thus a comprehensive study of this history has never been more essential. This book studies the transformation of the policy and regulation of the Chinese television sector within a national political and economic context from 1996 to the present day. Taking a historical and sociological approach, it engages in the theoretical debates over the nature of the transformation of media in the authoritarian Chinese state; the implications of the ruling party’s political legitimacy and China’s central-local conflicts upon television policy-making and market structure; and the nature of the media modernisation process in a developing country. Its case studies include broadcasting systems in Shanghai and Guangdong, which demonstrate that varied polices and development strategies have been adopted by television stations, reflecting different local circumstances and needs. Arguing that rather than being a homogenous entity, China has demonstrated substantial local diversity and complex interactions between local, national and global media, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese media, politics and policy, and international communications.

La perspectiva de la modernidad/colonialidad provee un encuadre alternativo para los debates sobre la modernidad, la globalización y el desarrollo desde la periferia latinoamericana del sistema mundo moderno colonial. Las ideas que se exponen en el presente artículo, proporcionan un guía de lectura frente a los principales rasgos del entramado conceptual que rodea a este lugar de enunciación del conocimiento. La perspectiva modernidad/colonialidad aporta una reflexión sobre la cultura y diferentes planos de la realidad social y política, nutrida en debates académicos sustentados no desde una perspectiva intra-epistémica, como los discursos críticos europeos, sino desde la mirada de los receptores de los supuestos beneficios del mundo moderno. Se presenta así un contexto para interpretar Latinoamérica, entendida más como un espacio epistémico y de producción de conocimiento, que como una región objeto de conocimientos pre-establecidos.

"En Amérique latine comme ailleurs, la critique postcoloniale apparaît comme une condition pour le renouvellement des dialogues interculturels orientés vers la construction d'une modernité alternative, ou d'une vraie postmodernité, fondée sur une autre manière d'habiter la terre, moins dévastatrice pour la nature comme pour les humains. Reprenant d'une manière inédite la perspective ouverte au XXe siècle par des auteurs comme José Carlos Mariátegui, Alberto Flores Galindo, Pablo González Casanova ou René Zavaleta, les études postcoloniales latino-américaines contribuent à la critique d'un modèle culturel, social et politique fondé sur le clivage traditionnel entre la " civilisation " et la "barbarie". Articulée initialement par un versant de la modernité européenne qui trouvera au XVIIIe siècle une forme systématique dans l'anthropologie des Lumières (M. Duchet), cette dichotomie a été au départ la matrice idéologique de la domination coloniale européenne, et, plus tard, de celle des nouvelles élites " républicaines " attelées à la tâche de construire l'unité sociale et politique sur la base du modèle européen de l'État-nation. Au XIXe siècle et durant une bonne partie du XXe, l'unité de la "Nation" est imaginée de telle manière qu'elle implique l'exclusion de la différence culturelle dans l'espace public. Or, depuis les quatre dernières décennies, les nouvelles formes de la mobilisation indienne et la renaissance des identités afro-américaines participent à la crise des modèles identitaires établis et au surgissement, dans divers domaines du culturel et du politique, de manières inédites d'imaginer l'identité (subjective, sociale, culturelle, nationale) et d'assumer la diversité culturelle (inter-culturalité, multiculturalismes, indianisation) dans la sphère publique. Le présent ouvrage propose un aperçu des problématiques, recherches et discussions actuelles sur le postcolonial en Amérique latine, en prenant comme fil conducteur les processus de reconfiguration identitaire liés à l' " émergence indienne " et au renouveau actuel des identités afro-américaines."--Page 4 de la couverture.

Transformation and the decolonization of the curriculum, modes of teaching, and classroomare key concerns in South African Higher Education. In game design education this need is exacerbatedby the slow pace of diversification in both academia and the industry.This paper presents a close analysis of interventions undertaken into an introductory game design course to address the difficultiesof diversification across racial, genderand economic divides. The results of the interventions are assessed, and recommendations for future adjustments to the course in aid curricular decolonization is are made.

Indigenous Art New Media and the Digital convenes leading scholars, curators, and artists from the Indigenous territories in Canada, the United States of America, Australia, and Aotearoa (New Zealand). It brings forth urgent conversations about resistance to colonial modernism, and highlights the historic and ongoing use of technology by Indigenous communities and artists as vehicles of resilience and cultural continuity. This issue ignites productive dialogue around the definitions of new and digital media art and practice-based work within the framework of Indigenous art and theory