Commentary by Roger Martin Martin writes about research at KU for Kansas media and in a webzine. Contact Martin at rmartin@kucr.ku.edu or (785) 864-7239. Martin also can be heard on KANU 91.5 FM public radio Archives More articles by Roger Martin Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

Are you on TV?

by Roger Martin

OK, there's this anthropologist from Mars, see? And it's never set foot in these United States. But it's watching prime-time television. So what will it conclude about the makeup of our country?

1. That there are darned few kids under 13.

2. That elders over 65 are scarce as hen's teeth.

3. That more than a third of us are 25 to 34 years old.

4. That more middle-aged white guys are running around down here than actually are.

5. That most of our women are about 10 years younger than most of our men.

6. That there are few Asians and Latinos among us -- despite the fact that as segments of our population, they're growing rapidly.

Our Martian would get an accurate picture of the ratio of blacks to other races in the population -- but would discover that black people on TV are confined to relatively few shows.

Jake Harwood, a University of Kansas associate professor of communication studies, and graduate student Karen Anderson came up with these findings. They counted exactly who showed up on one episode of each of the 61 prime-time TV programs that ran between 7 and 10 p.m. Central time on the four major networks in 1999.

On the shows, folks over 65 were the most massively underrepresented group -- they're 12.6 percent of the actual population but only 2.8 percent of the TV characters. Tykes under 4 are 6.9 percent of the population but less than half a percent of the TV characters.

Meanwhile, the 25- to 34-year-old age group, which makes up only 13.6 percent of the population, constitutes 35.9 percent of the folks on prime-time programs.

In TV land, people stick with their own kind, Harwood notes. There were 95 African Americans among the 800-plus characters he counted -- but 50 percent of those were in just seven shows.

"You get some really sophisticated black characters, like the doctor in 'ER,' and then you get buffoonish stereotypes -- almost reactionary portrayals -- in many shows," Harwood said. "There are few average black characters -- the Cosby family kind of thing -- right now."

One response is to say, Well, it's just TV after all -- a funhouse mirror warped by advertisers' frenzy to court certain markets.

Harwood replies, "If I were an Asian woman in my 50s, and I turned on TV and never saw anybody who shared my basic characteristics, I think that would start to register. My feelings of pride in my cultural heritage or age group might be dampened."

If he were czar of television, what would he mandate?

First, that shows would contain complex, fully realized children and adults. He praised the program "Home Improvement" for doing that.

Harwood also said, "If you could get well-developed white and black characters on the same show, you could get both groups watching and still make a profit."

And if folks actually saw much of that on TV, you might even get actual black and white people in actual living rooms talking about things that matter to all of them.

Just imagine.