Media Effects On African-American Girls

When I was growing up, my father never allowed me to listen to a lot of rap music. Instead, he exposed me to other types of music, even music that was not in English. I found the topic of how music affects people to be interesting because I never truly understood why I was not allowed to listen to certain types of music. In “Media literacy and perceptions of identity among pre-adolescent African-American girls”, Johari Harris, Miles Irving, PhD and Ann C Kruger, PhD take interviews of 8 young girls attending an elementary school in a 6-week program called “Project Prevent”. This program is an attempt at helping young African American girls develop critical thinking, as well as positive coping habits. This study is to see how the impact of sexually explicit media content has affected the thoughts and beliefs of preadolescent African-American girls. This study discusses critical sociology and how these girls are aware of how the world sees them. The researchers came up with “project prevent” in order to find ways to help young African-American girls in order to lower the high rates of sexual exploitation of adolescent

Family seemed to play the same role, as a support system for the girls and the girls seemed to have a parent to discuss topics such as, fighting and dating. For example, “Taylor” said her mother told her this when talking about having a boyfriend, “She tells me what should be on your mind is good grades. My mom said I have to be 13 to be in a relationship. A real boyfriend is someone who respects girls.” (pg. 480-481). The other girls said similar things on this topic. On sexual awareness, the girls already were aware how the way one dresses changes how boys perceive a girl. They were even able to perceive the hierocracy of rappers talking extremely low of women in their songs but having supposedly healthy relationships with