Give The People What They Want : An Exploratory Analysis of News Satisfaction Levels Among African Americans

This research study examines the satisfaction levels of African Americans with local television newscasts. As a qualitative study, the researcher employed the social responsibility theory and Afrocentric theory, to frame this work. Using these two theories this study sought to uncover how African Americans process, understand and make use of news offerings on their most watched television news stations. This news audience segment is vital to understand since African Americans make up a sizeable portion of the U.S. population and outside of the South tend to live in urban centers where the constant barrage of negative and crime-laden news stories about African- American criminal suspects is featured on the news each day. This study was conducted as an online national study with 166 participants (N=166), who lived in large urban centers and metropolitan areas in the United States. Among this study's findings, African Americans, like all other Americans consume the bulk of their news from television.