Brooks Joins National Research Project on Network Diversity

Faherty Laboratory Co-Coordinator Dwight Brooks has been invited to join a national initiative to study racial diversity in entertainment television. The project, which as been given pilot funding by the Ford Foundation, will bring together media scholars and television executives/managers to address policy issues regarding racial diversity in entertainment television.

The project grant project is is titled: "Media Policy, Entertainment TV and 'Race': Interrogating the Prospects for Change."

The project team expects to examine a number of topics dealing with diversity and network television including the following:

• *The role of academics in improving the representation of "people of color" in entertainment television
• *The impact of the tension between art vs. business in entertainment TV
• *The impact of diversity in employment and creative and decision-making roles
• *The role and impact of advocacy groups such as NCLR, NAACP, etc.
• *The impact and role of ethnic minority caucuses in the industry guilds

The Ford Foundation has funded two preliminary meetings of the project team. One will be held in Austin, Texas, in February and a second is schedule in Los Angeles later in the Spring.

Based on these two meetings the group will submit a final proposal to the Ford Foundation for long-term funding.

The project is headed by Professor John H. Downing of the University of Texas and includes Horace Newcomb, UGA Professor and Peabody Awards Director; S. Craig Watkins, Professor, University of Texas and fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University; Chon Noriega, professor, UCLA Department of Film Television and Digital Media and Associate Director of the university's Chicano Research Center; Herman Gray, professor at University of California at Santa Cruz; and Darnell Hunt, professor at University of Southern California.

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