ex(PR)essed

See the young lady in this picture? I want to introduce you to her. I want you to remember where you “met” her because she is taking the world by storm. Someday when she’s a well-respected, change-affecting social justice attorney, you’ll remember that you met her here at ex(pr)essed.

Meet Marissa. She was a work study student here in the public relations office for three semesters. I had the privilege of working with her for two of those semesters. Yesterday afternoon I had the sheer pleasure of hearing her unpack her well-researched, fascinating study of media representation of African-Americans on television. Her presentation, part of the Humanities Symposium, was titled “Media and Cross-Cultural Representations in the United States.” She showed numerous clips — music videos, television dramas, comedians, and news casts — to prove her theory that people’s perceptions of African-Americans are affected by how they see them represented on television. I thought her most interesting point was this: simply increasing the number of representations of African-Americans (or any minority group, for that case) in the media is meaningless. We must consider how those African-Americans are being represented. Is it just another stereotypical portrayal? She made me think.

Marissa’s days at Messiah have ended. She finished early and is spending this spring interning at a public relations office and awaiting her many acceptance letters to law schools that would be fortunate to have her as a student.

On an entirely different note, I must tell you that the public relations office is abuzz this morning with some exciting news — The Police are bringing their reunion tour to Hershey in July! (I know…not exactly the kind of news you were probably expecting, but, you must admit, this is HUGE!)