The invisible model minority : images of Koreans on American TV

There is a growing literature on how television employs stereotypes especially about ethnic minorities. But these studies investigating audience impact of negative images on TV have relatively excluded Korean-Americans, one of the largest Asian-American ethnic minority groups. To answer this need and to further examine the axioms of cultivation theory, this study assessed how American students in a Midwestern land grant university perceive images of Korean-Americans on TV. A stratified cluster sampling of students attending 1997 summer classes at Iowa State University was surveyed. Results did not lend support to the cultivation hypothesis: subjects simply did not ascribe stereotypical television portrayals of Korean-American characters to their perceptions of real-life Korean-Americans. Respondents\u27 perceptions were also not affected by the amount of time they spent watching television, face-to-face contact or interpersonal relationship with a real Korean-American, nor by their area of residence (whether urban or rural)