Adolescent Perceptions of Black-Oriented Media: "The Day Beyoncé Turned Black"

Black-oriented media, content with predominately Black casts and/or racial themes, is marketed primarily toward Black audiences. However, how audiences perceive such targeting is unclear. To investigate this, Black and White adolescents (n=1,990) identified the perceived target audiences of 15 movies (12 Black-oriented). Results from Item Response Theory and multiple regression suggest that Black adolescents, especially those with strong ethnic identity, differentiate Black-oriented from mainstream movies. Black adolescents report higher exposure to Black-oriented films, particularly if they perceive such films as targeted to Black audiences. White adolescents find it more difficult to identify Black-oriented films. This suggests that Black-oriented films might be successfully marketed beyond Black audiences.

Black adolescent audiences perceive Black-oriented media to be targeted toward them, especially those who have strong ethnic identity.White adolescent audiences generally perceive Black-oriented media to be targeted toward anyone.Black-oriented content may find greater mainstream marketing success if advertisers target both Black and White audiences.