Imagine seeing countless images in the mass media about a group you to which belong, and imagine believing those images present a distorted picture of your group to the world.

Minorities have historically found themselves presented in a stereotypical and non-representative way, said Stephen Coon associate professor of journalism and mass communication.

Next semester, Coon will teach a new undergraduate course that examines how minority images are portrayed in the U. S. media and how closely those images reflect reality. The course will satisfy multicultural course requirements.

“Minorities and the Media” is based on a graduate seminar that Coon taught two years ago. Margaret Pitiris, a graduate student in journalism and mass communication, attended the 1994 class.

“It was one of the most useful courses I undertook at Iowa State. I have nothing but high praise for Steve,” Pitiris said.

“At the time, I was president of the government of the student body, and it helped me in that role. It also helped me as a future journalist in public relations, in terms of how I would try to change things,” she said.

Coon said he has three primary goals for the course.

The first is to help the class understand some of the basic issues of minority media coverage. “What is it that the media are doing, why are the media covering stories that way, are things changing?” Coon said.

Second, and perhaps even more important, is to make every potential future reporter or consumer of news more overtly conscious and aware of their news selections and interpretations, he said.

Coon said the class should help students who plan to work in the mainstream media discover what ” … they can do to make sure that previously under-represented sub-sectors of our society are given greater exposure in a more balanced manner.”

Third, the class will talk about the previously unreported minority media. “The role those particular media publications play, how well they meet the concerns of their constituencies and what’s the future for the mass media in that regard,” he said.

“I think the mainstream media in the United States still is plagued with a tendency to reveal minorities in stereotypes, and frequently [in] stereotypical images that the mainstream media themselves are not aware of … until those particular stereotypes are brought to their attention, and increasingly by minority employees working within those media,” Coon said.

“Stephen Coon is a professor that is actually involved with minorities at Iowa State so he brings a really interesting perspective to the class,” Pitiris said.

She said he brings in Hispanic-American students and does mentoring of various students. “It’s not something that he has to do, it’s something that he volunteers to do,” she said.

Coon said he hopes for an enrollment with diverse ethnic groups and majors represented. “Out of that exchange, all of us will learn a lot. Everyone can learn from everyone else.”

“Whoever’s going to take this course, regardless if the person is a major in advertising or marketing, or whatever the major, this is a very worthwhile class,” Pitiris said.

She said Coon has done an incredible amount of research on minorities in the media.

Coon said he is presently working on video documentaries tracing the arrival of Hispanics in Iowa from Mexico, and doing oral histories of some of Iowa’s elderly Hispanic residents, recording what life was like growing up in Iowa.

The course, “Minorities and the Media,” JlMC 477X, will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:40-2:00 p.m. Reference No. 5651005, Sec. 1A for department majors, No. 5651010, Sec. 1B for all other majors. Six credits of social science are required.