Weaver wins racial justice award to study diversity in casting
Associate professor Andrew Weaver will use a $2,000 grant from the Communication Science Racial Justice Fund to study audience reactions to diversity in casting.
Weaver is the inaugural awardee of the fund, which was created by The Media School’s Communication Science unit to provide financial support to its faculty as they pursue research to promote racial justice.
Weaver’s study will build on his previous research, which has found that white audiences’ interests in watching films with Black casts is related to their perceptions of the films’ intended audiences, which can be influenced by marketing.
Media School students Donna Johnson, Kate Stewart, Andrea Vidaurre and Martha Manges, as well as informatics student Michaela Krawczyk and cognitive science student Maira Emerenciano, are working with Weaver to develop his experiments.