FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY’S FORUM ON MEDIA ETHICS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY PRESENTS IMAGES THAT INJURE: THE ETHICS OF PICTORAL STEREOTYPES IN THE MEDIA

March 9 Event Open To The Public

February 26, 2004 –Loyola Marymount University’s Forum on Media Ethics and Social Responsibility presents a special program on "Images That Injure: The Ethics of Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media" on Tuesday, March 9, at 4:30 p.m. in Ahmanson Auditorium (University Hall 1000). The Forum will feature a keynote lecture by Dr. Paul Martin Lester of California State University at Fullerton.

Lester's presentation will examine the ethical climate of stereotyping in today's media. His talk will consider the dilemmas that face news and entertainment decision makers in portraying images that accompany their stories, and will provide an assessment of harm in case examples that consider stereotyping by gender, race, ethnicity, disability, and other social markers. With a special focus on the impact of photojournalism, Lester will reflect on how stereotyped images affected decisions about American involvement in Iraq.

Lester is a professor of Communications at California State University at Fullerton. He has served as a Research Fellow at both the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and the Practical Ethics Center at the University of Montana. He is the author or editor of several books including Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media and Visual Communication Images With Messages, both in their second editions, and Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach and The Ethics of Photojournalism.

Growing from the Von der Ahe Communication and Ethics initiative, this program is one in a series of LMU's Forum on Media Ethics and Social Responsibility, and is co-sponsored by the School of Film and Television and the College of Communication and Fine Arts. The program is hosted by Lawrence Wenner, LMU's Von der Ahe Professor of Communication and Ethics, who will direct an audience question and answer session following the presentation.

The event is open to the public free of charge. Guests should enter campus at Lincoln Blvd. and LMU Drive in Westchester. Free parking is available on level P2 below University Hall. Directions: www.lmu.edu. For more information call 310.338.2992.

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