ABSTRACT
Japanese American is one of the biggest minority groups in America that is often wrong
represented in the media. The stereotypes of Japanese American in the mainstream media
include perpetual foreigner, model minority, asexual man and nice guys. These stereotypes
live in the American society and sometimes become the measure to treat Japanese American.
Ryan Higa as Japanese American YouTuber who were born and raised in America tries to
challenge these stereotypes by making videos on his YouTube channel “nigahiga”. Because
YouTube allows ordinary people to upload his own videos, the content in Ryan Higa?s videos
is based on his ideas and representation. The objective of this research is to explain how Ryan
Higa challenges the Japanese American man stereotype in the media.
This research is conducted under American Studies framework. It is also conducted under
media studies because it is involving YouTube videos as source of data. The data are taken
from Ryan?s “how-to” series in 2012-2014. There are 7 videos with duration 3 to 8 minutes.
The main data are gathered from characters, plot, setting, figure behavior, properties and
speech. The supporting data are gathered from other sources such as library books, internet
articles, journals that are related with the study and Ryan?s twitter account. The theory used
in this research is Barthes? Semiotic Theory. I also compile some Japanese American man
stereotype in analyzing the data.
The finding of this research shows that Ryan Higa challenges the Japanese American man
stereotype on his “how-to” series. He portrays himself as a challenger to the stereotypes by
acting to the opposite way of the mainstream stereotypes. His portrayals in his videos are
totally different from what media often presented. This way, the stereotype about Japanese
American can be seen from different perspective and is widely accepted in America.
Keywords: Japanese American, stereotype, YouTube, representation, media studies.