The United States of America has been called a “mixing pot” since the birth of the nation. Everyone, especially politicians and educators, will proudly declare that the U.S. is a land of unmatched diversity. The U.S. seems to always be portrayed as a highly cultural territory, harboring a vast population of many races. Admittedly, the United States has come a long in terms of eliminating racial barriers and pursuing equality. All around the world, America is seen as a country of colors, yet mass media does not recognize that fact.
Racial bias is a prevalent trend in today’s media, and white people are favored in comparison to any other race. Seemingly every aspect of mass media is soaked in bias. Oftentimes, this leaves out minorities and simultaneously caters to white people. To fully comprehend the extent of racial bias in media, one must become aware of several features that play into it. This includes, but may not be limited to, societal changes in America in terms of equality and racism, why racial bias occurs, examples of where it can be found in media, who is being favored and discriminated against, affects on the general public, and how it can possibly be solved. In addition to understanding the basic concepts of racial bias in the media, it is also crucial for one to comprehend that some believe racial bias does not exist, especially in the media, and why those people believe that.
It is important to understand racism and the history of racism before one can comprehend racial bias in mass media, says Stephen Balkaran, professor of African-American studies and coordinator of the Civil Rights Project at Central Connecticut State University. “Race has become an institutional part of American society. From the Founding on...
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Nittle, N. (2012). White crime victims favored in mainstream media reports. Informally published manuscript, Maynard Institute. Retrieved from http://mije.org/mmcsi/criminal-justice/white-crime-victims-favored-mainstream-media-reports
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Schwarz, A. (2007, May 02). Study of n.b.a. sees racial bias in calling fouls. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/sports/basketball/02refs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Thurler, K., & Miller, S. (2009). A new study on racial bias and TV. Retrieved from http://www.blackradionetwork.com/new_study_on_racial_bias_and_tv
(2004). Bias in the media. Think On Journalism, Retrieved from http://www.jour.unr.edu/think/bias.html
Gender and Race play the most prominent role in the criminal justice system. As seen in the movie Central Park 5, five African American boys were charged with the rape of the a white women. In class decision we’ve discussed how the media explodes when it reports cross-racial crimes. The Central Park 5 were known everywhere and even terms were being made up during the process such as wilding. Also, during one of the class discussions it was brought up that victims of crime are of the same race of the perpetrator. However, the media likes to sensationalize crime of the victim being of a different race, because it makes for a good story. By doing this, the media does create more of a division of race. As seen in the video Donald Trump was trying
The mass media being one of the greatest influencers of public perceptions, their false portrayal of black males significantly impacts how the public perceives and behaves toward them, how black males see themselves as well as their the opportunities and achievements. But the mass media canbe part of the solution. Of course, the responsibility is not the media’s alone. But the media, as the public looking glass, can and should show the full spectrum of the lives of black men and boys.
First, I will discuss the influences of different definitions of diversity in cultural unification. The major problem concerning this issue is that many people differ in the real meaning of the concept and how they view their personal involvement. Brook argues that “we do not really care about diversity all that much in America, even though we talk about it a great deal” (306). However, they are the general, erroneous interpretations of diversity that are really creating this wrong image of indifference. According to Kira Hudson Banks in her research entitled “A Qualitative Investigation of Students’ Perceptions of Diversity,” many people defined diversity as race and do not include other types of diversity (153).
Network news appears to convey more stereotyped impressions, a narrower range of positive roles for blacks than for whites. Representations of whites in network news are more varied and more positive than of blacks, not because of conscious bias, but because of the way conventional journalistic norms and practices interact with political and social reality. The findings raise questions about the journalist ability to represent the reality of black America while adhering to the professional practices that currently shape network news. Mainstream news portrayed African American as criminals, homeless beggars, welfare queens, ghetto-dwelling gang members, or drug addicts in American Society. Perpetuation of young black men as dangerous has been planted in the mind of American society not only by words and images projected by journalists but also in the mainstream news especially. Television particularly the news has the least positive representation of African Americans especially young males. When television became a house-hold item in the early 1950, this was a dark time in American History because there were huge racial tensions brewing in the south. The news show African American mostly young males getting abuse, hosed by police and attack by police dogs during a peaceful protest. It gives the negative images that African American was unlawful people and need to be dealt with swift action. Most of the time African Americans weren’t resisting but the news media depicted the images that they were and police were just doing their job to keep the peace.
The usage of media is huge in nowadays. People rely on different kinds of media to receive information in their everyday life because they are thirsty for the diverse and informative content. However, inaccurate portrayals of people from different races always appear in the media and audience will exaggerate those portrayals by their inflexible beliefs and expectations about the characteristics or behaviors of the portrayals’ cultural groups without considering individual variation (Ting-Toomey and Chung, 2012); in fact, it is also called as stereotypes. According to a study by the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University (Stein, 2012), racial stereotyping continues to occur in media and the mainstream media's coverage of different cultural groups is full of biased reporting, offensive terminology and old stereotypes of American society. It specifically emphasizes that majority of the stereotyped characters in media will only bring out the dark side of their cultural groups which many of them might not be true, especially for the portrayals of black community: African American.
Racial bias in media causes prejudice and discriminatory practices against African-Americans and other minorities groups in America. Today in our society, we are still struggling to overcome racial tension within America because we are over shallow with prejudice and discriminatory images and ideas. Many White Americans feel that the media refuses to report on all crimes committed by blacks against whites, yet report on all crimes committed by whites against blacks. Therefore, they see the media as being not bias. My research will show that African-Americans are over-represented in news reports on crime, and within those stories, they are more likely shown as the perpetrators of the crime than as the persons reacting to or suffering from it. The news media has often been criticized for the way it chooses to portray Latinos and African-Americans.
As an overall theme for my Media Montage I chose to analyze racism in Fox News. Racism is broken into even smaller categories such as how Fox News frames stories, says racist stereotypical comments, they race bait guests, and use people of color to be openly racist. Fox News uses the ‘race card’ to make their news stories bigger and more appealing to their audience.
The final theme portrayed within race, crime, and The Wire is the media’s influence on public views. The media plays a large role in influencing the views of the public. What the media decides to air is broadcast to the whole world as what is “right” so discretion should be used in reporting information. Blacks already carry a large stigma for many reasons, however the media should not reinforce this. Anderson (1990) states that many learn to fear minorities based on crimes seen on television as well as in the newspaper.
According to Poverty & Prejudice: Media and Race, co-authored by Yurii Horton, Raagen Price, and Eric Brown, the media sets the tone for the morals, values and images of our culture. Many whites in American society, some of whom have never encoun...
39 Wilson, Clint and Felix Gutierrez. Race, Multiculturalism, and the Media: From Mass to Class Communication. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995: 45.
Presently racism in the U.S. is presented through the media’s portrayal of the shooting of African Americans by police officers. This racism can be found in the racial bias that is obvious in media in the present day. In the video “Terence Crutcher’s Police Shooting & Racial Bias in America” by The Daily Show, Trevor Noah mentions that we are “ living in a society where racial divisions are so deeply baked into every part of society that we don’t even notice them anymore” (The Daily Show). By stating this Noah is showing that the racial bias that is shown in many news interviews and media forms is often overlooked and quite often already present. Another example of the racial bias that is set in most Americans can be found in the video “A White Audience is Left Speechless Racism in America” when a lady asks the audience to stand up if they would want to be treated the way African Americans are treated in society. The lady responds to her audiences lack of standing by stating the obvious fact they they are aware of the situation and they do not want that to happen to them, then she asks why they “are so willing to accept it or allow it to happen to others” (YouTube). This shows the fact that people are aware of the way that African Americans are being treated because of racial bias however because the way they are treated is so normalized people aren’t
Goodman, Mark. "Chapter 8: The Media Contribution to Racism and Sexism." Mass Media and Society. Mississippi State University, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however what is considered beautiful by some is not considered as beauty when discussing diversity within the media. Society is based on criticism of judging one’s characters body, shape and or race/ethnics background. In the media the society only sees one type that is only focused on perfection to the mind; however within the United States, it is very typical in that the media lacks ethnic representation, cultural identity and gender inequalities. There are no ethnic representation when it comes to the media world and that the media has been trained to believe that the ethnic groups are not valuable. African Americans and Hispanics writers are the minority group when it comes to a social group. According to journalist Prince and Television critic Deggans “CNN , let go one of its most high-profile anchor of color, Soledad O’Brien, replaced her with a white man, Chris Cuomo. Wolf Blitzer gave up one of his hours to another white man, Tapper. Though Zucker met with both National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalist to try and address their concerns, there has been no overt sign from CNN that it is bringing on any more anchors of color, ”(Mirkinson p.1).
Currently there is a long-standing debate dealing with the effects of media. Some believe that the media is just something to indulge or watch and that it has no significant affect on people while others say that has a powerful pull on society as a whole. Research indicates that bias in media articles leads to minorities and women being portrayed in a stereotypical or harsh manner (Hazell and Clarke 3). This leads to African Americans being seen as individuals fit for “lower status occupations,” (Hazel and Clark 7). Black men were also seen as hostile, intimidating figures mainly working as athletes or musicians while women were portrayed as domineering, overly expressive people (Hazel and Clark 9).
One problem that plagues us everyday without us even realizing it is media bias. We see it in the news. We see it on our favorite sitcoms. We read it everyday in the paper. Yet, we really don't recognize it when we hear it or see it. Media bias is evident in every aspect of the media, yet the problem is that we don't even recognize it when it is right in front of our faces. Are the impressions that we form about individuals a product of the media? Do we form certain opinions about particular types of people based solely on the things we see and hear in the media everyday without even realizing it? The problem is not only that there is media bias present, but also that we can't recognize it when we see it.