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Effective communication in a diverse society
Aspects of multicultural communication
Cultural diversity in media
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Recommended: Effective communication in a diverse society
According to the article, Class Communication in Multicultural America, the increase of racial diversity as well as the rise of new technologies, influenced the media. These no longer target their message to a broad mass, as it was the case since the 1950s, but tend to rather tailor it for specific publics, which are defined in terms of social class, gender, and race. Hence, audiences are segmented, or divided, using these criteria, to provide them with more personal information. By the same token, advertisers are now being sold those niches by newspaper or cable channels, for example.
Magazines, newspapers, radio, or television have therefore adapted their communication to this new tendency. They are trying to reach racial and cultural minorities that are growing and represent an interesting market. These media are mainly paid through advertising and corporations are aiming for these subgroups in order to generate profit. Thus, advertisers are no longer being sold space or time to channel their message, but rather the number of persons in a given niche, as well as the characteristics linked to their class.
According to the author, this process could be dangerous, in the sense that early media use to provide mass audiences with the same content, which created a common culture. Whereas now, with the rise of specific media, the public is divided in terms of the information they are given. Although it might be profitable to minorities, since they are being addressed directly, the author suggests that it could as well reinforce existing differences within society. The fact remains that dividing people by class, for instance, and then assume that all of them respond to the same characteristics, is a way of stereotyping them. This type of segmentation lacks in differentiating between the members of a given minority whom might not share the same language or culture, as it can be the case for the “Asian” one.
In my opinion, and as said in the article, segmentation truly results from financial decision, made in order to reach audiences that could generate profit.
The media is a powerful tool and has the ability to influence and change one’s overall perspective of the world and the position they play in it. Although Television shows such as Friday Night Lights are seen as entertainment by consumers, its storyline contributes to the social construction of reality about class in the United States.
The requirement for a particular look and sound that is in conjunction with the white, upwardly mobile consumer base of corporate America, is pitted as a significant attempt at creating ‘new normals’ by mainstream mass media. In the process of casting diversity, aspects of constructing minorities and ethnicities as normal are brought to the foreground, with several instances pinpointing towards issues of ethnic stereotyping, miscegenation and racial naturalization. Even with increasing visibility of Asian Americans as consumers, talent and corporate professionals, their scope and representation, both linguistic and visual, are deeply coded by what would be understood as natural by economically mobile, middle class, white American standards. The concluding section of the book reflects upon the significance of sites of advertisement placements from broadcast media to digital and social media platforms, factoring in issues of audience testing and reactions, to indicate the shifting dynamics of creative power and knowledge production between Asian American and general market
The dominant ideas about the Hispanic population and how to market them are key concepts looked at in chapter two. There are many facts and fictions about marketing to Latinos as single ambiguous market. Hispanic advertisements and marketing strategies take a unique approach to target Latinos as a whole. Marketers take the approach of targeting all Latinos as a group and based many advertising campaigns off of stereotypes instead of researching the Latino culture. “One result of this lack of market research was the dissemination of generalized assessments about the Hispanic consumer that were ultimately based on the self-image, class background, and experiences of Hispanic marketers”(59). Many advertisers target Latino Americans as a one group of people with nearly identical looks, culture, and values. “(The Hispanic) population is continually stereotyped and constituted into an undifferentiated Hispanic consumer”(57). They do not advertise to Latinos as separate people from different Southern and Central American countries.
Mass media has become one of the most common ways to get information in society today. A poll done by The National Hispanic Media Coalition shows that about 66 percent of Americans watch major network and cable newscasts, while only 30 percent rely on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks to get their news and information (Rutgers). However, media does not only provide viewers or listeners with news, but it also moves the stereotypes, beliefs and values of the society to reproduce the existing order of social life (Bryn Mawr). Regardless of whether people believe what they see and hear in the media, people are aware of the stereotypes and images that surround minorities. The negative representation of minorities are conveyed to the public through many forms of media, such as: the news, film, music videos and other forms of media. One of the minorities that is portrayed negatively in the media is the Hispanic race. Over a span of many years, the media has consistently failed to represent and accurately depict Hispanics, and this misrepresentation continues in the media today.
Mantsios, G. (2013). Media magic: Making class invisible. In M. L. Andersen & P. H. Collins (Eds.), Race, class and gender: An anthology (pp.386-393). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
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...
(1995) The 'Secondary' Retrieved December 9, 2004 from http://www.cd http://www.aafla.org/9arr/ResearchReports/ResearchReport4.htm Restrictive portrayals of Asians in the media and how to balance them. a. The adage of the a Retrieved December 9, 2004 from http://www.cd
Dines, Gail, and Jean McMahon Humez. Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text-reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995. Print.
American’s and people in general are an audience targeted for various commodities, advertising being a major contributor. The world of advertising has become a multiplex science, as mentioned in “What We Are to advertisers,” Twitchell divides consumers into 8 categories and Craig, in “Men’s Men and Women’s Women,” concludes there are specific times of day for advertisements to be displayed to reach specific audiences. “Mass production means mass marketing, and mass marketing means the creation of mass stereotypes,” claims Twitchell. These stereotypes of men, women, and humans in general are how advertiser’s reach their targeted audiences.
For years, the population has been exposed to different forms of media. Newspapers, magazines, television, films, radio, and more recently the Internet are ways of promoting ideas, spreading news, and advertising products.
Have you ever looked through a magazine and found it to be really interesting? That is because you are part of its target audience. You are part of a group of people that the magazine is trying to appeal to. There is a reason Sports Illustrated is more of a man’s magazine and Family Circle is more of a woman’s magazine. The people that run that magazine put certain things in those magazines to attract their audience. More commonly, men are interested in sports and anything to do with sports. In Sports Illustrated, the reader would find sports, and that is it. The reader would not find an article titled “How working women balance their careers and home lives.” An article such as that would be found in a magazine like Family Circle, as it is targeted more towards women who have a family. For the purpose of this audience visual analysis, I will be discussing the October 8th, 2012 issue of People magazine. Looking at this issue and reading through the magazine, it is evident that the publishers do have a target audience in mind. This visual analysis will discuss who its target audience is and how the reader can tell. Also, the essay will discuss how the magazine makes the advertisements relevant to its audience.
The media does not stand in isolation from the separation in society when they report. It is a group wonder, which translates into everyday reality through the actions of individuals. But it is not confined to individuals. It is present in the institutional and cultural matrix of a society. According to Jennifer Pierce, stories about discrimination against people of color and the problems the economy posed for them receive little attention in the news media, while accounts of “reverse discrimination,” “angry white males,” and “white male victims” took center stage—narratives that helped turns the majority of California voters against affirmative action. For example the media have separated the working class and stereotyping class young African-American and Hispanics as gangsters or drug dealers. The media has crushed the younger generation for future education, employment, and other advancements. The media has focused more on the negative aspects of the Hispanic and black than the
Media has become a major part of our lives. Indeed it has shape the way we perceive other races. Minority races such as Latinos, African American, Native American and Asians are being misrepresented in media. Media has a huge impact on race, by presenting race stereotypes media is telling us that certain races behave a particular way which shapes the way society sees them and in many times the way they see themselves. We tend to believe everything media says about us and other races without questioning if it is actually true.
Journal of Public Policy and Marketing 18 (1999): 270. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. DePaul Library. 7 Mar. 2008.
Nevertheless, one of the most important constants among all of us, regardless of our differences, is that, above all, we are buyers. We use or consume on a regular basis food, clothing, shelter, transportation, education, equipment, vacations, necessities, luxuries, services, and even ideas. As consumers, we play an essential role in the health of the economy; local, national and international. The purchase decision we make affect the requirement for basic raw materials, for transportation, for production, for banking; they affect the employment of employees and the growth of resources, the successfulness of some industries and the failure of others. In order to be successful in any business and specifically in today’s dynamic and rapidly evolving marketplace, marketers need to know everything they can about consumers; what they are want, what they are think, how they are work, how they are spend their leisure time. They have to find out the personal and group influences that affect consumer decisions and how these decisions are made. In these days of ever-widening media choices, they need to not only identify their target audiences, but they have to know where and how to reach