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Race stereotypes in media
Effects of media in society
Race stereotypes in media
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Racism in Media: Perceptions and Interpretations of Crime Based on Race
Media plays a large role in public perceptions. People depend on media to inform them of events they are not present for. However, this poses a problem. Events often become skewed to one side or the other based on race, media bias, etc. The way things are reported has a drastic effect on how the public views the event. One large issue with media currently is how people are portrayed based on their race. One particular study, Voorhees, Vick, and Perkins (2007) discussed news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, and how minorities were portrayed. In their article, they discuss how images of African-Americans, as well as Caucasians taking supplies and other items they needed were circulating media. However, the African-Americans were interpreted in the news as “looting,” while the Caucasians were interpreted as
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(Voorhees, C.C.W., Vick, J., & Perkins, D.D., 2007) In this study, the researchers found that the news reporters painted African Americans and Caucasians in very different lights. For example, images/videos were only shown of same race helping same race or of whites helping blacks, but never of blacks helping whites. (Voorhees, C.C.W., Vick, J., & Perkins, D.D.) Voorhees, Vick, and Perkins also mentioned how there were images of African Americans carrying supplies out of buildings that were depicted as “looters,” as well as very similar images of Caucasians doing the same exact thing except they were labeled as “finding supplies.” These differences in the portrayal of African Americans and Caucasians are important to this study because they help identify that there is an issue with news coverage pertaining to race. This research project seeks to further examine this issue and the misrepresentation of African Americans in media and to understand why this particular phenomenon is
For example, what happened in Baltimore led to social movements in New York and New Jersey and eventually a mass behavior or movement known as “Black Lives Matter”. With very rare exception, the stories on the news and on front pages of newspapers only show those acts of civil disobedience that escalate to violence. Rather than cover a peaceful protest, they would have a news story where police had to arrest protesters. People form opinions on events, cultures, politics and even other races based on what they see on the news. Two virtually identical situations can be understood in two completely different ways based on the way it is reported. For example, “the Associated Press wire service distributed two stories on August 30, 2005. In one, a White couple is shown wading through floodwater and the caption reads "Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store . . ." In the other image, a young Black man is shown in nearly the exact same situation but the caption reads "A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans . . ." The conclusion is that White victims of Katrina found food while Black victims stole food” (Haider). So why didn’t the young Black man find food? This is a part of racism and stereotyping that has been prevalent in society and news coverage for many
...ying to take cover from the storm. On the Daily Show hosted by John Stewart had some video depicting how certain news station was covering the aftermath on Katrina. Fox News, ABC news, NBC was depicting white people as victims, when they were looting stores the news station anchors call it finding or they are surviving. But when the same imagery was on African Americans they depicted as looting. According to a statement from Travis L. Dixon a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles he said “The news continues to create fear of blacks.” Some local news station continues to link African Americans to unlawful acts and portray a stigma that African Americans are the bad people. YAAMS(Young Africans Americans Against Media Stereotypes) had discuss how the news media use negative representation to can lead emotional problems in the black community.
Race, stereotype, ethnicity, and racism are all around the world and it has become so normal that more often than not people tend to overlook those factors in the social media. As stated earlier the medias main goal is to make money as a result most white Americans is the medias main source of money. Yet, by doing so the media has segregated people by their race and ethnicity in the type of channels and advertisements they have created.
Gina Marchetti, in her essay "Action-Adventure as Ideology," argues that action- adventure films implicitly convey complex cultural messages regarding American values and the "white American status quo." She continues to say that all action-adventure movies have the same basic structure, including plot, theme, characterization, and iconography. As ideology, this film genre tacitly expresses social norms, values, and morals of its time. Marchetti's essay, written in 1989, applies to films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Rambo: First Blood II. However, action-adventure films today seem to be straying farther away from her generalizations about structure, reflecting new and different cultural norms in America. This changing ideology is depicted best in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), which defies nearly every concept Marchetti proposes about action-adventure films; and it sets the stage for a whole new viewpoint of action in the '90's.
Since the September 11th attacks, the media has become more bias in its portrayal of ethnic minorities. A news story may not say “Black people may rob your house” but their bias portrayal in the media would make you believe it (Schemer & Wirth). The article features a section on several experiments...
Media Coverage on Hurricane Katrina News of the devastating hurricane Katrina and its economic, political, social, and humanitarian consequences dominated global headlines in an unprecedented manner when this natural catastrophe struck the region of New Orleans in mid August 2005 (Katrinacoverage.com). As a tradition, large-scale disasters like Katrina, inevitably, bring out a combination of the best and the worst news media instincts. As such, during the height of Hurricane Katrina’s rage, many journalists for once seized their gag reflex and refused to swallow shallow and misleading excuses and explanations from public officials. Nevertheless, the media’s eagerness to report thinly substantiated rumors may have played a key role in bringing about cultural wreckage that may take the American society years to clean up. To begin with, anybody privy to the events in New Orleans that ensued after Hurricane Katrina struck knows that horrible things that had nothing to do with natural causes happened: there were murders, gunfire directed at a rescue helicopter, assaults and, courtesy of New Orleans’ city police department, a myriad other crimes that most probably went unreported (Katrinacoverage.com).
Have you ever heard of the term white privilege? In case you haven’t, or if you’re not sure what it is exactly, white privilege is all of the societal privileges that benefit white people and that non-white people do not experience. If you are white, your first thought might be to say, “Well, that’s not real. I don’t experience any special benefits that non-white people do not.” But it is real and you do. When you get a paper cut and you go to grab one of your “flesh colored” bandages, it will actually match your skin color because apparently light beige is the “normal” skin color for everyone. When you are watching a film, you are able to relate more to the people you are watching because you will share the same characteristics as most of them, such as having the same skin color. (It’s true. A recent study showed that, out of 100 films made in 2012, white people accounted for about 76% of all speaking characters while people of color, put together, only accounted for about 23%.) When you fail at something in life, like getting a job or getting into college, you don’t stop and think, “Is it because of my race?” White privilege isn’t something that you enjoy having, or that you can necessarily control, but it is important to understand what white privilege is because it most definitely comes into play in our everyday life, including, and especially, news and other forms of media.
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.
In many ways, the media must be involved in ethnic and racial issues. The media is to provide the public with information useful to them. The media is on the public’s side. Racial stereotyping is a problem that is out in the public. Drugs, teen pregnancy, child abuse and rape are also problems that affect the people of the world everyday. The media has a job to make these issues aware to the people and possibly put together a form of solutions. Some ways of addressing issues are blunt and harsh but so are the problems. I don’t think the media can address the issue of racism without stepping into a stereotype somewhere but I also believe the media is obligated to address the obvious false stereotypes and offer ways to terminate them as well. American History X is a movie that directly addresses the issue of race and deals with some very serious issues in a small town. There are a group of white kids that have been influenced by Adolf Hitler’s beliefs and they are very hateful toward blacks, Jews, and any other race that is different than theirs. They all have Nazi signs tattooed on their bodies and their heads are completely shaved. There are very negative viewpoints in the first half of the movie toward blacks and Jews. The “N” word is used very freely and many of the actions of each group is quite accurate. Although this movie is very harsh and straight forward, their is a great amount of truth in all of the actions of each cultural group. One of the young white men witness a black man breaking into his truck and the black man ends up murdered in a very cruel manner. The movie is a lesson. A lesson about reality but also about how wrong reality can be. After spending years in prison, the attitude of this man is different toward black people and he has a hard time relaying this new attitude to his little brother back home and to the friends he had before going to prison.
“The media serve as a tool that people use to define, measure, and understand American society” (Deo et al., 149). Thinking of the media as a tool for the American people also extends into the realm of race and ethnicity. The United States has had a long and difficult history pertaining to the racial and ethnic identities of the many different people that reside within and outside of it’s borders. That history is still being created and this country still struggles with many of the same problems that have plagued this area since before the founding of the U.S. As stated above, the popular media has a large impact on the way that race and ethnicity are understood by people, especially when considering the prevalence of segregation in the U.S.
Media headlines play a huge role in how a person reading or listening to a report will view the suspect and the victim, The media will often do this because of the race of the suspect or killer. “Demonstrating the power that news outlets wield in portraying victims based on images they select” (Wing). The media can portray victims and suspects however they want and
The use of media has always been very tactical and representative of a statement or purpose. The issue of race has always been a topic of immaculate exploration through different forms of media. Mediated topics such as race, gender, and class have always been topics represented in the media as a form of oppression. The widely use of media surrounds the globe extensively as the public is bombarded with media daily. There are many different types of media that circulates the public making it widely available to anyone. Media can hold an immense amount of power as it can distort the manner in which people understand the world. In our society the media creates the dominant ideology that is to be followed for centuries in the classifications of race, gender, and class. Media can be a powerful tool to use to display a message which, is how “…the media also resorts to sensationalism whereby it invents new forms of menace” (Welch, Price and Yankey 36). Media makers and contributors take advantage of the high power that it possesses and begin to display messages of ideologies that represent only one dominant race or gender. It became to be known as the “dominant ideology of white supremacy” for many and all (Hazell and Clarke 6).
Black youths arrested for drug possession are 48 times more likely to wind up in prison than white youths arrested for the same crime under the same circumstances. Many people are unaware how constant racism has been throughout the years. It is important to understand the problems of racism because it is relevant to society. Racism in America is very real and Americans need to know it.
Nowadays, it has been difficult to notice the harm media is doing to society. It has become too normal that we are already used to deny the reality. I have read several readings that have opened my eyes to the reality of media; A Crash Course on Hollywood’s Latino Imagery by Charles Ramirez Berg, (Re)presenting: Muslims on North American television by Amir Hussain, True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu. These readings include an important message about minority races, which I believe society should be aware of. All of the readings that I previously mentioned have something in common, they all examine the way race is portrayed in media. Moreover, they also include how media can potentially shape our perceptions of who we are and who others are. Our young community are the ones that are being most affected by media. Children receive messages in T.V shows, cartoons, movies and books of how different races supposedly are, and they immediately start assuming that those messages are true and continue growing up with that ideology.
One of the greatest exports of American culture is American media. American media is one of the most widely distributed and consumed cultural forms from the United States. This means that not only do Americans consume large quantities of their own media, but many other countries in the world consume American media, too. People in other countries will not interpret or understand the media in precisely the same ways that Americans will and do, nonetheless, many aspects of American culture and American reality are communicated to numerous viewers as part of the content in the media. The media is an important tool in the discussion of race, class, and gender in America. It takes a savvy viewer to discriminate between and understand what media accurately represents reality, what media does not, or which aspects of experience are fictionalized, and which elements ...