Stereotypes In The Media

Your television and computer are controlling every choice you make. Scary thought? Everyday Americans log into their computer or turn on their TV and are fed information from our trusted media. In fact, a Marshall survey states, “By 2015, it is estimated that Americans will consume both traditional and digital media for over 1.7 trillion hours, an average of approximately 5 and a half hours per person per day.” Unknowingly at times, we are allowing our media to shape the choices we make, the ways we see others, and the way we view ourselves. With most of Americans unaware of the media's control on their choices and views, this can be an alarming realization. Media has a major impact on multiple parts of our society.

During the process of producing a television series, the demand for the producers to introduce their characters with only their highlighted traits make it impossible for viewers to gain a deep understanding of the community that the characters represent. One of the stereotypic traits that is usually seen on movies and television shows is societal difference that each race is placed into. Michael Omi in his article In Living Color: Race and American Culture stated that “in contemporary television and film, there is a tendency to present and equate racial minority groups and individuals with specific social problems” (546). There are many films and television shows found today that ground racial minorities into a specific social problems that are related to the color of their skin. It can be inferred from the current popular culture that this stereotype still persists.

Multiple authors such as Noah C. Rothman, James Fallows, and Glenn Greenwald demonstrate that a reoccurring problem in news media coverage is the failure to relay all of the information about an event to audience members who did not witness it themselves. However, The ultimate fighting championship’s (UFC) 193rd event did not seem to face these difficulties. While every aspect of life has its downsides, many major news corporations covering this event presented a very fair story showing both fighter’s sides of the event. Although some might think this fight was a very minuscule event, it was far from this bringing a record breaking night that drew more viewers than any other mixed martial arts fight in history. This iconic event clearly calls

Harmeen Jones, a former Fox Technician, was fired after filing a complaint to Human Resources of the unfair treatment he was receiving by his colleagues at Fox for being African-American. Jones claims ‘he was subjected to a steady stream of "racist, sexist, and extremely offensive comments,’ against blacks, Muslims, Jews, women and Hispanics” (Shifrel). Unfortunately, not only does the network available to 87 million households make flippant remarks in it’s work environment, but it also promotes racist stereotypes on air. During an episode of The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly made an insulting remark when telling an African-American guest, “Say you 're a cocaine dealer—and you kind of look like one a little bit” (Hall). Stereotyping minority races has existed since the creation of the United States, and continues to be a problem. The privileged social group in society often oppresses minorities, and advertises false statements of the other races. Media, a big contributor to the spread of racial stereotyping that occurs in the United States, often provides viewers with stereotypes that continue to promote racism, and the discouragement of success in a minority group. The media portrays the dominant race in a positive way, while minority groups are depicted in ways that provide people with an invalid reason to feel hatred toward minority groups.

Intro: The media sets a bad image for minority groups with they way they show how minority characters act, look and their social classes.Degrading stereotypes are already a problem that people talk about and use to make insults. The media just reinforces these stereotypes by showing their audiences people who are acting in these stereotypes. Making fun of cultures and people that they have been for years like with Hispanics and Hispanic Americans they are super religious

The mainstream media focuses on the viewers and what the viewers would like to know. Most people watch the news to obtain information about what is going on in the world. If the topic that is brought up on the news sounds interesting or sounds like it will affect the viewer will watch to see what is happening. Appealing to the emotions of the viewer will make the person want to know more and see what will happen. The consumers of the information tend to believe what they see or hear. Viewers tend to believes these sources because a news network may be based on the same political views as the viewer. Some people will not watch certain news networks because of what is put out there about the political aspect of the world. Although that is one of the reasons viewers watch the news, the views may just be watching this one news network because it may be the only network available to the person. Viewers care about can be seen with the eyes, since not everything a person

There have been many studies done on minority stereotypes, however, there has not been enough focusing on the portrayal of minorities in the news. With the majority of Americans using local TV or newspapers as their source of information (Journalism.org, 2011) we must look at how citizen’s perceptions of themselves and others are influenced by the news. To define news framing, we will take Lecheler, Keer, Shuck, and Hänggli’s definition; “a process by which certain facets of social reality are emphasized by the news media, while others are pushed into the background” (2015, p. 341). Language as well as imagery can be a powerful tool in framing a story to guide an audience to believe it the way the journalist wants them to.

Does the media affect the way you look at the people around you, with different ethnicity, a different race and or culture? The perfect opportunity to hinder the lense of individuals is given when African Americans get murdered by police officers and individuals upload the scenes online. In today’s times, individuals have probably watched a Disney movie, especially children. As a famous quote states, “You can not teach old dogs new tricks.” Children are the easiest to persuade mainly because their brain has not fully matured. Directors understand that children are easy targets, similarly to news reporter who know how to catch the attention of an audience, persuading the way you see other people.

Whenever we go on the internet or look in magazines we see these beautiful people and most men and women aspire to look just like them. But again it’s all but one big lie. What we see on the internet, TV, and magazines is the work of Photoshop, makeup, filters, and much more. Those people are not real, they do not look like that once they wake up, and it’s nothing but a lie. Yet people still believe that it’s real since the camera never lies. Day after day I see girls and women, boys and men hating themselves all because from an image that is not real, an image that has been made by the computer. On Instagram, there was a trend going around where girls and women would try to get “thigh gaps” which are exactly what they sound like, a gap in-between their thighs. To achieve these “thigh gaps” some women and girls would go on diets or some would just stop eating to lose weight just so they can be a part of the trend. The sad thing is that this trend was started with a few pictures of celebrates that were made by the computer. Not once did they stop to question it. Not once did they stop to think.

Should you surely believe everything the media tells you? No! The media is full of liars! It is the reason behind a countless number of problems. Racism, discrimination, stereotypes, bias, misrepresentation, gender inequality, and even crime is all mainly used and encouraged by the media. Why? Why are people doing such things? If you have an opinion about somebody that you are aware of how it might upset them, or cause ruckus, why can’t you just keep it inside of you? Value and belief messages are usually the ones that are either the best emotional, or the most triggering. Unfortunately, these messages are mostly used to tell people how cruel or corrupt one race, or culture is, rather than telling us positive and respectable opinions about

Should people ever be judged by as an individual by a group characteristic that they have been falsely given by those who don't even know them? Sadly being judged by a false group characteristic is a reality that nearly every person on this earth has experience with. Every day, people are judged and discriminated because of false labels given to them by other people who don't actually know who the people being judged and discriminated are. It may be difficult to believe, but the media is responsible for the false labels known as stereotypes and the new-found wide belief that stereotypes are very much true. The Media's indisputable portrayal of stereotypes direct viewers into assuming erroneous stereotypes are correct and in turn, influence their beliefs and overall perspectives.

The media and culture that constantly surrounds our society affects the dominant ideologies, beliefs, stereotypes, and my life in a much larger way than I imagined. What I used to see as “normal” or “attractive” was really just a definition set by those in power to reinforce systems of inequality and privilege. I never paid much attention to advertisements, television shows, or novels as a major factor in influencing the way I viewed myself and others. However, this unit has shown me that media and culture subtly perpetuate harmful ideas and beliefs more often than I thought.

he United States has claimed for years to be a melting pot, where race or various preferences do not define our role in society. Most everyday people do not even realize or notice the amount of stereotyping that occurs in mass media. It is important to understand the different types of discrimination marginalized groups face. Stereotypes can affect everyone, whether it is based on their race, gender, or sexual preference. Media makers could easily find ways to not discriminate against people, but perhaps this would make that specific media outlet less popularly attended to.

A trophy is an object that is built to show off to others as a sign of victory and greatness. The media utilizes their resources to portray people who fulfill the “trophy” view meaning that they are “skinny”, “tall”, and majority of time “white”. This idea has been converted into stereotyping through the constant comparison between a person’s type that is not portrayed on media and a person who is.The word stereotype has a negative connotation due to the ongoing societal issues taken place. Stereotyping evokes a judgemental factor based on one perspective. The idea that a person is judged solely on the account of another individual’s actions because they are the same race or they dress similarly. Simply, people don’t take into consideration of the other perspective of an individual and believe solely on a stereotype therefore hindering them to make a non-bias judgement. My intentions are to determine the underlying reasons why media has portrayed people as a certain way and why society strives to be like those in the media.

Diversity means variety and when it comes to the mass media, the word seems to be un-understandable. The media may be one of the places that lack the most diversity and with that comes stereotypes. Stereotypes are oversimplified views on a group of people with common characteristics. Stereotyping is an action long practiced in society to the point where it has become part of human nature. Stereotyping almost always comes with its negative connotations including, but not limited to; being blatantly incorrect, being emotionally scarring, and being the source of many prejudices and racism. The media, because of how it portrays people and events, can be attributed to spreading most of the stereotypes seen today. And due to it being a major platform, it spreads stereotypes fast. This is especially true for minorities; negative stereotypes of minorities are reinforced because of how the media portrays, underrepresents and stigmatizes them.