Reed's D Band Media Log

Stereotypes: Both created and perpetuated

Stereotypes are both created and perpetuated by the media. They are seen on all television shows whether it is on a reality show, where they strive to fulfill the expectation of diversity (the token black man, ditzy blonde girl, Jewish person, smart Asian, etc.) or on an episode of friends where there is an only white cast. People have set expectations of what people of all ethnicities, genders, sexualities, and religions should act like. When these expectations are actualized on an episode of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” or “The Hughleys” there is no effort put into abolishing people’s pre-conceived notions of these groups

Bias in television

Television, like all mediums has an inherent bias. “It has within physical form a predisposition towards being used in certain ways and not in others.” (Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death) In this way of including some information and excluding others, a bias is formed. It is inevitable that this bias will help in some way to redefine the meaning of public discourse. This is seen especially in journalism and the news.

The Media's Stereotypes

The media tends to create stereotypes that society feels compelled to act, dress, think etc. as. These stereotypes can depict a range of different peoples within society: lesbian, gay, straight, transgender, black, white, foreign, American, female, or male. The media exert over-emphasized generalizations of these peoples and society in return incorporates it within daily life. The media’s generalizations are often false portrayals and do not in any way represent all the variations within a group of people.

The media and stereotypes

The media creates many sterotypes, show like say “Queer eye for the straight guy”, or even shows like “Seventh Heaven”. They create sterotypes, images of how certain groups act, they imply that they act a certain way. The media does this for a reason, it sells, it’s nice to see a happy preaching minister family, it creates a false identity, a false world which we can believe for an hour.

Stereotypes and the Media

The media influences our lives more than we notice. We try be unsusceptible to the media's influences but we fail, we do not even notice our failures. A lot of the time we choose not to notice, we say to ourselves "Oh, the media doesn't affect me. I am in control of all my views and opinions." But what we don't realize is that, that is just us covering up what the media's done. We try to hide the fact, and maybe we don't even know how they've affected us but every time we watch a commercial or look at an ad we are affected. The media also creates and maintains many stereotypes. They constantly use certain marketing techniques to create these stereotypes. In television shows this is obvious, many TV shows maintain all different types of stereotypes. For example, the show Family Guy, while I find it hilarious and enjoy it a lot, the show maintains certain stereotypes society has created. The media has always played a role in creating and maintaining stereotypes, I do not see the end to this in the near future.

To What Extent does the Media Encourage Stereotypes?

No matter what the topic is, the media has a huge role in portraying information to the public. A lot of times, the issues that are presented by the media deal with religious or moral conflicts that can be very personal to people. All around the world, many major issues are occurring, whether it be war, issues of sovereignty, or cultural issues. The media has a job to present these issues to the public in an objective manner. This means the media cannot encourage stereotypes by any means. The question is whether or not the media actually fulfills its role in society.

Isms...

Sexism, Ageism, Racism, Classism....
all ism upheld by people, regardless of their better judgment. Why is it that people can still today think with such strict dividers. There are many dividers among class, race, sexes and age in todays society, and the media is a source that can and does fuel many of the dividers. From movies to advertisements all sources of media are made for a certain audience. There are classic urban films, teen movies, chick flicks, and straight to video films for those who cant afford to go to the movies. I feel that the media does play a role in creating and defining stereotypes. It is not nearly as bad as it could be, and i feel that recently the stereotypes have been starting to break down. There was recently a Verison commercial with a multiracial family. The first multiracial ad, with a white father and a hispanic mother. This ad gave me so m much hope about the future of media because it portrayed life as it truly is. Television is starting to gather both rich and poor audiences, and is being made for all races. While i think one could come at this question very cynically and say that the media causes all dividers - i do not think that is true.

The Media and the Stereotype

I think that the media definitely maintains images of steroetypes without necessarially meaning to. For example there is BET, the Black Entertainment channel. I understand the intention behind having a station designated towards one racial group, but it does create a form of segregation, because it is one channel meant for one race alone. Networks in Japanese are different, because that is aimed at people who speak the language. BET is aimed at black people. Sometimes, when white people watch BET and talk about what they see, they are called "acting black". This furthers feelings of stereotypes - the black person you see on BET is viewed as the typical black. Also, women in the media are always depicted as busty, beautiful, scantally dressed and having perfect highlights in their hair. This is anything but the typical woman, but the media creates a stereotype that many women feel they must try to live up to. This in turn makes men believe that they deserve these perfect steroetypes from TV, which makes them feel superior to other "imperfect" REAL women.

The Influence of the Media

The media has a very large influence on society. There is such a wide range of political issues that media covers daily, whether it be through news television programs, newspapers, magazines, or the Internet. The media is definitely very important in terms of delivering information for the people of our society, but it must be delivered in the right way. Unfortunately, news is not only presented in a positive, objective manner – the way it should be presented. Most of the time, there is much biased toward the political issues that exist in today’s world. In a way, the media makes these issues even more controversial than they actually are.

The media and the election

Sadly, I believe that the media cannot always be fully trusted. There is so much propaganda and bias between news channels. For example, Fox News is well known for, well, criticizing America. It reports news much differently than CNN, which supposedly is the most trusted news station. So just for the fact that there is a “more trusted’ News station in America, one can’t say that all of the information that we receive is not always 100% on point. Many times, this may even be on purpose. So for the presidency campaigns, everything that is said is also not all true, and many times exaggerated. This is for the fact that a running candidate for president that has enough money can pay off companies and stations to get more exposure.

The whole presidency election and campaigning is very tricky. Big companies give money to a certain candidate’s campaign, however then they obviously expect something in return. This is called credit. If that person wins, they then have to do something to benefit the company that gave them money. They could even go as far as making a new law that would help that company, or the area of business in which that company is in. For example, if Exxon were to give Bush money, he would perhaps make it so that oil prices would rise, and thus Exxon would make more money. So that’s a little on how the presidency election is not all that “clean” in its process.

Even though the media may not give us certain information, and even if people realize this, I still believe that the media is a huge influence on people’s view of each candidate, and defiantly makes a difference in the final election decision. How else do people learn about each candidate? Almost always through the media.

TO BE CONTINUED