... * * * Representation Of Race In Media * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Much of our perceptions of the world are based on narratives and the images that we see in film, television, radio, music, and other media. These are some of the outlets that construct how individuals see their social identities, as well as learn and understand about what it is to be black, white, Native American, Asian, South American, etc. (Dow, Wood, 2006, p. 297). You will get a better understanding of this once you understand the concept of ideologies. Ideologies are what create our perception of the world around us, whether it is political, social, economic, etc. Ideologies are not the product of individual intention or conscious, rather we create our intentions within ideology (Marris, Thornham, 2000, p. 267). These ideologies exist before we are even born; they form the social constructions and conditions that we are born into. But, ideologies are just a practice, and it is produced and reproduced in apparatus of ideological production. The media is a great example of an apparatus of ideological production (Marris, Thornham, 2000, p. 273). It produces social meanings and distributes them throughout society. However, as long as ideologies continue so will social struggles such as racism, which we will discuss in this essay. Media elites represent different races through media based on their ideologies. This has a predominant...
Words: 1829 - Pages: 8
...Steven Rousse English Composition Professor David Mook September 15, 2014 Is Law Enforcement Racist? Racism, stereotypes, racial profiling, discrimination, no matter what you call it it’s all the same thing, and it has been around for years. Lately racial discrimination has been greatly decreased, yet not completely eradicated. One would think that the last place there wouldn’t be a single shred of any discrimination in law enforcement, however, there is and the fact that there is racial discrimination makes for some very controversial cases; such as the case of the shooting of Michael Brown, the brutal beating of Rodney King, and the wrongful beating of Abner Louima. All of these incidents happened because of an unfair percentage that police are to show more brutality to a minority group than to whites and there are plenty of facts that support this such as the amount of white officers over colored ones, and the biases and stereotypes that are to blame for “racism” in law enforcement. The case of Michael Brown in Fergusson, Missouri a predominantly black society, with a predominantly white police force, there are multiple stories that both tell stories of what people saw. One account states that the teenager Michael Brown had his hands in the air and was surrendering whilst unarmed; the officer opened fire and killed him. However, what the authorities say is the exact opposite in which Michael Brown actually attempted to attack the officer in his car and tried to...
Words: 1535 - Pages: 7
...Mass media is distorted mirror of society (Maneri and Wal). It is as if being held prisoner in a funhouse, the distortion of the mirror image slowly becomes reality and it is impossible to remember what life is really like. The news medium is one aspect of mass media that has contributed heavily to this distorted reality. Even though the news is supposed to remain objective, it seems as if racial biases have somehow made their way to the headlines. Can the consistent racial preference in the news enforce prejudice ideology through the public? The goal of this essay is to discuss the reason why behind misrepresentation of minorities in the news medium, and how the misrepresentation affects society. Even with minorities making up roughly one...
Words: 936 - Pages: 4
...eradicated. Racism shapes the lives of white people, not only the lives of people of colour (Frankenberg, 1). When white privilege is ignored, white people are able to maintain power and dominance in our “post-racial” society. (Mcintosh, 33). In this essay, I will argue that widespread media representation and housing opportunities are the most important features of white privilege, using ideas from Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, bell hooks’ Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination and Ruth Frankenberg’s Introduction: Points of Origin, Points of Departure. Widespread representation is the most important feature of white privilege because we live in an age where the media not only reflects our real worldviews and attitudes, but also controls them. The second most important feature of white privilege is adequate housing opportunities. It is necessary for white people to acknowledge their part in benefiting from a society that has thrived on racial hierarchy and white supremacy for centuries and these two aspects are key in reaching that. Firstly, white privilege entails wide media representation, where people of colour are consistently underrepresented. Many people don’t see this as an issue at all, but it is necessary in an age where the media has such a strong and lasting impact on the way we view one another. White people have the privilege of turning on the TV and seeing people of their race widely represented (Mcintosh, 34). Lack of...
Words: 1972 - Pages: 8
...cultural diversity into the national identity. This essay argues that the white Australia policy has had a significant impact on Australian culture and continues to overshadow the success of multiculturalism. First, this essay explains the motivations and legislations that established the white Australia policy, and the subsequent effects on early Australian society. Next, it discusses the discarding of the white Australia policy and the implementation of multiculturalism. Finally, this essay assesses the impact of the white Australia policy on contemporary Australian culture. During the late 1800s there was public and political discussion as to Australia’s future as a white nation (Bulletin 1886). This was prompted by the frequent racial tension and sporadic violence between white settlers and Chinese immigrants. The 1901 parliamentary debates concerning immigration show that although a belief in white racial supremacy was predominant, commercial concerns and fears of invasion were also involved. For example, some members extolled the superiority of a ‘snow-white’ Australia (Commonwealth of Australia 1901 pp. 4626, 4648, 4666). Whereas, other members protested that if Asians entered the country freely as a source of cheap labour this would lower the wages of white workers and allow an ‘invasion by alien and servile races’ (Commonwealth of Australia 1901 pp. 4631-2). Therefore, the parliament deliberated how to uphold the white racial composition of Australia while ensuring economic...
Words: 2845 - Pages: 12
...Daniel Lechowski Mr.Beacham 4/27/16 Research Essay Racism is detrimental to the United States due to the fact that many law enforcers possess this atrocious trait. Where did racism originate from? We are not born with this disgusting trait. To find out you have to research the history of racism. When you think of slavery, your first thoughts and images are probably about African Americans inhumanely crowded aboard ships plying the middle passage from Africa, or of African Americans stooped to pick cotton in Southern fields. We don't think of images of American Indians chained in coffles and marched to ports like Boston and Charleston, and then shipped to other ports in the Atlantic world. Everyone thinks that African Americans were the first...
Words: 862 - Pages: 4
...Organizational Ethics - Team C Paper Darnita Garry, Lyndell Johnson, Christian Mataban, Kathie Lacy Storost ETH/316 September 25, 2015 D. Joseph McCarty Racial Disaster for Local Wine Train KLS On Saturday, August 22, 2015, eleven black women, belonging to the "Sistahs on the Reading Edge" book club, were booted off the Napa Valley Wine Train. Repeated warnings from train employees “of being too loud.” Employees later posted on Facebook; “. . . The women had reportedly become unruly once the conflict escalated. "Following verbal and physical abuse toward other guests and staff, . ” (Rocha, 2015, para. 12). The women feeling humiliated due to the way the treatment by train employees, the book club members felt legal action needs to be taken. Considering a lawsuit for racial discrimination because they were the only group on board seemingly singled out. DG/LJ This essay will highlight the external social pressures that influence the Napa Valley Wine Train's organizational ethics. Considering how these issues may be relevant to the company's organizational and personal decisions, and the relationship between legal and ethical issues. In short, we will delve into how this controversial incident affected the wine train owner’s actions from ethical, personal, and legal standpoints. The Napa Valley Wine Train is one of many companies that has entangled in a web of sticky ethical situations. These situations have brought about some serious ramifications for companies...
Words: 1232 - Pages: 5
...within the system itself against those from ethnic minorities may affect the resulting statistics to portray an uneven account of criminal activity. The relationship between crime rates and ethnicity is extremely complex due to other factors such as the difficulty of identifying a person’s ethnic origin and the cultural and social differences between ethnic groups. It has been shown on a variety of occasions that male black youths are disproportionately selected by the police to be ‘stopped and searched’; this then results in higher numbers of black youths being charged with offences as they have been caught doing so. However, the same crimes are probably being committed by other subcultures within society, but as both the media and police do not focus on them, they are not being seen. There are many flaws with official statistics and therefore their reliability. For example, there are sections of crime that are not dealt with by the police; the management as opposed to involving an outside force, for example, may deal with crimes within a company. Also, not all crimes would be recorded or reported by the police, for example it has been shown that police are willing to let middle class youths ‘get away’ with more as they believe that they will grow out of such behaviour and become high achieving...
Words: 1432 - Pages: 6
...Are the media the “terrorists’ best friends”? (Laqueur, 1976) This essay will propose that the media coverage of acts of terror occurs for the main purpose of reporting on the news, it heightens the public’s awareness of such incidents and aids in counterterrorism, thus having a detrimental effect on the terrorists and their cause. Laqueur’s statement that the media are the terrorists’ best friends implies that their coverage of terrorism aids the terrorists. We will examine and disprove the hypotheses that coverage of terrorism in the media, and the publicity and attention terrorists gain through media reporting of their acts of terror are beneficial to their cause. For the purposes of this essay media will be used as a “…generic term meaning all the methods or channels of information and entertainment” (P.Wilkinson, 1997:51) and as found within majority of the theories and concepts discussed, the term terrorism, and therefore terrorist, is used to describe violence carried out in the name of a political, ideological or racial cause by a person who wishes to influence the government and, or, intimidate the public. (www.mi5.gov.uk) Terrorism is a psychological weapon (P.Wilkinson, 1997:54), which is dependent upon communication of its threat. The easiest way terrorists can disseminate their messages of threat is through the manipulation of the media. When using the media, the terrorists’ have four core objectives; communicate propaganda; mobilise support from the public...
Words: 3143 - Pages: 13
...Stereotyping and Profiling – The Negative Effect on Society Glenn A Smith ENG102 Sullivan University Composition 102 Abstract This essay shows the negative effects society encounters from stereotyping and profiling and some solutions to how, we as a nation, can overcome this plague. Stereotyping is the act of making an assumption or generalization of a particular person or group of persons based on misconceptions usually extending to how they might act or what they represent or just categorizing these people and groups as to what they are like. Profiling is the process in which we base information on a person or group from past knowledge of their traits or actions. Some researchers’ feel that many of us unconscientiously stereotype and profile without even knowing and that our rearing traditions have also contributed to this way of thinking. Profiling can be implemented by different approaches such as racial profiling, facial profiling even as simple as individual or group profiling. Stereotyping and profiling can affect anyone, rich or poor, black or white, famous or ordinary, and does not consider any age or gender. Humiliation and degradation will come about within each person. As a nation, changes are needed on how we view and accept one another; teach our children the effects of this behavior at home and school, and stress to our government to undertake ways to establish effective means of profiling for security measures that will not violate constitutional...
Words: 3096 - Pages: 13
...the 19th century, many American cities banned public appearances by "unsightly" individuals. A Chicago ordinance was typical: "Any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting subject . . . shall not . . . expose himself to public view, under the penalty of a fine of $1 for each offense." Although the government is no longer in the business of enforcing such discrimination, it still allows businesses, schools and other organizations to indulge their own prejudices. Over the past half-century, the United States has expanded protections against discrimination to include race, religion, sex, age, disability and, in a growing number of jurisdictions, sexual orientation. Yet bias based on appearance remains perfectly permissible in all but one state and six cities and counties. Across the rest of the country, looks are the last bastion of acceptable bigotry. We all know that appearance matters, but the price of prejudice can be steeper than we often assume. In Texas in 1994, an obese woman was rejected for a job as a bus driver when a company doctor assumed she was not up to the task after watching her, in his words, "waddling down the hall." He did not perform any agility tests to determine whether she was, as the company would later claim, unfit to evacuate the bus in the event of an accident. In New Jersey in 2005, one of the Borgata Hotel Casino's "Borgata babe" cocktail waitresses went from a Size 4...
Words: 1737 - Pages: 7
...1990s the emergence of black footballers, both domestic and foreign, within the British game began to change the overall dynamic. In addition to this sport became big business, moving from the back pages to the front (Boyle, 2006), and occasions such as the Olympic Games are now massive worldwide events that receive similarly massive attention from the world’s media. It is clear that sport has changed dramatically over the past 20 years, as has the diversity of the athletes who appear in our newspapers, on our television screens and on our radios. With reference to these points I intend to investigate whether sports journalism is still dominated by white males, and if so, how does this cultural bias influence how other ethnic groups are represented in the sporting media. Due to word constraints the essay shall focus on Northern Europe, specifically Sweden and the United Kingdom. Diversity in the newsroom Diversity in a news organisation can bring many benefits, including a broader spectrum of opinion, varied specialist knowledge and both personal and professional development amongst staff (Stepp, 1989). This essay will look at two different social groups and the progress they have made in recent decades in sports journalism: women, and those from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds. Female sports journalists The first point I wish to determine is whether or not sports journalism is still overwhelmingly male in...
Words: 1824 - Pages: 8
...Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are diseases spread by sexual intercourse. Teens, especially, should be informed about STIs since they can cause serious long term damage to the body. This essay is about syphilis, a very contagious disease. I have chosen syphilis because I have read a book about it in the past, which I thought was interesting, so I wanted to look into it more. Syphilis is caused by the bacteria treponema pallidum, which can live almost anywhere in the body and spreads rapidly. Reinfection after you have been treated is possible. (Remedy Health Media) Syphilis used to be a huge public health threat. It started being able to be effectively treated in the late 1940s when penicillin was first developed. (WebMD) Before the invention of antibiotics, syphilis inflicted “up to 10% of the adult populations in the Western World”. (Antimicrobe) Syphilis is generally spread through sexual intercourse. Though is also sometimes spread through close bodily contact or prolonged kissing. An infected person is usually unaware of their disease, so they unknowingly pass it to their partner. (WebMD) A symptom of syphilis is sores and by direct contact with a sore syphilis can also be spread. This can happen during any type of sexual intercourse. (CDC) Congenital syphilis, is the name for...
Words: 1605 - Pages: 7
...Chapter 3 MULTIPLE CHOICE. Choose the one alternative that best completes the statement or answers the question. 1) Messages are more effective when they are A) forceful B) detailed C) short D) audience-centred Answer: D Diff: 1 Page Ref: 39 2) An audience-centred message will consider the audience's A) viewpoint B) background C) needs D) all of the above Answer: D Diff: 1 Page Ref: 39 3) Which of the following correctly lists the three-step writing process? A) planning, writing, completing B) planning, writing, sending C) planning, writing, designing the page D) planning, writing, revising Answer: A Diff: 2 Page Ref: 40 4) The first stage of the writing process includes A) writing the introduction B) C) establish common ground with the audience D) Answer: D Diff: 2 Page Ref: 40 editing for punctuation analyze audience members 5) The second stage of the writing process includes A) gathering information that will inform, persuade, or motivate your audience B) adapting your message to the audience's needs C) revising and rewriting until the message is clear and effective D) organizing your ideas and composing the first draft Answer: D Diff: 3 Page Ref: 40 6) When do you step back to review the content and organization for overall style, structure, and readability? A) planning B) completing C) revising D) writing Answer: B Diff: 2 Page Ref: 40 Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada 1 7) The planning stage should take about A) 10% of the time you have to produce...
Words: 4214 - Pages: 17
...Critically analyse methods which might be used to overcome prejudice. According to the oxford shorter dictionary prejudice is; a previous judgement especially a premature or hasty judgement, preconceived opinion; bias, favourable or unfavourable prepossession, usually with unfavourable condition, an unreasoning prediction or objection. Therefore prejudice is usually theorized as an attitude that has a cognitive element e.g. how people hold a certain belief about another group. It has an emotional element e.g. either they dislike or like the other group or it has an impulse element e.g. they might have a natural predisposition to have negative thoughts towards the other group. However most researchers define prejudice as a negative attitude. Alport (1954) in his seminal volume the nature of prejudice defined prejudice as “an antipathy based on faulty and inflexible generalization i.e. it’s an outgrowth of normal human function. He believed that “the human mind must think with the aid of categories…. Once formed categories are the basis for normal prejudgment. Humans cannot possibly avoid this process. Orderly living depends upon it (p.20). This explanation tells us that prejudice is not something logical or based in fact, but rather, on a series of assumptions, half-truths and guesses. Based on recent evaluations of what prejudice is, I have come to understand prejudice is based on an individual’s attitude whether positive or negative toward groups which creates a standard...
Words: 3879 - Pages: 16
