Race, Gender, and Class Representation in the Media
While completing this blog post, I had the television on in the
background and up came a commercial for an Arm and Hammer cleaning
product which I thought was a perfect example of what the social
learning – social cognitive theory is. In this commercial a women (and
only a women) was seen cleaning through out the commercial, this I
thought just emphasized the perceived role of women in society, that is
being at home, cleaning, etc, while the man is out working, although
there was no man in the commercial, I felt like this was the impression.
If a child was to see this commercial quite often, they might get the
misconceived idea that only women clean and this would play into their schema's and perceptions about the world.
I have also seen many examples of framing by the media, in order to emphasize a point or help the larger audience understand the information. One of the more recent ones was from 'The Telegraph' a newspaper in England that was reporting the Educations Secretary’s opinion about the riots (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8736640/UK-riots-Michael-Gove-pledges-to-tackle-underclass.html).
The headline read: “UK riots: Michael Gove pledges to tackle 'underclass’”, the subheading to this article was: “An “educational underclass” was causing an explosion in the gang culture which helped provoke last month’s riots and looting, the Education Secretary said
yesterday.”
This heading is very provocative, using negative language of 'under' emphasizing somehow that the rioters were below everyone else, also the use of the words 'gang culture' and 'underclass' might suggest to the audience that only people of lower socioeconomic status committed the riots, it does not take into account the fact that lots of different types of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds were involved in the riots.
This article is likely to make the reader think different things about the different classes in the UK. I realize this article was only portraying the ideas of an individual in government, but without showing the other sides of the story it allows for a very one sided view and can lead to a cultivation of peoples idea about the gang culture in the UK and the socioeconomic status of different identity groups. This may lead to unjustified animosity and judgment between different groups of people.
This ingrained racism and stereotyping that we have in our society, we are so used to seeing people portrayed in a certain way that we sometimes do not perceive it as being racist or stereotypical. There is often an outcry about racism and specific individuals being racist and stereotyping in our society and yet what we do not always realize is that we all sometimes on a daily basis have racialized ideas and thoughts about how things 'should' be just because we have been brought up in a racialized society. We often think that racism is something that only the majority in society have ingrained in them, yet it has been shown that minorities and people of color can also be 'racist' towards each other without being conscious of it because we all know what we think 'society' expects people to be/act like.
This is seen on TV by the way that they try to portray something as diverse or non-stereotypical and out of the ordinary, yet when we look a little deeper there are stereotypical traits underneath. This is in the TV show Commander in Chief (ABC), in the way that a women became President of the USA (went into a typically masculine area, against stereotypes) and yet still acted in a very feminist way, taking care of her family and being submissive to her husband (very stereotypical.) This TV show may have been trying to showcase women in society, yet it kept many of the traditional assumptions about women the same, perhaps this what to increase view-ability, I find this rather sad. People do not understand something that is 'different' or out of the ordinary, unless it is put inside the frame of what is 'normal', that is just ridiculous.
Also what I found interesting was when Oprah Winfrey (a famous African American women, who may be seen as breaking down stereotypes,) did her show on racism, she took into account who her audience was (predominately white women) and so adjusted the topics discuss accordingly. Because of this blatant racism was discussed the most, where as inferential racism (which I believe is more serious and needs to be considered, so that society can change its ideologies) was left at the side lines. I realize for her it is important to keep viewer rates high, so as to still have a lively hood, however I feel that this was a missed opportunity to discuss just how deep racism or racialized ideas runs in our society and really make people aware of this. Also this shows the racialized view that Oprah took in order to produce the show, I find this to be ironic and slightly hypocritical.
I have also seen many examples of framing by the media, in order to emphasize a point or help the larger audience understand the information. One of the more recent ones was from 'The Telegraph' a newspaper in England that was reporting the Educations Secretary’s opinion about the riots (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8736640/UK-riots-Michael-Gove-pledges-to-tackle-underclass.html).
The headline read: “UK riots: Michael Gove pledges to tackle 'underclass’”, the subheading to this article was: “An “educational underclass” was causing an explosion in the gang culture which helped provoke last month’s riots and looting, the Education Secretary said
yesterday.”
This heading is very provocative, using negative language of 'under' emphasizing somehow that the rioters were below everyone else, also the use of the words 'gang culture' and 'underclass' might suggest to the audience that only people of lower socioeconomic status committed the riots, it does not take into account the fact that lots of different types of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds were involved in the riots.
This article is likely to make the reader think different things about the different classes in the UK. I realize this article was only portraying the ideas of an individual in government, but without showing the other sides of the story it allows for a very one sided view and can lead to a cultivation of peoples idea about the gang culture in the UK and the socioeconomic status of different identity groups. This may lead to unjustified animosity and judgment between different groups of people.
This ingrained racism and stereotyping that we have in our society, we are so used to seeing people portrayed in a certain way that we sometimes do not perceive it as being racist or stereotypical. There is often an outcry about racism and specific individuals being racist and stereotyping in our society and yet what we do not always realize is that we all sometimes on a daily basis have racialized ideas and thoughts about how things 'should' be just because we have been brought up in a racialized society. We often think that racism is something that only the majority in society have ingrained in them, yet it has been shown that minorities and people of color can also be 'racist' towards each other without being conscious of it because we all know what we think 'society' expects people to be/act like.
This is seen on TV by the way that they try to portray something as diverse or non-stereotypical and out of the ordinary, yet when we look a little deeper there are stereotypical traits underneath. This is in the TV show Commander in Chief (ABC), in the way that a women became President of the USA (went into a typically masculine area, against stereotypes) and yet still acted in a very feminist way, taking care of her family and being submissive to her husband (very stereotypical.) This TV show may have been trying to showcase women in society, yet it kept many of the traditional assumptions about women the same, perhaps this what to increase view-ability, I find this rather sad. People do not understand something that is 'different' or out of the ordinary, unless it is put inside the frame of what is 'normal', that is just ridiculous.
Also what I found interesting was when Oprah Winfrey (a famous African American women, who may be seen as breaking down stereotypes,) did her show on racism, she took into account who her audience was (predominately white women) and so adjusted the topics discuss accordingly. Because of this blatant racism was discussed the most, where as inferential racism (which I believe is more serious and needs to be considered, so that society can change its ideologies) was left at the side lines. I realize for her it is important to keep viewer rates high, so as to still have a lively hood, however I feel that this was a missed opportunity to discuss just how deep racism or racialized ideas runs in our society and really make people aware of this. Also this shows the racialized view that Oprah took in order to produce the show, I find this to be ironic and slightly hypocritical.
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