Society’s Dependence on the Media

Perla Espinoza Prof. Doucet English 1 10 May 2018 Media has come a long way and has progressed to change the way people see each other. Society has become so attached to the media that they depend on it for every resource, any question someone has, the move is to go directly to google or what movie they saw a few years ago. The problem is society depends way to much on the media to get the accurate information about anything. Media comes in all forms, such as television, social media (a big one), video games, movies, and of course good old fashion media, the ‘print media’ for example newspapers, magazine, or books.

The representation of media is the portrayal of any party, person or political idea. People get their information from online resources, and hold the media true to their word and what happens is media gives things a voice and it becomes a place where stories get told. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a movie screen, television, or person; people will use this platform to represent a group of individuals.

The majority of the time its just ignorant information when expressing any thought of publicity in the media. It’s best to be logical, it doesn’t matter if it’s the youth, people of color, or the LGBT people; it’s important to choose selectively those rules in media and paint those narratives about those parties perceived. The way society should come to a understanding is by communicating with each other, having it in the ‘back of the house’.

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It’s about knowing that when there is a question, there are people who will answer. There are people out there who are producers, writers, storyboard artists that come from these ‘communities’ to write their experiences into their content but don’t have a word because when you have a specific holding power like Hollywood; it’s owned by very affluent white men and if you’re outside of that then your story didn’t really get told. 100 years of television has been in and about white men and it’s the representative of the world around them; those are the stories being told.

If society elevates more diverse voices than there can be a diverse representation in media. The problem is the second there isn’t a sufficient amount of minorities in the media, they become underrepresented. They are deprecated in the media because their population isn’t big enough to shine out; it leaves the minorities seen as not important. The truth is people need more minorities taking the jobs that white American ‘have’ and although there is some minority representing character sometimes they tend to be secondary. In fact, there are hardly any movies in America that show a minority as the protagonist usually they are used as extra. Usually black people in movies are used to meet one’s death, especially in scary or thriller movies. In contrary, what happens is people of color don’t get known, they aren’t implied to the public eye and get left behind with the title of minorities. It’s a cycle, if there is no change then how can diversity be seen as beautiful or accepted .For instance, children also become affected by how people see each other.

Every born American knows what princess, Barbies or superheroes are, well these toys for the most part are white and while some companies have started producing toys of color there still aren’t enough. Kids start wondering why the skin tone doesn’t match the character. It creates a believe that if they want to be seen as beautiful or good looking they have to look lighter and unfortunately the media is the influence that has created a destructive environment for everyone. Black men tend to talk down on women with darker skin complexion online because some black men prefer white or light skinned black women over dark skinned black women, this sediment has been perpetuated in music, tv shows and movies. Lil wayne the “rapper” got confronted on one of his lyrics that said “ beautiful black women, I bet that b**** look better in red” these lyrics stated that black women would look better in a lighter red complexion because the term “redbone” got originated in the south that describes a lighter skin black woman. As a result, celebrities is getting treatments to get lighter and promote this as a “trend” or “beauty”. They are encouraging others to lighten their skin in order to be seen as beautiful.

Companies that sell skin lightening products have taken advantage of the situation and have produced many ads online to get consumer connection world wide. Although many know that skin lightening products could potentially have a negative effect on the health, pressure on society and media, has pushed people to the limits to buy a product that can make them feel desirable and belonging. The media profiles people of race, it divides races and stereotype minorities as criminals and drug dealers. It has created broken dreams for the young minority. African American people are constantly profiled as criminals or gangsters and a small part has to do with what movies and music show. Society has profiled black people as crazy gang bangers.“The victim, who was later identified as seventeen-year-old African American Trayvon Martin, was visiting his father. Zimmerman claimed he shot Martin in self-defense.

After an investigation, Zimmerman was accused of racial profiling and charged with second-degree murder to which he pled not guilty in April 2012. After a lengthy trial that came to an end in July 2013, Zimmerman was found not guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Martin”. When people describe someone by the color of the skin, it becomes racial profiling and unfortunately it gets used by polices, airports, restaurants, public areas and business owners. Incorrect assumptions about an audience has created many unconscious biases that are leading people to hate and have wars with others. Unfortunately the mainstream media has distorted cultures because people seem to have a hard time accepting other ethnicities. When someone doesn’t look or act the way the group does, people start to treat and label people differently. Sometimes the mainstream media know how the weak mind works, therefore they choose such headlines to catch people’s attention in order to gain money. Society thinks that checking the media will give the truth, but it only cares about what will excite the people, about what’s going to make the cash flow.

A journalist is someone who knows a little bit about a million topics, meanwhile academics know a great deal of information about one specific subject. The fundamental knowledge is what makes these two different. The press covers media in such a poor way that they don’t go in depth about what really happens and as a result, they don’t do a good job in reporting the scientific or social scientific results. In effect they say things that are not true. Some journalistic ideas keep cycling the same headline report over and over without looking at the real evidence or data. Yet because journalists aren’t specialist, they keep reporting the same info over and over again which then reassembles it as truth. It becomes its own self perpetuating reality and now it becomes true to the perception out there in the world. So the more people report a false headline, then the more it frames the political and social conversations around this false finding. It simply becomes truth by the way a person talks about the world. It’s those things that people fail to grab, the ultimate story. “There are still so many stories we are not getting that are out there. Journalists who think they know communities of color end up writing stereotypical stories and they use photos to make people look exotic. In fact, we need to pay more attention to photojournalism.

A story can be fair and balanced, but if that picture projects the exotic stereotype, the story loses its value. Don’t bypass a photo of a person because they don’t look ‘ethnic enough.’ Take a picture of the blonde Mexican or the Muslim women wearing Levi jeans”(Elizabeth). Stories that are posted on a mainstream show only the stereotypical view of what the journalist sees they take photos of what can capture the attention of the public. The reality is culture is not represented like it should, it creates fake news and if that is all what the public sees, than it becomes truth. People don’t know any better, they assume the media is reporting true information. It’s become a cycle of fake stories put out there in the world for ignorant people, that don’t know the real story. When people hear Muslim they automatically think terrorist, why because TV delineates horrific scenes. An example of 9/11 when the twin towers got hit by terrorists, it became such an impacting experience for people that they have judged and condemned those who belong to an Islamic religion. Islamophobia is the name of people who hate Muslims. It’s those who criticize without knowing the true person.

The news always connects terrorists with muslims and after the 9/11 incident, it has affected Muslims so much that in a country where many are welcomed, they have treated muslims as second class. Anywhere Muslims go they get stopped, especially in airports where they check them for any ‘harmful weapons’. It can be understood since the terrorist of 9/11 where muslim but it can only go for so long till people understand that terrorists don’t come from one culture. Many Americans and other ethnicities have committed terrorism too, why aren’t other ethnicities checked as well. The answer is the news puts big headlines when a muslim does something in America, because they know they are going to target a big audience. “The globalised mass media, financed and controlled by vested interests, contributes directly to Islamophobia, capitalising on conflicts in the Islamic world to spread negative images and fear of Muslims. The kind of hate speech directed against Islam and Muslims would never be tolerated if it were focused against any other religious group”(Arthur F.)

The media has a way of downgrading religion and blaming a lot of problems on religion, especially in wars and conflicts. They will try to make it out as if religion is the main primary source of war when in truth it’s just cultural tensions. The media can in general affect people emotionally, media puts stories that are supposed to pull the heartstrings of the people to get you to believe what the media has to say. All religions are good, it teaches good value in life. It teaches to be good to your fellow man , to be peaceful and donate money to those are least fortunate. Islam has a lot of the same qualities as all other religions. “A 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 are more likely to get their news from social media sites than any other age group. Parents and educators of children have also begun a movement to provide young people with tools and training to become responsible consumers of media and develop a strong sense of media literacy.” Most people still don’t hold that active skill to become responsible media consumers.