Introduction
It has been over 150 years ago since the formal abolishment of slavery in the United States, and many people claim that the institution of racism has ended with the transformation of the society. The media, specifically claim that we are now living in a post-racial society, and discrimination is a thing that is associated only with history. However, there are many instances when the media has portrayed a conflicting image of the minorities, which leads to the question about the validity of the argument that racism is now a thing of the past. The media has been reporting about the U.S being a post racial society, and its people have come a long way in terms of race. But, in contrast it continuously depicts images, indicating that stereotyping and discrimination is still prevalent around us.
The media such as the television, newspapers, websites and films play a significant role in shaping the general population’s perception of the minorities. It is through these means that the some people came to believe that racism has been minimized, thus there are those that refuse to acknowledge the tendency of the society to discriminate the minorities. Nonetheless, the manner by which the African Americans and other minorities are decriminalize proved that racism still exist, and such racism is generally based on how the media portrayed the minority. For example, a result of a study that was included in the book entitled Black Image in the White Mind, found that people generalize from what they see in their environment. Moreover, there are those who make their judgment from “Blacks they had seen on local news, the familiar crime stories that portrayed Blacks as victims or perpetrators” (Entman and Rojecki, 29). The authors pointed out that the media’s portrayal of the African American culture has a profound influence on the White’s perception towards them (Entman and Rojecki, 46). For example, while statistics revealed that serious crimes such as homicide and rape involved only a small proportion of the African-American youths, most people are inclined to “characterize all African-American males as criminals” (Balkaran, n.p). This phenomenon can be attributed to exaggerated reports, as well as the bias depiction of the media about African Americans. Consequently, as the media developed into one among the most influential element in the modern society, so was the portrayal of racism that went well along with it. A closer examination showed that racism has actually evolved and promoted through the stereotypes that has been highly portrayed in the media. For instance, in the defense of the Los Angeles police officers who were implicated for beating Rodney King sometime in 1991, the accused reasoned that they did so for fear that they will be attacked by the victim (Balkaran, n.p). This is a manifestation of how the media have negatively portrayed the African American image, to the point that people are inclined to think that anything black is evil and dangerous.
In the book entitled Racism, Sexism, and the Media, the authors discussed how the media has a pervasive impact on the American society through its three major functions. These functions of communication influenced the public’s opinion towards the minorities. Firstly, the media has the ‘surveillance function’, where it serves to scan the society and define the racial and ethnic groups that comprise it. Secondly, is the ‘correlation function’ where it informs the public and helps them fit these groups in the society. Lastly is the ‘transmission function’ which allows the media to define “what the social culture and heritage of the society are and transmits them to other members of the society” (Wilson et al, n.p). In an article entitled Mediating Racism, the author argued that most White people do not have a daily interaction with certain minority groups (Van Dijk, 201). It is therefore assumed that their ideas and opinions about some minority groups are generally derived from the media such as news articles, the television and the internet among others. This is validated by a study conducted in Amsterdam and San Diego, where the people “refer to the media when expressing or defending ethnic opinions” (Van Dijk, 202). Therefore, despite the argument that the US society has come a long way from the institution of racism, the media’s major functions of defining and fitting racial groups in the society help in promoting stereotypes and negative perceptions towards the minority groups.
While much has changed today, many members of the minority groups suffer because of the stereotypes that has been and are still being promoted by the media. For example, there are numerous films that depict members of the minorities as “criminals and leeches to ‘white upper-class’ America” (Horton et al, n.p). It is a common practice for film producers to assign minority characters in less than ideal roles, and the repeated manner of doing so resulted in the formation of a negative minority image in the public’s perception. This contradicts the argument that the American society is free from racial bias and discrimination. Rather, it validates the claim that we are currently in a post-racial society, yet the media showed many indications about the existence of racism in our midst.
The media have been supporting the unfair representation of the minority groups in the society. The discriminating stereotypes against the African Americans have been handed down from one generation to the next by the system of slavery. Unfortunately, these negative stereotypes had been reinforced by the media and had been accepted by the whites who have the tendency to remember the negative image, rather than the positive impressions provided by the media (Entman et al 6). One example of which is the common practice of associating black men with criminality, despite the fact that there is a low percentage of Black male criminals (Banaji et al 102). This is one of the dangers associated with continuously portraying a negative image of the minorities. People who belong to a certain racial or ethnic group carry with them the suspicion of the society, just because they happen to belong in one suspected group. One example was the case of Ahmed Mohamed, who was reported by his teachers to the police on suspicion that a clock he made for his class project was a bomb (Iyer, n.p).
Conclusion
The vital role of the media in shaping our culture and norms as a society calls for the need to regulate how the media portray the minority groups. The media have a dominant role in conveying information to the public, and it is through it that people within a society generates some of their ideas about other groups. However, the media also serve to pave the way in portraying racial stereotypes, which eventually create or enhance the existing perception of the public’s opinion about other racial minorities. The manner by which the media have been negatively influencing the public’s perception towards others, especially the minority group's demands attention. Currently, there is the question of the legality of legislative intervention on how the minorities are portrayed in the media. Yet, a closer analysis indicates that it would be a difficult task to impose regulations and strict policies on the media in terms of how they depict the minority groups. It is not about pushing restrictive laws, but more on raising awareness in the media. For instance, reporters and movie producers should be more sensitive and cautious in depicting media bias and stereotypes.
Works Cited
Balkaran, Stephen. Mass Media and Racism. The Yale Political Quarterly. 1999
Banaji, Mahzarin, and Anthony Greenwald. Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. Random House Publishing Group, 2013. Print.
Entman, Robert, and Andrew Rojecki. The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America. The university of Chicago Press, n.d. Print.
Horton, Yurii, Raagen Price and Eric Brown. Portrayal of Minorities in the Film, Media and Entertainment Industries. Ethics of Development in a Global Environment. Retrieved https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/portrayal.htm
Iyer, Deepa. "The Criminalization of Muslim Students Must End." Aljazeera America. N.p., 2015. Web. <http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/9/the-criminalization-of-muslim-students-must-end.html>.
Van Dijk, Teun. Mediating Racism: The Role of the Media in the Reproduction of Racism. Retrieved from http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/Mediating%20Racism.pdf
Wilson, Clint, Felix Gutierrez, and Lena Chao. Racims, Sexism and the Media: Multicultural Issues Into the New Communications Ages. SAGE Publications, 2012. Print.
