Stereotypes In Mass Media

Words: 1018
Pages: 5

From the very beginning of visual media entertainment stereotypes have been projected to the masses, it is why television broadcasts are called programming. The intent is to create brief periods of broadcasting data that influences the mind to enjoy itself, accept the premises presented in short bytes of information, and we should become immersed in the entertainment enough to stay for the entire television show. Stereotypes in media have been used to cause controversy, gain acceptance, and most important, to sell commercially marketed products, services, and ideas.
Stereotypes are so deeply embedded into our modern social infrastructure that we almost don't recognize them, until they rise up and remind us that they have never gone away. What
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D.C. conducted research, their findings showed that all racial groups watch television for 3 reasons in the largest numbers. These 3 reasons were to bond as a family, to learn new things, and to keep from being bored. Children are exposed to mass media in larger numbers because of television being used as a monitoring system or replace for babysitter in all homes with such devices, this is true of white, black, and all ethnic groups sampled (Lichter and Lichter).
Despite these numbers and statistics, the newest generation has become aware of the influences that TV, music, and mass media are having upon them. The response primarily is one of acceptance, because the modern media is an important aspect for sharing and understanding multiculturalism today, therefore it is both a tool and a weapon. It can be utilized negatively, and already has been again and again. This does not mean that television has no redeeming qualities and maybe the perfect tool to counteract anything negative that programming has creatively caused.
Examples of positively counteractive media on television are everywhere, each being as free to express the information that can turn stereotypes around by showing the other side in the real
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This video is a vivid and highly thought-provoking analysis of the African-American prison boom by scholars, activists and politicians in the United States. The video takes a hard look at why the United States leads the world in incarceration and how that fuels and feeds into a cultural mythology that proliferates itself with blacks as criminals (DuVernay). 13TH is produced independently, but earned Netflix an Oscar nomination and won awards for best documentary on its own merits.
Other examples of the counteractive portrayal of all racial groups exist throughout society. As much as any racism continues to exist in society, the current generation is equally as determined to be seen as their own population, without the narrow-minded interpretation of their thinking, beyond the scope of the past century and using the technologies of the new world as a weapon of choice. This is the pivotal opposition to the way stereotypes are utilized and influencing us all in the media every day, because not thinking with prejudice leads to taking actions that do promote free thinking. As we learn not to interpret images we see into their stereotypes automatically, we eventually act in accordance with a mindset that only categorizes people as human