Race and media

Introduction

Mass media continues to play a role in how different races are perceived by other races. Numerous studies have shown the power of media to shape preferences and public perceptions. Media content impacts the importance that viewers attach a range of issues and factors they consider in making their evaluations, their positions on particular issues and the causes they attribute to particular problems.  

The impact of media can be observed in spoken, textual and visual components. Similarly, elements such as race are highly salient to an audience. There are a growing number of studies on the role of media in shaping perceptions on race. According to these studies, media dominantly influences public beliefs about particular races than perceptions shaped by personal encounters with people belonging to the race.

 Representation of race in the media has often consisted of the some sort of rigid stereotypes that constitute race portrayal. Stereotyping of race is viewed as more harmful compared to other forms of stereotyping.  Media representation may provide the avenue for the only experience of contact with a particular race group that an audience may have. Children often have less contact with a wide range of individuals or races. In such cases, racial stereotypes may be perpetuated based on social myth, perpetuated through media.  Thus, the media depiction of a certain race may provide individuals with the only experience of a particular race hence providing a set of narrow prejudices which may not be challenged further within life experience. Recently, there has been an increasing demand for a more accurate portrayal of the race and other aspects of diversity. However, this might take long for agendas to filter through to media, particularly television programs, and film-making. Through a comprehensive search of the literature, the paper discusses media as a tool that has perpetuated racism.

Properties of news about race

Studies pay attention to presentation Section, local meaning, thematic structure, frequency and size and style to determine a representation of race in the media.  The role of news schemata and other structures of news discourse are also used by different researchers to study media representation.   Media presentation means visual properties and the structure of occurrence that significantly influence its chances of attention and perception. These may include such location in the paper or program, as frequency, the size of headlines, location on the page, the use of pictures, photos, drawings or cartoons, and the type of media text. Type of media text includes news, editorial, background article, opinion article, and column.  From different studies, U.S. television networks and magazines dedicate a significant percentage of space of news space or time is violators of laws and to the elites (Li-Vollmer, 2002).

The lesser percentage is dedicated to Civil Rights. The percentage has dwindled to virtually zero. Minority groups are among the `unknowns' are assumed to be significantly associated with violence, crime, and riots. They get much more attention.  From such studies, it can be concluded that the frequency or quantity of reporting about minority race groups in the United States media is regular but not impressive. The quality press mostly publishes more than the television and magazines. Few studies focus on social media as a tool in perpetuating race perceptions. Although, studies suggest that figure depends on the numbers of minorities in the city or area under consideration (Jiwani, 2005).

Thus, the percentage of minorities in the area determines the proportionate increase in representation about them.  This Representation of race in the media is made up of some sort of rigid stereotypes that constitute race portrayal. In American society, Stereotyping of race is viewed as more harmful compared to other forms of stereotyping.  Thus, the media depiction of a certain race may provide individuals with the only experience of a particular race hence providing a set of narrow prejudices which may not be challenged further within life experience. Recently, there has been an increasing rallying for a more accurate portrayal of the race and other aspects of diversity. However, this might take long for agendas to filter through to media, particularly television programs, and film-making (Jacobs & Baldasty, 2003).

The outcome of the prevalent media focus on crime, gang violence, drug use, and other forms of criminal behavior among minority groups, the media have fostered a distorted and pernicious public perception of minority races.  The negative representation results in influential, counter-prevailing power. Members of minority groups form resistance carry out efforts to attract public attention through media accounts. Such may include disruption, disobedience or destruction. This often captures the attention of media precisely because they are align with both racial prejudices such as deviance and violence and news values such as negativity.  Hence the prevalent media attention to what is defined as riots, violence and crimes which they particularly associate with minorities. The process leads to a never ending cycle of race representation (Coover, 2001).

Race and media

As a social construct, race is a group of people with distinct physical features and similar characteristics.  Racism is a doctrine or belief that reflects differences among human races.  It is based on the notion that a particular race is superior to others. A concept of racism also incorporates programs and practices that discriminate or segregate a race. Such practices and programs include those that uphold political and economic domination of one race over another or others. Racism also includes feelings and actions of hatred and bigotry towards other persons and people owing to their race. The media has played a significant role in how different people perceive others from different races. The outcome of the prevalent media focus on crime, gang violence, drug use, and other forms of criminal behavior among minority groups, the media have fostered a distorted and pernicious public perception of minority races.   To understand different racial images, it is important to focus on racism in the American society today. Racism has had a major impact on minority groups in the United States (Entman & Rojecki, 2001).

African-Americans have a long history of centuries of struggle against discrimination and oppression. The media have played a significant role in continuing the impacts of this historical oppression and in constant view of racial minorities as second-class citizens. As an outcome racial minorities have suffered from a long standing uncertainty as to who they really are. The racial divide has raised doubts about America’s value system. The issue of racism can also be viewed from the perspective of race privilege issues.  Race privilege involves fair treatment by other members of the group for being part of them. This is another perspective of racism and discrimination.  Race privilege is a perception reached and makes a particular race feel superior to others in all aspects. These privileges are still in existence especially in the neighborhoods of the mixed races (Jiwani, 2005).

Racism and media

Today, many researchers and scholars sought to study the portrayal of racial minorities within news media as issues of crimes and race have come into the national spotlight. Different studies document the high rate at which people of color have been typically portrayed as dangerous or violent in television and newspapers.  Using samples of television news broadcasts, researchers compare against relevant crime data. Often, African-Americans are overrepresented as perpetrators. The findings fit in with other research studies suggesting that the problem of race and media are long-standing. African-Americans have also been portrayed as poor and associated with welfare programs.   Michael Reich developed the Segmentation Theory in the 1980's, in an attempt to explain racism. In this theory, he proposes that the final goal in society is to capitalize on profits. As a result, the society attempts to any means available to suppress the exploited class. To weaken the bargaining power of particular groups, the society often attempts to split individuals along racial lines to segregate and promote prejudices. Hence, some members of the society use this strategy by creating stereotypes and racial prejudices against a particular group (Jacobs & Baldasty, 2003).

Therefore, different media outlets reinforce the racial misconceptions about poverty and crime by presenting minorities differently. Newspapers and Television News programs over-represent racial minorities as crime suspects and the white society as crime victims. Minority suspects are also more likely to be presented in a threatening and non-individualized way such as unnamed and in police custody. Thus, individuals who are more punitive strongly associate crime with racial minorities are strongly support punitive policies. These perceptions distort the criminal justice system. By over-representing the majority as victims of crimes perpetrated by minority, media delivers a double blow to audiences' likelihood for empathetic understanding of the minority groups (Gilens, 1996).

Additionally, racial distortions are persistent in crime news. Studies find that a large percentage of suspects portrayed on media about crime were minority although minority groups make up the smallest percentage of individuals arrested. Additionally, minority groups represent the largest percentage of crime victims but only a small percentage of victims reported in crime reports. These disparities exist prevalently and are greatest when the victim's race is taken into account.  Thus, Crime coverage also betrays significant racial differences. Black crime suspects are often presented as more threatening. Latinos and blacks suspects are more often presented in a non-individualized manner by being unnamed or in custody of police (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000).

This representation results to disparity in how suspects are treated by law enforcers.  Similarly, individuals belonging to these minority groups are likely to be treated aggressively by police officers on television shows and films. For instance, the film 12 Years a Slave ignited a conversation about race and representation.  Many films in Hollywood feature black persons as slaves or criminals.  While such films are exceptionally important in understanding the past and its effects on the present, they form an interesting media tool on how media represents the minority. Journalists primarily write as group members, and hence represent racial minorities in terms of `them.'  Given that of racial minorities have little political influence and are less organized in powerful institutions, the two dimensions of race and class collectively produce social cognitions and ultimately social practices to represent minorities in a constantly negative framework (Chiricos & Eschholz, 2002).

Controlled ignorance about minority groups and group self-interest, favors the development of prejudices and stereotypes. The same is true for the media which further reinforces racial categorization. Generally, the media favor news about negative events, and they generate viewership especially in the case of minority groups. There is an existence of complex ideological framework in which intergroup prejudices and perceptions, cognitive strategies, journalistic news values and group dominance also contribute to the negative representation of racial minorities in the media. The same structural framework is also observed in the tendency to read or view negative representation (Jiwani, 2005).

This representation results in influential, counter-prevailing power. Members of minority groups form resistance carry out efforts to attract public attention through media accounts. Such may include disruption, disobedience or destruction. This often captures the attention of media precisely because they are aligned with both racial prejudices such as deviance and violence and news values such as negativity.  Hence the prevalent media attention to what is defined as riots, violence and crimes which they particularly associate with minorities.

Impacts of racism today

Representation of race in the media has often consisted of the some sort of rigid stereotypes that constitute race portrayal. These perceptions have caused discrimination and underrepresentation of minority groups in different sectors. These perceptions also have advanced effects in schools including; low self-esteem, hostility, discrimination, dropping out of schools, and favoritism in class.  Access to experienced teachers is also a problem facing minority students. Most of the minority students and English language learners are in schools with where the number of new teachers is high. A larger percentage of teachers in these schools do not meet certification and license requirements. Also, teachers in less diverse high schools earn higher pay more than teachers working in schools with high enrollment of blacks and Latino students. The effects of discrimination have an adverse impact on academic performance of the minority students. The risks of school drop outs are high as a result, according to previous research (Mastro & Kopacz, 2006).

The research also indicates that there are shortcomings of decades of political and legal moves that try to ensure equal rights among all races. Additionally, minority population accounts for a smaller percentage of American public school students. They also represent the largest percentage of students referred to law enforcement by schools and comprise of the majority of students that had been arrested for offenses committed in the school. Minority students are also likely to be suspended out of schools compared to their peers. Racism is bound to change the behaviors of students and can develop bad and unwanted habits at school. Education is adversely affected by privileges and the standards of privileges displayed (Brooks & Hébert, 2006).

Privileges can lead to discrimination as students will be in small groups to defend themselves. As students group themselves into racial sections, this can limit the student development ability hence affecting education. Teachers who practice discrimination and privileging treat students differently. The students will have challenges in gaining knowledge from the person they classify as their enemy. Also, privileges can lead to hostility from the underprivileged group that leads to fighting and bullying. Discriminated students may result in dropping out of schools, thus affecting their education. Students will feel unwelcomed and useless due to underprivileged. It can create fear and attacks that make students dropping out of school. In a class, we will have two groups on privileged and the other one underprivileged thus lacking cooperation and doing assignments together. Privileges kill team spirit, therefore, limiting students from sharing education and knowledge, thus hampering education (Jacobs & Baldasty, 2003).

There are various measures that have been taken by individuals and institutions to end this cycle. For example, there are stricter guidelines which lay out the legal obligation to refrain from racially discriminating individuals.  However, there are still policies that encourage harsh treatment of minority students. These have caused socio-economic disparities and inequalities experienced by the minority races in the United States. The poor education system for African Americans shows the existence of large gaps in the pledge to provide equal education rights for all children. The number of minority students that graduate from these colleges is considerably lower due to the effects of high school graduation and college enrollment and eligibility. They also lead to lose of hundreds of thousands of instructional time by the affected students. Also, these racial effects are felt in other sectors such as in the justice system. The prisons in the majority of states house mostly poor, uneducated inmates of color. These further lead to diminished, declining opportunities for African Americans in higher education threatening the state's economic, cultural and democratic vibrancy. The effects of are also evident in the unemployment rates in the black community (Mastro & Behm, 2005).

Conclusion

There are a growing number of studies on the role of media in shaping perceptions of race. According to these studies, media dominantly influences public beliefs about particular races than perceptions shaped by personal encounters with people belonging to the race. Racial distortions are persistent in crime news. Studies find that a large percentage of suspects portrayed on media about crime were minority although minority groups make up the smallest percentage of individuals arrested. Additionally, minority groups represent the largest percentage of crime victims but only a small percentage of victims reported in crime reports. These disparities exist prevalently and are greatest when the victim's race is taken into account.  Thus, Crime coverage also betrays significant racial differences. Representation of race in the media has often consisted of the some sort of rigid stereotypes that constitute race portrayal.

Different media outlets reinforce the racial misconceptions about poverty and crime by presenting minorities differently. Newspapers and Television News programs over-represent racial minorities as crime suspects and the white society as crime victims. Minority suspects are also more likely to be presented in a threatening and non-individualized way such as unnamed and in police custody. Thus, individuals who are more punitive strongly associate crime with racial minorities are strongly support punitive policies. These perceptions distort the criminal justice system. Representation of race in the media has often consisted of the some sort of rigid stereotypes that constitute race portrayal. These perceptions have caused discrimination and underrepresentation of minority groups in different sectors. These perceptions also have advanced effects in schools including; low self-esteem, hostility, discrimination, dropping out of schools, and favoritism in class.  Media depiction of a certain race may provide individuals with the only experience of a particular race hence providing a set of narrow prejudices which may not be challenged further within life experience.

References

Brooks, D. E., & Hébert, L. P. (2006). Gender, race, and media representation. Handbook of gender and communication, 16, 297-317.

Chiricos, T., & Eschholz, S. (2002). The racial and ethnic typification of crime and the criminal typification of race and ethnicity in local television news. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 39(4), 400-420.

Coltrane, S., & Messineo, M. (2000). The perpetuation of subtle prejudice: Race imagery in advertising. Roles, 42(5-6), 363-389.

Coover, G. E. (2001). Television and Identity: Race representation. Journal of Broadcasting.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in research paper services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for professional research proposal writing services.