Diversity And Mass Media
The question of weather the media’s role in
establishing racial and ethnic
equality is not only very easy to answer but
needs to be answered. People need
to think of how important it is. People
tend to under estimate this power and
hate to admit that the media shapes our
opinions about people. Most of us will
not stand the idea that we stereotype
and classify people, let alone that we do
that involuntary based mainly on
the media. The media’s bias in America
hasn’t taken any specific direction in
the con direction. It has just cared
always about being pro white. Most of
the different major minorities in the US
have somehow been attacked at some
point by the media. I can’t think of an
ethnic group that escaped that
suppression. African Americans, Latinos, Arabs,
Italians, Russians and
lately the Chinese. Perhaps the only group that somehow
ended up with a good
positive image are the oriental people, however I don’t
see the origin of
this stereotype originating from the media. That positive
image is a sort of
thing that goes around people seeing a lot of oriental people
in nice cars,
successful at jobs and school. Sure, the media have set a
stereotype that
each and every one of them is a martial art master, but still I
think most of
the real positive image is from the daily life not the mass
media.
Perhaps as an Arab, I can totally relate to what Shaheen has
written in his
article about the media’s image of Arabs. Not only was I
furious when I saw
Arabs portrayed in movies as primitive, camel riding
nomads, but I had always
asked my self why? Although Shaheen is from the
small minority Christian Arabs,
his comments are valid for all Arabs.