How does the Media or Visual Art Influence People Perception of Asian Cultures - Research Proposal Example

Media is a powerful influence on the lives of many people. Media is used to convey messages to a diversified group of people. Some of the media portrayals are representations of different cultural groups and hence media can be defined as how the general public perceives a certain culture. The problem that lies with this is that people often perceive the wrong image of a certain culture that is often intentionally or unintentionally being conveyed via media. Hence it is very important to study the various effects the media possesses in creating images of a certain culture and how it affects the audience’s perception regarding it (Orbe and Harris, 235-236).

The goal of the research is to comparatively evaluate and analyze the effect of media on the perception of Asian culture and how it portrays Asian culture. The major research questions of this paper will be: How does Xie’s book give examples of the various films that show Asian stereotyping that takes place in the media and visual art, how various movies show the Asian culture If possible extend the research to other sects and cultures that are being affected by what is being shown on media, How the media shows the negatives and positives on the media and lastly, how to limit the portrayal of the Asians in the media and how to create a balance between the portrayal of culture being portrayed.
There have been various previous studies regarding this subject. Tianshi Xie conducted an analysis on the portrayal of Asian minorities in US films which emphasized the problems of racism and discrimination that the Asian Americans have to face which eventually lead to public outrage and political negotiations (Xie, 5). According to the author, the Asian people are mostly represented as knowledgeable, hardworking, and bearing good moral principles (Xie, 7). The author's work will help the research to be built of a solid foundation as it easily helps to understand how the implementation of strategies and tactics help change the perception of people regarding a culture. Therefore, this will serve as the primary source of analysis for the paper.

Similarly, in an article by Betsy (2015), the writer shows how the Asian community is subjected to various degrees of stereotyping in the media, being represented in a geeky way with a thick Asian accent. However, the author argues that Asians are simply clever and are very much fond of technology. The article also talks about other people of different ethnicities such as Indian facing language barriers in the Western world. The reason for the inclusion of this article is that it will help expand my area of research to the people belonging to different ethnicities and is an excellent sample that will help to identify the stereotyping that occurs in modern films and movies (Bozdech).

Certain contradictions that are observed in this area of research is that some media portrays Asians in a positive whereas some portray them in a negative way in which they are usually living a life below-average level and are going through the difficulty of facing language barriers. Many American movies also portray Asians as corrupted or evil. They are often in roles that are feared by others or in other words weird. An example of this can be seen in movies like Air America and Lost in Translation (Stein).

The paper will also discuss another article by media action network for Asian Americans which analyzes different movies which wrongly describe the Asian culture and how it affects the lives of those who are trying to adjust in a country that is miles away from their own.

The comparative analysis between the various sources and the investigation of the end results show the effects the media has on the perception of a country’s culture and this result shows that the audience should scrutinize and judge the information being displayed before them. Further understanding of the movie director’s decisions will help us to critically evaluate the movie director’s incomprehensive abilities.