Potential effect of the media on racial attitudes/stereotyping - Essay Example

are usually thought of as an escape from the everyday world, they can also profoundly impact how we view the world around us, including our concepts regarding racial issues. However, it is also up to the audience to determine how these messages are interpreted. There have been several theories proposed regarding how race is represented in the media and how that might be changed. The media’s ability to effect its audience’s perceptions of social stereotypes such as the lower status of black people is well documented, but this effect occurs only as a result of the audience’s interpretations of the production so any solution must force the audience to question the assumptions it’s made.

According to Stuart Hall (1974), the way in which race is depicted in the media generally functions to reinforce negative stereotypes without focusing attention to the fact that this is being done. This is accomplished through the type of information the media focuses on in its reports to the world. “The media tend to favor experts, privileged witnesses, middle men – whereas blacks are predominantly an out-group, outside the consensus” (Hall, 1974). Regardless of the media format, the out-group is expected to either conform to the dominant white male ideology to an even greater extent than is expected by white males or they are kept quiet and behind the scenes.

As a result of these depictions, the representation of race is not true to life. Instead, it is a fabrication based on the external observations and perceptions of the white male ideology or an in-depth focus on the eccentricities of an even smaller minority subgroup. “The media are sensitive to middle class ways of life – whereas blacks belong to the skilled and semi-skilled working class” (Hall, 1974). Although the media recognizes a difference in the dreams and perceptions of these classes, it fails to focus realistically on understanding what these differences are.

The effects of these racial