Mass media, including movies, news media, books, the Internet, and radio, has become increasingly popular for serving informational, educational, and entertainment-related purposes. Regardless of the numerous benefits offered by the media, it has commonly been used for manipulating ordinary media consumers and affecting their opinions of vital issues faced by the society. The challenge has become extremely critical with the active expansion of the Internet and the growing number of media forms, which resulted in oversaturation with information and the commonality of misrepresenting or over-representing a particular group of population to affect the perception of this group. Among the most commonly misrepresented issues, race and gender are the two central concerns. The problem of gender misrepresentation in media is gradually turning into less critical, while race is still a usual subject of oppression driven by the media. As a result, social opinion is significantly affected due to the fact that race is shown in a reality-distorting manner, so that the needed perception of race and interracial relations in the society is shaped.
In general terms, the representation of race in media is driven by categorization. Race is one of the simplest schemas or a basic social category (Kite & Whitley, 2016, p. 91). It predetermines what information will be available in an individual’s memories, and these memories and information will affect not only the perception of a specific person but also conclusions regarding their life choice or motives behind specific actions and decision. What is special here is the fact that basic social categories work as a framework for assessing a person even without background knowledge about their life or personality. In other words, racism transmitted in media can be characterized as a schema used to alter the understanding of people and motivate the stereotyped treatment of people labeled by a specific social category. Another special feature about race as a basic social category is that it as well depends upon the race of a person consuming the information presented in media because the belonging to the same category (an ingroup) enhances the chances of avoiding bias and minimizing manipulation compared to the perception of people characterized by different categories (outgroups).
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"Racism – Stereotypes and Media".
Speaking of basic social categories, race is one of the most apparent points of oppression demonstrated in mass media. There are several main trends in the media. First and foremost, in ads and movies, whites are more visible compared to other races. For instance, Latinos almost always remain invisible. It is measured based on personal experiences of watching movies of different styles and start dates as well as advertisements commonly noticed on TV. On the other hand, when it comes to new reports, racial minorities are commonly shown as lawbreakers (Bjornstorm, Kaufman, Peterson, & Slater, 2010, p. 16). At least, they are more visible in the press compared to dominant racial groups.
Another concept that can be used for explaining the stereotypic representation of race in media is known as illusory correlations. It stands for making incorrect links between two absolutely disconnected characteristics. The connection between one’s race and their personal traits is one of the most common examples of illusory correlations (Kite & Whitley, 2016, p. 106). It is usually traced in representing whites as successful people enjoying increased access to leadership roles and power, as well as people living happily with their families and kids (especially in ads) or blacks as those involved in criminal activities because of their supposed violence (Jin, Pei, & Ma, 2017, p. 2). In this way, the whites are subconsciously perceived as leaders who can be trusted, while the blacks are seen as the potential sources of threat. Also, Latinos may be shown as illiterate (for instance, in the Spanglish movie, all Latin-American characters could not speak English, although, in fact, they were talented and could study the language; the only problem was that they lacked educational opportunities in their homeland before migrating to the United States). Similar instances of bias presented in media might affect real-life-communication with people of different races.
Moreover, the process of stereotype activation can be helpful for understanding how mass media drives race-based oppression. The concept of stereotype activation comes down to the process of recalling a stereotype as a result of an interaction with a person belonging to a particular social group (Kite & Whitley, 2016, p. 128). It can as well happen in the case of paying significant attention to a particular race in news reports. Returning to the example of news reports (regardless of the media they are transmitted by), a stereotype related to the supposed violence of the blacks can be activated if a white person meets one of them in a dark parking lot. In other words, the process of activation would be automatic because the stereotype is activated without the slightest effort and is based purely on recollecting the information obtained from news reports (Eastin, 2013, p. 302).
All in all, media is a powerful tool for affecting the general opinion regarding people characterized by basic social categories, and race is one of the common categories used for manipulating the general public viewpoints. The challenge with media as a tool for transmitting oppression is connected to the variety of media forms and accessibility to different sources of information, with not all of them being necessarily true. As a result, the oversaturation with information supplemented with the excessive attention to misrepresenting specific racial groups in the media results in the shift in cultural belief that further drive an individual’s thinking process and the way they interact with outgroups.
- Bjornstorm, E. E. S., Kaufman, R. L., Peterson, R. D., & Slater, M. D. (2010). Race and ethnic representations of lawbreakers and victims in crime news: A national study of television coverage. Social Problems, 57(2), 269-293.
- Eastin, M. S. (Ed.). (2013). Encyclopedia of media violence. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
- Jin, J., Pei, G., & Ma, Q. (2017). They are what you hear in media reports: The racial stereotypes toward Uyghurs activated by media. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 11, 1-8.
