{"id":56974,"date":"2022-08-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nursingstudybay.com\/2022\/08\/31\/portrayal-of-diversity-in-the-media-essay\/"},"modified":"2022-08-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T00:00:00","slug":"portrayal-of-diversity-in-the-media-essay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/portrayal-of-diversity-in-the-media-essay\/","title":{"rendered":"Portrayal of Diversity in the Media Essay"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Despite the fact that the United States is considered an \u2018immigrant nation\u2019 with people from almost all countries of the world adding value to the economy and society as a whole, a study conducted by Children Now has revealed that the \u201cfamily hour\u201d on television, that is, the shows that are aired between 8 and 9pm, are \u201cthe least ethnically diverse (\u201cDiversity in the Media and Entertainment Industries,\u201d 2004).\u201d<\/p>\n

Only one out of eight shows aired during the \u201cfamily hour\u201d has a mixed cast (\u201cDiversity in the Media and Entertainment Industries\u201d).<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 Naturally, this sends strange messages about American diversity to the children of the nation.\u00a0 What is more, the Screen Actors Guild has reported that African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos have been underrepresented in films since 1998.\u00a0 In other words, cinematic roles played by non-white American people have been declining in number (\u201cDiversity in the Media and Entertainment Industries\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another issue that the media must confront with regards to portrayal of diversity is the problem of stereotyping.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 Apparently, advanced degrees in mass communication are not helping journalists and advertisers to be honest in their understanding of people and cultures.\u00a0 Given the responsibility to relay truthful information to the public; journalists, advertisers and all distributors of entertainment and news across different mediums such as television, newspapers, radio, Internet, etc. should have known that all people and cultures cannot be appreciated through stereotypes.\u00a0 Moreover, through mass usage of stereotypes, the media is creating a mass culture, the representatives of which consider it abnormal to step outside the stereotypes (\u201cMedia Stereotyping,\u201d 2007).\u00a0 The Media Awareness Network<\/em> explains the obvious reason for stereotyping before outlining other problems associated with stereotypes:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment and newsindustries, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information.\u00a0Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person orgroup of people\u2014usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation. But stereotypes can be problematic.\u00a0They can: reduce a wide range of differences in peopleto simplistic categorizations; transform assumptions about particular groups of people into \u201crealities\u201d; be used to justify the position of those in power; and perpetuate social prejudice and inequality (\u201cMedia Stereotyping\u201d).<\/p>\n

According to Ungerleider (1991) there is a mechanism at play that contributes to the \u201cmisperception of minorities by the media.\u201d\u00a0 This mechanism relates to news being generally constructed into a story or narrative structure with victims, villains, in addition to heroes.\u00a0 Issues are typically framed as disagreements or plain conflicts between forces of opposition, thereby making heroes and villains.\u00a0 When news stories must engage minorities, they are typically placed into the categories of victims or villains.\u00a0 It is rare for a person belonging to a minority ethnic group to be portrayed as a hero or heroine.\u00a0 Moreover, interpretations that are often repeated become \u201caccepted understandings (Ungerleider).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ungerleider presents two examples of stereotyping in the Canadian media.\u00a0 When the housing prices in Vancouver rose rather sharply, the media created news stories that portrayed minorities \u2013 in particular, the immigrants from the Far East \u2013 as the villains.\u00a0 Thus, emigration from Far East Asia was linked to the problem of increasing housing prices in Canada.\u00a0 Another example of stereotyping concerned the attention given by the Canadian media to criminal activities among youth gang members.\u00a0 The coverage of this issue during 1988-89 entailed that only the young Asians were members of youth gangs (Ungerleider).\u00a0 Obviously, this sent a message to the Canadians that immigrants are dangerous people.\u00a0 Most importantly, by sending such messages to the people at large, the media is responsible for breeding hate in society.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another problem of portrayal of diversity in the media relates to the fact that governments happen to be the chief sources of news.\u00a0 Governments play a prominent role in news stories.\u00a0 However, governments are not known to be heavily represented by minority groups.\u00a0 This is the reason why minority groups cannot play a prominent role in news stories anyway.<\/p>\n

What is more, governments happen to be responsible for distributing information about minorities for news stories, seeing that governments are the \u201cmajor manufacturers and distributors of information (Ungerleider).\u201d\u00a0 It is easy, therefore, for governments to convey information about minority groups the way they would like to deal with these groups.\u00a0 The news stories may not always be true.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the media has little to no part to play as far as news stories conveyed by the government are concerned.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Regardless of the nature of problems related to portrayal of diversity in the media, the fact remains that diversity is an essential part of societal reality in both the United States and Canada.\u00a0 Both of these countries rely on the immigrant work force to maintain high economic growth.\u00a0 By allowing news stories, films and television shows to portray the minority groups as inferior, societies face the dangers of not only losing their high economic growth but also the breeding of hate.<\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

Diversity in the Media and Entertainment Industries. (2004). Ethnic Majority. <\/em>Retrieved Dec 17,<\/p>\n

2007, from http:\/\/www.ethnicmajority.com\/media_home.htm.<\/p>\n

Media Stereotyping. (2007). Media Awareness Network<\/em>. Retrieved Dec 17, 2007, from<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.media-awareness.ca\/english\/issues\/stereotyping\/index.cfm.<\/p>\n

Ungerleider, C. (1991). Media, Minorities, and Misconceptions: The Portrayal by and<\/p>\n

Representation of Minorities in Canadian News Media. Canadian Ethnic Studies<\/em>, Vol. XXIII, No. 3.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the fact that the United States is considered an \u2018immigrant nation\u2019 with people from almost all countries of the world adding value to the\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7641,7638,7639,7640,7637],"tags":[704,702,687,211,699,215,706,68,208,686,210,705,701,703,697,157,33,698,209,700,685],"class_list":["post-56974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia-essay-writers","category-canada-essay-writers","category-ireland-essay-writers","category-uae-essay-writers","category-usa-essay-writers","tag-apn-nursing-help","tag-assignment-help-online-free-help-with-assignment-online","tag-assignment-help-website","tag-best-website-for-nursing-assignment","tag-dnp-nursing-help","tag-do-my-nursing-homework","tag-get-help-with-assignments","tag-healthcare-homework-help","tag-help-with-nursing-assignment","tag-help-writing-online-assignment-homework","tag-homework-help-for-nursing-school","tag-medical-assignment-help","tag-msn-nursing-help","tag-need-help-with-assignment","tag-nursing-capstone-help","tag-nursing-dissertation-help","tag-nursing-essay-help","tag-nursing-help-websites","tag-nursing-homework-website","tag-nursing-school-help-sites","tag-online-writing-assignments-for-pay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}