Summer Homework (Part 1)

How a country, person, or event is represented in media usually helps mould a certain stereotype or opinion about that topic. This can lead to a lot of controversy as the author of the text is always biased for example media in the western world portrays the image of them being correct, which may not always be true.

The world is represented as one at crisis. Everyday there are new stories in newspapers and magazines about famine, natural disasters life shattering issues happening to people thousands of miles away. However they are mostly represented as a distant problem, which the west seen as what could and should be dealt with by someone else. Magazines such as OK, Heat or GQ instead are more popular because they idealise the famous lifestyle and try to represent a perfect, unachievable, world. An example would be in the Daily Mail instead of headlining the largest refugee migration of all time, they chose to write an article on Duchess of Cambridge’s new haircut. People who do not conform to the social norm are heavily criticised. This leads to be a negative representation of anyone who doesn’t fit inside a certain type of person which can be very damaging to society.

Similarly, the control of these texts is subject to the country they are written in. For example, in Britain the press are free to criticize the government and write about problems that the country is facing an example would be an article written by John Harris for the guardian about David Cameron, however in countries such as China or Russia where there is a communist government, their media is censored. Consequently the governments are represented in a solely positive light. This allows the government to have complete control because if the people of their country are unable to learn about their governments failures then they are less likely to seek change, giving the government complete power. Women in countries like Dubai are represented as second class citizens as the law gives them fewer opportunities than men. This is evidence of how the government influences the representations of certain groups in media.

Stereotypes are often used in texts to shape an idea or an opinion about a particular group of people, a religion or an event. For example there is the modern stereotype that any Muslim is automatically a terrorist and that they only live to corrupt the western world with violence and their beliefs. The media is hugely responsible for this stereotype as they always seem to highlight the religion of any Muslim who has committed a crime. This creates a negative idea about them which forms the damaging stereotype. Another stereotype created by the media would be that most black people are somehow affiliated with gangs or have been in trouble with the police. This stereotype was formed by the newspapers highlighting the irrelevant fact of the persons skin colour in an article. This stereotype can have fatal consequences in places such as the USA as many unarmed black men and women have been shot and killed because of the unfair assumption of the police. An example of this would be the case of Sandra Bland who made headlines in North America with ‘A black woman is found hanged to death in her jail cell…’ (It was later decided that it was homicide) The colour of her skin adds nothing to the story but only generalises a race as people will immediately read ‘black’ and ‘jail’ in the same sentence and jump to the wrong conclusion.

One message most often conveyed in print text is that women need to obtain a certain body type, or a certain look. In most magazines in print the photographs of women are massively sexualised and often show them with little or clothing on. This representation of women gives the message that women need to show more of skin or be sexualised in order to be accepted in modern society, this is made more unachievable by the fact that all of the photographs have been edited to hide any flaws. Tabloid magazines also use this ideal to critic celebrities on their bodies and are quick to slate even the slightest of weight gain. Consequently the audience of that article now view that body type as socially unacceptable. Men in print are represented usually represented by rich, successful men who give the message that if you do not have money you will not be successful and you cannot be happy.

To conclude, the representation of someone or something in the media has a huge effect on how the rest of the world see’s it and how they see themselves. The wrong representation can have catastrophic consequences and build a stereotype which may take years to eradicate.