Incognizant Racism in the Media
Prof. Sutton
Sociology 2550
11/9/11
Watching Racism- it’s In the News!
Racism exists today through many different vehicles. One would naively think that when President Barack Obama won the Presidential election that that was a sign of times changing, but this country remains the same. Just turn on any national news network and racism permeates through every story, every sound bite, and even every news reporter. It’s called incognizant racism, and it’s going unnoticed under the radar. One would think that when he or she turns on their news program that they will see their lives and their community being represented, and for white people this is exactly true; but for any person of color watching the news means watching the stereotype portrayed of their race. How is this happening? In a country as free and proud as the US one would think that our journalists would dig deeper and fairly represent nonwhite American citizens as much as they do the white citizens. Even through scripted television the overwhelming “white out” continues to overshadow the need for diversity in the entertainment industry. The problem is that people are still afraid to be outside their comfort zones, and sadly it seems that people of a different skin tone fall outside this zone. Until the newsrooms of this country start spreading diversity through their programs this country will remain stagnant in the process of fighting racism and the truth and justice Americans seek from their news corporations will be tarnished. It’s no secret how powerful the news networks are. They connect everyone in this country through television media, and what adult doesn’t occasionally watch the news? But the news doesn’t cater to different groups of people. Think of the news as one size fits all socks: for most people they’re either too big or too small. The news channels have a large heterogeneous target they market themselves to. In 2010, an average of 21.6 million Americans watches one of
Sociology 2550
11/9/11
Watching Racism- it’s In the News!
Racism exists today through many different vehicles. One would naively think that when President Barack Obama won the Presidential election that that was a sign of times changing, but this country remains the same. Just turn on any national news network and racism permeates through every story, every sound bite, and even every news reporter. It’s called incognizant racism, and it’s going unnoticed under the radar. One would think that when he or she turns on their news program that they will see their lives and their community being represented, and for white people this is exactly true; but for any person of color watching the news means watching the stereotype portrayed of their race. How is this happening? In a country as free and proud as the US one would think that our journalists would dig deeper and fairly represent nonwhite American citizens as much as they do the white citizens. Even through scripted television the overwhelming “white out” continues to overshadow the need for diversity in the entertainment industry. The problem is that people are still afraid to be outside their comfort zones, and sadly it seems that people of a different skin tone fall outside this zone. Until the newsrooms of this country start spreading diversity through their programs this country will remain stagnant in the process of fighting racism and the truth and justice Americans seek from their news corporations will be tarnished. It’s no secret how powerful the news networks are. They connect everyone in this country through television media, and what adult doesn’t occasionally watch the news? But the news doesn’t cater to different groups of people. Think of the news as one size fits all socks: for most people they’re either too big or too small. The news channels have a large heterogeneous target they market themselves to. In 2010, an average of 21.6 million Americans watches one of
Cited: Burroughs, T. S. (2009). In the brief. The Crisis, pp. 10-14. Dixon, T. L. (2008). Network News and Racial Beliefts: Exploring the Connection Between National Television News Exposure and Stereotypical Perception of African Americans. Journal of Communications, 321-333. Entman, R. M. (1990). Modern Racism and the Images of Blacks in Local Televison News. Critical Studies in Mass Communications, 332-343. Guskin, E., Rosenstiel, T., & Moore, P. (2011). Network: By the Numbers. Retrieved November 9, 2011, from The State of the News Media 2011: http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/network-essay/data-page-5/ Kelly, R. (2009, March 9). No Apologies. Newsweek, p. 54. Owens, L. C. (2008). Network News: The Role of Race in Source Selection and Story Topic. The Howard Journal of Communications, 355-369. Pehl, J. (2004, May 12). Latinos in the U.S. Media. Retrieved November 7, 2011, from Teaching Literature: http://www.teachingliterature.org/teachingliterature/pdf/multi/latinos_media_pehl.pdf