Stereotype this

Stereotypes are created when ideologies are adopted and applied generally to a whole group, without distinction or merit. Stereotypes are an inevitable result of diversity and ‘otherness’ coupled with the media’s immense power of representation. The ideologies are circulated and perpetuated by the media because they are produced and transformed by the media. These racist ideologies can only extend from ‘some single-minded and unified conception of the world’ (Hall, 2000: 281). These ideologies are so constrained; in fact the power of both the media and this carefully constructed discourse is its ‘capacity to constrain a very great variety of individuals’ (Hall, 2000: 281).

The media have constructed important ideologies about what race means to us, what the definition carries and the immediate problems associated with race. The media helps us categorise the world according to these categories of race. The media have not only constructed these ideologies of race, they have also reinforced, transformed, and elaborated upon them (Hall, 2000).

The 9 11 attacks would not have had the same impact worldwide without the media. The images of terrorism from 9/11 are mainly focused on the consequences and the aftermath of what had happened. ‘The actors are less specific. Published images of the suicide bombers who carried out the attacks blur into a generic mug shot of a man of Middle Eastern ancestry’ (Elliot, 2003: 52). The media’s representation of 9 11 reinforces the Middle Eastern stereotype. Circulating and perpetuating.

Those terrorists who were blamed for 9 11 wore turbans and sported thick, black beards. Turbans certainly don’t fit the dominant Western image, so it makes sense then that the media and thus the public allocate derogatory labels to people with the general look and feel of a terrorist.  And it’s just as easy ‘to extend that label to stereotypically include other people who happen to share that religion, culture or physical look, or even to encompass an entire geographical region as the home of terrorists.’ (Elliot, 2003: 52).

In much the same way that the media creates and perpetuates simplified racial categories, it creates religious ideologies that allow the world to see religious groups the way the mostly secular media wants them to. During the 2004 presidential elections, American news organisations portrayed religious Americans as conservative Americans ‘motivated by opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion…’ (Media Matters, 2007) The media drew on an already constructed ideology to perpetuate a stereotype about religious Americans; they just did what they had to exert their influence. Really are we at all surprised? We have allowed the media to think for us, to control our beliefs and to shift our culture. Why? How have we, intelligent, moral man, allowed this to happen? How have we allowed something we call media to claim so much power and present us with well, whatever they feel like?

Image Source:

http://openparachute.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/religion-in-the-public-square/

References:

Elliot, D. 2003. ‘Terrorists we do like and Terrorists we don't like’. In PM Lester and EE Dennis Eds., Images that Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media, 2nd Edn, London: Praeger, ch7, 51-55.

Hall, S. 2000. ‘Racist Ideologies and the Media’. In P Marris and S Thornham, Eds., Media Studies: A Reader. 2nd Edn.,New York: New York University Press, Ch.22, 271-282.

Media Matters for America. 2007. Left Behind,  The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media,  May