Media Influences Racial Relations
How the media influences racial relations
On Saturday August 9, 2014 Michael Brown and his friend were walking down the street in Ferguson, Missouri and were approached by a white police officer for jay-walking. There are several eye witness accounts as to what happens next but the fact of the matter is that Michael Brown, a black teenage male, was shot to death while unarmed. After the shooting happened, there was media frenzy like no other. The media was so eager to get on the story; they got into a “get it first” mentality instead of a “get it right” mentality. The media controls all aspects of what Americans have access to in our daily lives. They essentially have the power to tell us what is important and what is not. The media’s influence on society is substantial. They report what will get ratings and what they believe people are most intrigued by, not what is always what is best. This especially applies to negative media. The media shows things that are “ratings getters” not what is actually going on in the world. This causes the stories they report on to be lacking in accurate detail and often leads to unethical practices. Media reports also often …show more content…
In 2011, according to Rare.us, 2,630 whites were murdered by other whites in the United States. Where are the journalists when these murders take place? Robert Entman of George Washington University highlighted in Media Matters, states that “Blacks and Latinos are more likely to appear as lawbreakers in the news; particularly when the news is focusing on violent crime, Whites are overrepresented as victims of violence and as law-enforcers, while blacks are underrepresented in these sympathetic roles, and black victims are less likely to be covered than white victims in newspaper coverage of
On Saturday August 9, 2014 Michael Brown and his friend were walking down the street in Ferguson, Missouri and were approached by a white police officer for jay-walking. There are several eye witness accounts as to what happens next but the fact of the matter is that Michael Brown, a black teenage male, was shot to death while unarmed. After the shooting happened, there was media frenzy like no other. The media was so eager to get on the story; they got into a “get it first” mentality instead of a “get it right” mentality. The media controls all aspects of what Americans have access to in our daily lives. They essentially have the power to tell us what is important and what is not. The media’s influence on society is substantial. They report what will get ratings and what they believe people are most intrigued by, not what is always what is best. This especially applies to negative media. The media shows things that are “ratings getters” not what is actually going on in the world. This causes the stories they report on to be lacking in accurate detail and often leads to unethical practices. Media reports also often …show more content…
In 2011, according to Rare.us, 2,630 whites were murdered by other whites in the United States. Where are the journalists when these murders take place? Robert Entman of George Washington University highlighted in Media Matters, states that “Blacks and Latinos are more likely to appear as lawbreakers in the news; particularly when the news is focusing on violent crime, Whites are overrepresented as victims of violence and as law-enforcers, while blacks are underrepresented in these sympathetic roles, and black victims are less likely to be covered than white victims in newspaper coverage of