Provoking Emotions to Measure Media Effectiveness and Social ImpactPosted on 07/05/2011
The easiest way to gain attention is to create an
issue or inflame an existing issue. By far the greatest influence on race perception is
instigated by the media.
Pitting two traditionally wary and competitive races
against each other lets newspaper editors, book publishers, and lecturers drum
up controversy, interest, bitterness, and, most of all, sales. It’s not just
whites against blacks over issues of race and what it means in their lives, but
blacks against enterprising Korean capitalists, whites and blacks against Middle
Easterners and illegal Mexican immigrants, and blacks against other blacks over
drug sales territory, in which race is incidental to commerce.
In a recent season of the television show,
Survivor, teams were artificially segregated by race, reminding people of
legally enforced pre-civil rights segregation. Survivor’s producers
created controversy by being bold enough to admit to and exploit the racially
separatist tendencies in their viewers, knowing that viewers would watch and
root for same-race teams that represented them. Tactics like this wouldn’t
happen in a racially neutral society because there would be no controversy in
doing so.
The Race to Media DominancePosted on 07/05/2011
If media reports about a minority are generally negative–and media reports invariably emphasize the negative as worthy news–people will form negative generalizations about a race in lieu of specific experience with a race’s members. In Dayton, Ohio, media reports are racially partial toward blacks, who constituted 43 percent of Dayton’s population according to the 2000 census.
An example of blatant race bias in the media is evident in the opening sentences of an article on a supply contract to General Motors: “After more than a year of trying to break in as a supplier to General Motors Corp., Beverly Bleicher made a shrewd business decision. She hired a white, male sales agent who was able to secure a $75,000 contract from GM....” (Alexander). Aside from the bias of interviewing a black female who feels victimized because of her race (whites rarely being interviewed for feeling victimized because of their race), the article doesn’t address the possibility that Bleicher simply hired a good salesperson who just happened to be male and white. Perhaps the skill of the salesperson landed the contract, not the color of his skin nor his gender. Even the title of the article–“GM’s minority suppliers worry”–presumes that white suppliers don’t worry or don’t need to. GM’s total supplier base is 5,700, and 1,480 of those suppliers are minorities, which is a generous percentage. Through the biased language of the article, the media is trying to force GM to develop minority supplier programs to open up the bidding for contracts. Then, “Bleicher’s $1.2 million manufacturing company has abandoned the automotive industry and now focuses on manufacturing engine parts for aerospace and defense industries....” According to Bleicher, fractured syntax intact, “‘The fact that I am a black female, people have preconceived opinions of my inability of my soliciting the work. However, if I would send a non-minority person over, they were more warmly welcomed and receive more opportunity’” (Alexander).
Liberal media is typically duplicitous, siding with the black agenda. Another example of the slant in a report that fuels the issue of race is an article entitled “Race may be factor in fights” describing stabbings in a prison. Southern Ohio Correctional Facility warden Arthur Tate reported, “‘The first incident involved a black man being stabbed by a white man. The second incident involved a white man being stabbed by a black man.... From that standpoint, race certainly is involved’” (Dayton Daily News). Prison investigators don’t work hard on establishing motive.
Newsflash: Sometimes crimes involving participants of more than one race aren’t racially motivated.
Whether the story is about a white man who didn’t get a job because of race quotas, or a black man who didn’t because of racial discrimination, frequent reports make the injustice seem prevalent. People who read newspapers aren’t interested in stories about job applicants getting turned away for their lack of experience. They want to read headlines like “Racial and National Divides” until they learn the story’s about theater dramas being presented at a local university (Dayton City Paper). “Black men urged to lead the way at Think Tank” is a headline that presumes that black men need to be urged, implying that white men are currently leading, and that thinking is an unfamiliar area for black men (Dayton Daily News). “Clergy discuss how to bridge a racial divide evident from failed school levy” is a subheadline that cites racism as evidence for a failed levy (Dayton Daily News). The article further insinuates that whites were actively racist in voting against the levy, though the funding was earmarked entirely for inner-city, predominantly black schools, forcing all local parents to pay a prohibitively high tax increase for schools that their children don’t attend. Three separate headlines emphasize race in this article from the Dayton Daily News May 20, 2007 edition: “DAYTON’S BLACK-AND-WHITE DIVIDE: Race remains significant factor in city’s elections: The vote map for the school levy mirrors the racial divisions seen in past mayoral contests.” The prevalence of such alarmist headlines alleging race as a deciding factor in social injustice, and the statements by interview subjects in the stories that racism is prevalent, inflames race as an imperative issue, though few think about race on a daily basis.
If there’s an extra dimension, the drama of social injustice, the possibility that race played a role or that an employer is embroiled in a secret conspiracy to avoid hiring minorities, then there’s an employer and a story worthy of attention by those who want to be appalled and indignant. We’ve all heard stories about minorities getting rude service in restaurants because the waiters are racist. Or not getting a job because the employer is racist. Not being promoted because of racist employment policies. Not being allowed to buy property in a white segregated neighborhood. Being singled out as a suspect based on race. The violence and riots by minorities. For some of these stories, the allegations are unproven, but for others, the truth is plainly written in policy and federal law.
The rate of racial discrimination isn’t affected by someone’s subjective evaluation, belief, and perception of its prevalence, a perception formed by the prevalence of stories about race in the media.
Media seeks darlings. Many whites feel that a major sustaining factor of racist attitudes are statements from minority spokespeople that emphasize race as an inevitable factor in daily life. Racial issues are discussed to the point of anger on college campuses. The interest is like watching a train wreck that diverts focus from other pressing problems. The undue emphasis also heightens the perception of the prevalence of race-related issues in society, when acts of racial discrimination and violence are actually quite rare. In fact, many of the maladies attributed to racism and racial discrimination occur across racial lines: poverty, poor job opportunities, job discrimination, fractured families, poor education, crime, violence, religious persecution, integration, miscellaneous hardships, medical problems, and life in inner cities. The races have everyone looking for racial discrimination where none could ever be proven, but the emphasis makes everyone who might be charged with it dread race issues, upsetting everyone who loathes any kind of treatment that is based on race.
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