Portrayal of variety in the multimedia essay

Despite the fact that the United States is considered a great ‘immigrant nation’ with people coming from almost all countries of the world adding value to the economy and society as a whole, a study executed by Kids Now has says the “family hour” on television, that is, the shows that happen to be aired between 8 and 9pm, will be “the least ethnically various (“Diversity in the Media and Entertainment Industries, ” 2004). “

Merely one out of eight displays aired during the “family hour” has a merged cast (“Diversity in the Press and Entertainment Industries”).

� Obviously, this transmits strange communications about American diversity for the children in the nation. � What is more, the Screen Celebrities Guild provides reported that African People in the usa, Native Americans, and Latinos had been underrepresented in films seeing that 1998. � In other words, cinematic roles played out by nonwhite American individuals have been suffering in number (“Diversity inside the Media and Entertainment Industries”).

   � One more issue the fact that media must confront in terms of portrayal of diversity is a problem of stereotyping.

� Apparently, advanced degrees in mass conversation are not assisting journalists and advertisers to be honest in their understanding of people and cultures. � Given the obligation to relay truthful data to the community; journalists, marketers and all distributors of entertainment and media across diverse mediums such as television, newspaper publishers, radio, Net, etc . needs to have known that every people and cultures cannot be appreciated through stereotypes. � Moreover, through mass usage of stereotypes, the media is definitely creating a mass culture, the representatives of which consider it abnormal to stage outside the stereotypes (“Media Stereotyping, ” 2007). � The Media Understanding Networktalks about the obvious reason for stereotyping prior to outlining additional problems connected with stereotypes:

       � Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the marketing, entertainment and newsindustries, which will need as wide a group as possible to quickly figure out information.  Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person orgroup of people—usually relating to their class, racial or contest, gender, sex orientation, cultural role or occupation. Nevertheless stereotypes may be problematic.  They can: lessen a wide range of variations in peopleto basic categorizations; change assumptions about particular categories of people in “realities”; be used to warrant the position of those in power; and perpetuate social misjudgment and inequality (“Media Stereotyping”).

According to Ungerleider (1991) there is a system at perform that leads to the “misperception of minorities by the press. “� This kind of mechanism pertains to news staying generally made into a history or narrative structure with victims, evil doers, in addition to heroes. � Issues are usually framed while disagreements or plain disputes between makes of opposition, thereby making heroes and villains. � When information stories need to engage hispanics, they are typically placed into the categories of victims or villains. � It is rare to get a person belonging to a fraction ethnic group to be described as a leading man or heroine. � Additionally, interpretations which might be often repeated become “accepted understandings (Ungerleider). “

   � Ungerleider presents two instances of stereotyping in the Canadian mass media. � When the housing rates in Vancouver rose rather sharply, the media produced news reports that portrayed minorities – in particular, the immigrants from the Far East – as the villains. � Thus, emigration from China Asia was linked to the difficulty of increasing real estate prices canada. � Another example of stereotyping concerned the interest given by the Canadian media to felony activities between youth team members. � The coverage of this issue during 1988-89 entailed that just the small Asians were members of youth gangs (Ungerleider). � Obviously, this kind of sent a message to the Canadians that foreign nationals are hazardous people. � Most importantly, by sending this sort of messages to individuals at large, the media is liable for breeding hate in culture.

   � An additional problem of portrayal of diversity in the media relates to the fact that governments are really the chief causes of news. � Governments enjoy a dominant role in news tales. � Yet , governments are generally not known to be greatly represented by minority groups. � This is why minority groupings cannot perform a visible role in news reports anyway.

What is more, governments actually are responsible for distributing information about hispanics for reports stories, seeing that governments are the “major manufacturers and suppliers of information (Ungerleider). “� It can be easy, consequently , for government authorities to convey details about minority groupings the way they would want to deal with these groups. � The news stories may not continually be true. � Nevertheless, the media has little to no component to play so far as news testimonies conveyed by government are concerned.

   � Whatever the nature of problems associated with portrayal of diversity in the media, the fact remains that diversity is usually an essential component to societal actuality in the two United States and Canada. � Both of these countries rely on the immigrant employees to maintain large economic development. � By allowing news stories, videos and tv shows to show the community groups while inferior, communities face the risks of not simply losing their very own high economical growth nevertheless also the breeding of hate.

Recommendations

Diversity inside the Media and Entertainment Sectors. (2004). Cultural Majority.Recovered Dec 18

2007, from http://www.ethnicmajority.com/media_home.htm.

Press Stereotyping. (2007). Media Understanding Network. Retrieved December 17, 2007, from

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/index.cfm.

Ungerleider, C. (1991). Multimedia, Minorities, and Misconceptions: The Portrayal simply by and

Manifestation of Hispanics in Canadian News Media. Canadian Ethnic Studies, Volume. XXIII, Number 3.

1