Media and Stereotypes

Introduction

Stereotypes are defined in psychology as socially shared beliefs ("shared beliefs") about personal characteristics ("traits") and / or practices ("acts") a group (Leyens et al., 1994). These attributions are typically based on ethnicity and gender. They are often but not always, negative. The knowledge of stereotypes in a society is widespread, but people differ in how much they agree with certain stereotypes in person. Who assesses a stereotypical attribution to be correct, it carries a prejudice. The concept of prejudice is also used either as a generic term for cognitive (stereotypes), affective and behavioral reactions to a person based on their group membership or is called, somewhat close, but the affective reactions than prejudice. Stereotyping of members of stereotyped groups has negative consequences, ranging from direct discrimination due to other processes out of which the stereotype is he a self-fulfilling prophecy (Bailey, 83-104).

Discussion

With regard to the influence of the media is to assume first that the mass media stereotypes in society make available the knowledge of peddling so certain alleged properties. Investigations as part of the cultivation hypothesis suggest a mutual reinforcement of TV reception and stereotypical beliefs. Increased accessibility of stereotypical content is for media use stereotypes assumed to be the mechanism of action. As a way to give a stereotyped group more or less effective, the use of generic masculine in German language is discussed, alternatives are presented. In another excursion, a study on media use by humans is presented with an immigrant background (Billings, 28-31).

However, there are numerous reality TV shows aired on media even today that portrays African-American men in a stereotypical, racist manner. These men depicted as violent, angry, stupid, lazy or sexually dominant or aggressive. Mostly, TV shows do not represent African-American community as educated, athletes and active in social and political matters. The portrayal of a small proportion of black community, who commit crimes, who are lazy and ignorant, is more common in media. For centuries, blacks and minority groups are enslaved and oppressed. The elite and in case of United States majority, enjoy all the benefits and took a large share of the perks and privilege (Bailey, 83-104).

Experimentally, the causal effect of stereotypical depictions of African Americans on about stereotypes and stereotype-guided behavior are discussed. Findings on stereotype-threat effect shows that media content can enable self-stereotypes, which have a negative impact on the performance of members of a stereotyped group. Stereotypes have the function of guiding people socially, until they got the means to become commonplace tools of entertainment. Moreover, the mass media are an indispensable part in our lives. They are not only entertaining, but even they have been granted the power to influence the perception of the environment (Billings, 28-31).

However, through television we know, for example, the characteristics of classic criminal: ugly, dirty, husky voice and the classic pistol in hand, or the classic model: fashion, hateful, trivial, superfluous and even anorexic. These two examples speak of what is known as stereotypes, i.e. the application of cognitive ...