Media Stereotypes Essay -- Media Stereotypes Stereotyping

Media Stereotypes â€Å"Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information. Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people—usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.† Stereotypes are deeply embedded in every society in numerous ways. The dictionary definition of a stereotype is â€Å"one that is regarded as embodying or conforming to a set image or type.† Stereotyping or Labeling is a technique that â€Å"attempts to arouse prejudices in an audience by labeling the object of the propaganda campaign as something the target audience fears, hates, loathes, or finds undesirable.† These stereotypes become so clichà © that they begin to form daily thoughts and views and one is unable to look beyond them. They then become dominant ideologies that are impossible to remove. These stereotypes are inevitable since they have been a key player in the propaganda that the west promotes to other cultures and societies. Media plays a vital role in producing these stereotypes. This is because the media is a very dominant mode of communications in the society that we live in today. In the past 50 years the media has shaped thoughts and influenced people in numerous ways. â€Å"Most common forms of media are television, radio, newspaper, magazines, direct mail, and billboards.† We are bombarded everyday in some way or the other by images from the media world. Therefore, it becomes impossible to escape the messages that are presented to us over and over again. These stereotypes are there in order to form propagand... ...ns.biz/marketing/marketing_definitions.htm. consulted on Monday, March 29, 2004 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Online at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda . Consulted on Monday, March 29, 2004 PRATKANIS, Anthony and ARONSON, Elliot. Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion . New York : W.H. Freeman and Company, 1991. Media Network Analysis. Media Portrayals of Girls and Women: Introduction. Online at: http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/index.cfm . Consulted on Sunday, March 28, 2004 Quote from the text on the woman in the Bijan image. Online at http://www.mediawatchyouth.ca/images.php?cat=rr . Consulted on Friday, April 02, 2004 . DYER, Richard. Gays and Film. Online at http://gente.chueca.com/peliculas2/libros/richarddyer/gaysandfilm.htm . Consulted on Friday, April 02, 2004