The Media

 We quickly come to stereotype people from other different areas and cultures of the world.  When I think of an Asian woman, I think of a tiny woman with the traditional kimono, her hair in bun with chopsticks, and her feet wrapped.  Stereotype.  When I think of a Latino woman, I think of the spicy woman dressed in provocative clothing speaking very quickly and fiercely.  Where do I get these cultural perceptions when I have never been to Asia or Latin America?  The media.  The media does a great job of lumping people of several different cultures into one identity.  They try to put a face to an entire continent, when in reality there are a million different cultures and types of people on each continent. 

Who makes up the media?  How do they have the power to control cultural perceptions?  They can easily place a positive or negative image on an entire area of the world with one picture.  The fact that I was asked in Armenia if my life was like Sex and the City is a prime example.

When you turn on the news, what do you see?  Awful things.  The majority of what the media portrays are these negative images of people, places, ideas, etc.  I can’t remember the last time that I saw them highlight the positive things that people are doing around the world to improve society.  Unfortunately society doesn’t like to see the positive things.  We like to see that Tyra put on 50lbs or that Angelina lashed out at baby Shiloh.  That’s what we read when we pick up the magazines.  It is an ugly cycle that the media feeds on.  Everyone likes to watch the celebrities and higher officials fail.  Every time I turned on ESPN after the Tiger Woods scandal, they were releasing some new information about this girl or that girl.  This story went on for months upon months.  Why?  Because people were entertained by someone else’s failure. 

It’s crazy to think that the media has as much of an influence as they do.  They have the power to change people’s ideas and impressions.  It would be interesting to see what would happen if they started displaying the positive things.  Showing the positive things that are going on in society might make a happier world.  We would be more globalized if we just accurately understood other cultures.  Thanks to the media for inaccurately portraying cultures and feeding off of other people’s failures.