Racism in Media Term Paper

Racism and Ethnocentrism in the Media

Even though they are straightforwardly and often confused, race and racism ought to be distinguished from ethnicity and ethnocentrism. Despite the fact that extreme ethnocentrism may take the matching offensive form and may have the same calamitous consequences as tremendous racism, there are important differences connecting the two concepts. Ethnicity, which shares culturally contingent features, classifies all human groups. It pertains to a sense of individuality and membership in a group that shares widespread language, cultural personality (standards, beliefs, religion, food habits, backgrounds, etc.), and a judgment of a common history. Almost every group of humans are members of some edifying (ethnic) group, sometimes several. The majority of such groups feel -- to different degrees of intensity -- that their method of life, their foods, clothing, habits, attitudes, values, and so onwards, are better than those of other factions (Kiselica, 1999).

The most important value of ethnicity is the fact that it is not linked to biology and can be flexible and changeable. People all over the place can change or improve their ethnicity by gaining knowledge about or assimilating into another culture. American society well displays these facts, making up as it does of groups of people from hundreds of diverse world cultures who have gained some aspects (Hancock, et al. 2013).

Diffreint, (2011) traversed the social science literature and went back to the earliest definition of ethnocentrism, provided by Sumner (Hancock, et al. 2013) who defined it as the scientific name for this analysis of things in which ones personal group is in the middle of everything, and all others are leveled and rated with bearing to it. Different other social scientists have attempted to provide alternative definitions. Levinson saw it as a hierarchical, dictatorial view of group communication in which ingroups are appropriately dominant, outgroups secondary (LaFromboise et al. 1993). Neuliep et al. affirmed the following: The idea is that all cultures are so entrenched in their own particular codes and value orientations that there is an ethnocentric leaning to consider that their sole understanding and perceptions of the world and human nature are the finest and most accurate ones (Isser, 1976).

While looking at ethnic issues, preceding reviewed research centers mainly on two paths: either the European problems among different cultures of the continent or the dealings between white Americans and Latinos in the North American background Despite the fact that Hispanic people formerly from Central or South America are more and more a widespread population in many North American cities, research shows that Latinos are still seen as a subjugated social group. Gaudio and Bialostok (2005) make a serious discourse investigation on day by day speech of Katherine, a white middle-class American, wedded to a working-class Latino gentleman (Steele, 1997). Katherines discussions are compassionate when talking about her husband's less-educated relatives, about the Latinos who adhere to their background long after setting base in USA, or about the Latinos absence of socioeconomic achievement as being in their blood (Sue, et al. 2007) Up till now, contained in all these accounts is the proposal that the cultural values of the white middle class are ethically better than those of other ethnic and class factions, and that it is the liability of ethnic poor people of color to relinquish their old standards and take on new ones (Hancock, et al. 2013). Sizemore (2004) in addition addressed this concern when evaluating the whites communication of ethnic addition, which allows for the feeling, particularly among Anglos, that this is our nation and Hispanics should assimilate. Sizemores study project consists of qualitative dialogues with white people from a rural area in southern Alabama on the topic of Hispanic communal integration in their population. Almost all white Americans questioned, from local people to government representatives, said the change of their community by the influx of Hispanics by using speech of ethnocentrism and paternalism. The way ethnocentrism was apparent in Bailey, (2012) piece of writing is by the characteristic of we the lawful inhabitants of this place and them, the strangers who need to be conventional if they want to fit in. The paternalism was apparent in whites speech in two ways: what's more as a local generosity in order to use them as shameful labor for the work on the states orchards or as citizens with widespread rights, language used by government organizations with the intention of going through their political agenda of giving entitlements to marginal groups (Miller, et al. 2011).The extra focus on ethnic problems is the assortment of a huge number of nationalities living together on the European continent. This comprises an old debate and study area that has turned out to be still more intense in view of the fact that the formation of the European Union in 1992. The European Union on its own, in recent years has been behaving rather like a state without a nation or, to a certain extent, as a state effectively trying to devise a (super) nation for itself, in the course of its power of communications and cultural skill (Tawa & Suyemoto, 2010). In Europe, literary diversity and homogeneity have been redefined with the intention of matching up with standardization and unity promoted by the European Parliament.

Clark, et. Al. (1999) discussed in their research the problem of the prospect of the European Union trying to turn out to be a single entity by creating a single market in the audiovisual area. They discussed the peoples difficulty in finding their own cultural traits in a politico-economic alliance and with this the rebirth of ethnic nationalism: not everyone feels attracted to this kind of Euro-identity and many are, at the very least, uncertain about what the claims to unity in diversity of European culture might actually mean. One response to these upheavals has been to find refuge in more localized senses of place and identity; we have seen the flourishing of cultural regionalism and small nationalisms (Hancock, et al. 2013).

In 1972 McCombs and Shaw (Kiselica, 1999) were the first researchers who expounded on the agenda setting idea by gauging the agenda of the media. They studied that mass media have the aptitude to transfer the salience of things on their news agendas to the public agenda (LaFromboise et al. 1993). Their primary practical reading on which they tried the theory was the 1968 presidential campaign between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. They examined the agenda of the media, a large amount important newspapers and TV stations, and then also carried out interviews with voters. Amazingly, there was a great junction of the voters insight with the main issues coming from the media analysis. Thus the media managed to lay down the agenda for the voters perception of the most important issue during that period. The collection of the news stories is at the hub of the agenda-setting process, practice that the mass media experts carry out for every issue of a newspaper or TV news report. The reports that journalists and news directors decide to include in the newspaper or air on TV, rather than the news stories they choose to omit, stand for the agenda the journalists place for the public. McCombs and Shaw stated that this agenda-setting idea evokes an association within the media and public group of priorities (Council on Interracial Books for Children, 1976). The conjecture of agenda setting promises a relationship between the content in the media and the public's insight, more specifically an equivalent between the agenda of the media and the successive public agenda. In order for this hypothesis to bear out to be true, the media agenda ought to pave the way for the public agenda in time. In the course of framing, the media not only tells the public what to think about, but it informs them what to believe by stressing some issues as an alternative to others. Additionally, McCombs and Shaw even affirm that some people look to print and television news for assistance on which issues are really significant (LaFromboise et al. 1993).

Cultures are by and large so entrenched in their own values and legacy that they have an ethnocentric leaning to consider that their sole interpretations and awareness of the world and human nature are the most excellent and most accurate ones. (Joo, 2013). Apart from the majority of nations of the world, the United States has the political ideology supported on a melting pot figure of speech where people from varied cultures come in the U.S. And get assimilated up in the same pot. The expression e pluribus unum stands for the socio-political philosophy that from countless ethnicities evolves a single integrated culture. (Joo, 2013). As a result, founded on these assumptions, Neuliep et al. carried out a study with the hypothesis that Japanese people will gain higher on dimensions of ethnocentrism. The results matched the hypothesis; Japanese students scored significantly higher than.....