Paul Todaro

11/13/17

Media Criticism

Violence, Racism, Sexism and the Media

For this analysis I have researched some of the many ways in which violence, racism, and sexism
are addressed, or not, in many mainstream media outlets. I have also taken a deep look into the ways in
which media representations of issues differ from one medium to another and how these widespread
views and ideologies can, and often do, affect its viewers and society as a whole. Some of the messages
that are spread through mainstream media are extremely detrimental to those who are consuming
them, especially the youth of our country.

The first part of this analysis will delve into the violence that is so widely broadcasted on a daily
basis, from the news to video games to movies and even cartoons that are created and distributed
solely for children. Depending on where a person’s main source of news comes from or the media that
they consume on a regular basis, even strictly for entertainment purposes, the narratives may change
and one side of an issue may be critically addressed over another or slipped in as a social norm that is to
be expected and tolerated. The world is not as violent a place as media make it out to be, this is not to
say that there is no violence as there is a great deal of it, but many of these messages are created to
make people think a certain way and view the world around them in the way that is articulated through
their media consumption. If everything that a person sees makes that person believe that the only way
to be safe is view certain groups as enemies or as dangerous and that the only hope for protection is
through owning military-grade weapons, then the society that comes from that is a militant one and one
that encourages sticking with your people and avoiding the bad people. One that watches ‘Fox News’ as
their primary source of information is much more likely to view minorities, especially blacks and
muslims, as dangerous and barbarous.

This notion of a violent world is not only prevalent in the news; there is great sums of money to
be made elsewhere by exploiting this dangerous notion as well. Looking at the blockbuster film based on
the awful book Fifty Shades of Grey, the dangerous world stigma is disguised as a weird love-story in
which a rich playboy manipulates and controls a young woman to basically become a sex-slave and hold
the man’s wants and needs above her own. Somehow, this is hugely popular amongst young women
even though the entire film is predicated on male-dominance and the idea that women are only as good
as their bodies. A worried-mother, Michelle Lewsen, writes “It’s a movie about a narcissistic man’s
controlling and violent sexual desires and his sense of entitlement to use and abuse a vulnerable oung
woman’s body and mind as a tool for his own gratification... It’s all about his needs, coupled with the
arrogant expectation that she should comply, regardless of her discomfort, to please him” (Lewsen, A
Letter to my Children about Fifty Shades of Grey). Lewsen is painfully accurate with her synopsis of the
movie, but this leads to questions. For instance, my girlfriend (a 22-year-old female) loves this movie. I
don’t get it. She is not alone though, as this soft-porno was wildly successful when it came out and is still
relevant years later, especially amongst young women who the movie does the most harm too. This is a
societal issue that has been a long-time underlying staple of our society that is predicated upon the
belief that men should be empowered and women should be dominated. Every young girl that I know is
a fan of this movie and often state that I wish this would happen to me or why couldn’t that be me?
Women, especially young women, want to be dominated by a man who has the wealth to sustain this
sort of relationship. They love the notion of being an object and not having to work, but only be used for
sex. Is this their fault? I would argue that it is not. This is an overarching idea that has been around for as
long as our existence. The idea of being fully dependent and dominated is sexy to most young women,
at least those that I have spoken with about this, and this idea is not going anywhere anytime soon. It is
a way to systematically suppress women and make them think that this is an ideal lifestyle in order to
remove more women from the workforce willingly and keep males in power for the foreseeable future.

This focus on violence through media is not limited to one or a few facets of the industry, but is
all-encompassing, from TV to news, music, games, and movies. The violence is not always sexual, but
sexuality is definitely a tool used to further exploit this notion of the violent world. According to the
‘Parents Television Council’, “Some of the most violent TV-14 rated shows on broadcast TV have similar
levels and types of violence as TV-MA rated cable TV shows” (Henry Hawkins, Is TV More Violent Than
Ever?). The rating-system, to my knowledge, has always been suspect at best and this is one of the main
reasons why. I have no sources to cite for my next statement but through my own experiences, I feel
that people use the rating system as a guideline, as they should, but in the wrong way. For example, if
something is rated TV-14, people are more likely to show their 10 or 12-year-old children, or at least
allow them to watch, that show or movie because it is only a couple years away. A PG-13 movie is often
marketed to younger crowds of children, but labeled PG-13 almost as a safe-guard, like ‘Hey we warned
you it was for people 13 and up’ even though the movie is made mostly for a younger crowd. A perfect
example of this, I think, is the Transformers series of movies. The entirety of all of the movies is filled
with violence, even though there is no real-gore or anything, but violence nonetheless and is based off
of a kids cartoon show. Other movies like Superbad, which is in my opinion an excellent and hilarious
movie, is about teenage kids and their lives but is rated ‘R’. I remember being in the movies to watch
that film when it came out and I was about 14 years old with my little brother (he is two and a half years
younger than me) and my cousin (my age) and my mother and aunt. We made it about 20 minutes
through the movie before my mother and aunt decided that we had to go because the content was so
explicit. The point is that these ratings don’t do much to prevent youth from viewing content that is
made for an older crowd’s consumption which leads to the normalization and numbness towards the
explicit content, which leads to more vulgarity, violence, and sexuality of media as that youth grows
older and the cycle begins again. With the huge-advances of cable TV, preventing kids from watching
explicit content is harder than ever due to the thousands of channels at their disposal and the extreme
use of violence and explicit content throughout most programs available on basic cable and premium
channels. According to the Media Education Foundation, MEF, “80% of ‘R’ rated movies, 70% of
restricted video games, and 100% of music with ‘explicit content’ warning labels were being marketed to
children under 17” (MEF, Media Violence: Facts and Statistics). If the media that is primarily consumed
by youth is growing more graphic, sexual, and violent, the repercussions will be long-lasting and will lead
to a more hyper-violent and hyper-sexualized society in which extremes are seen as normal and in which
normalcy seems dull and boring.

People, since the dawn of mass communication, have always put a great deal of trust, for the
most part, in their media and take the messages portrayed in their media as fact, sometimes with little-
to-no verification of the message. In the film Mean World Syndrome, the MEF pointed out that by the
middle-school, children see on average 8,000 murders and by the age of 18 are exposed to over 200,000
acts of violence. This film is also a bit dated and those numbers have undoubtedly gone up significantly.
When the War of the Worlds was first broadcasted on the radio, a small portion of people believed it to
be true due to the real-broadcasting-style in which the story was told. These people freaked out in their
own special ways, but the media portrayed the event as a mass-freak-out and made it seem as though
the majority of the population had gone nuts. Michael Morgan, a communication Professor at UMASS
Amherst stated that the mass media has direct and immediate mind control capabilities (paraphrasing)
which can be seen in all ages of mass media. George Gerber, the founder of Cultivation Theory, stated
that his studies showed that “people who spend more time with media are more likely to be scared of
the world” (Gerber, Mean World Syndrome). That is a powerful notion that has long-lasting and
negative implications.

Sometimes, the violence itself is not as much the issue as the way in which it is presented. This is
evidently clear when observing the psych-patients on their breaks at Fox “News” and how they
articulate, or try to, their point of view. When the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub occurred, the
patients at Fox were quick to jump on the issue because the man who did the shooting was named
Omar Mateen and he “had proclaimed allegiance to the Islamic State” (Erik Wemple, Fox News’s
clueless coverage of the Las Vegas shooting was perfect fodder for Trevor Noah). The agenda that is held
so dear to all the lunatics and racist freaks at Fox “News” is implicit on creating a divide between us and
them, or whites and minorities. This shooting was perfect for the propaganda machine and helped them
fortify the belief that all Muslims’ are terrorists and are not wanted nor needed here in America. This
division is as un-American and unconstitutional as it gets. But when Stephen Paddock, a very wealthy
60-something-year-old white-man took aim at over 400 innocent Americans at a country music concert
with his arsenal of 40-plus assault weapons, the simpletons at Fox “News” didn’t know how to react, so
they continued to try and point blame elsewhere or just avoid the issue completely. One claimed “We
don’t know enough about him to hate him yet” to which Trevor Noah, Host of the Daily Show, later
responded with “How do you hate someone who’s killed 59 people? Because he’s not Muslim. He
wasn’t known to be mentally ill, he doesn’t kneel for the anthem, he’s just a rich white guy who shot
people at a country music concert. How do you hate him?” (Trevor Noah, Daily Show). Jesse Watters of
Fox claimed in outrage that the police force of Las Vegas was running towards the shooter in order to
protect the victims, which they did and should be admired for, but then turned the issue on its head like
only a Fox “News test-tube-baby could and redirected blame from the guy that just carried out the
most-deadly mass-shooting in U.S history to players in the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem.
Instead of calling the kettle black, he tried to turn blame onto American activists using their platform to
articulate and convey a message about police brutality and the unequal treatment of colored people in
this country, all very well within their rights to do so. To this, Noah responded “Like after watching this
you’d be thinking: Hundreds of people shot in Las Vegas, Colin Kaepernick you son of a bitch!” (Trevor
Noah, Daily Show).

The media, especially media created in a propagandistic way, has a huge impact on the way that
real people address real issues in their day-to-day lives. The media is a powerful tool that can literally
change the world in more ways than one, as it has throughout the long history of its existence. When
the most-watched news network is one like Fox “News”, the repercussions are astounding. Right now in
our country, we have an alt-right movement that has been gaining traction for the past several years
that is leading us into a more fascistic and less democratic society. When the most powerful
information-distributor is on the side of fascistic, nationalistic, white-supremacist entities in a
democratic society, there will be long-lasting turmoil The divide between Americans’ will continue to
grow until the power that we could have as a unified public against detrimental powers that are against
us, will be so unevenly distributed that the only real consolidation of power left will be that of the
government and the corporations that control the puppet strings to which our politicians are controlled.

To further articulate the point above, it is essential to understand the amount of control that
corporations really have on us as citizens and on the government and elected officials. We live in a
capitalistic society in which profit-making and the creation of master-narratives that fortify the values
and stereotypes created by the elite as a form of repression are held with the highest regard. The ideal
citizen is one who mindlessly works their mediocre job to sustain their mediocre life all while constantly
consuming goods of all kinds without questioning anything about wealth inequality or the hegemonic-
elite. To begin this, I think it is vital to understand what a master narrative is and why they are so
prevalent in our society as well as the idea of hegemonic power. Hegemonic power is defined by the
authors of Media In Society as “dominant ideas and belief systems (that)shape our understandings
through social texts… it refers to those ideologies reflecting the established mainstream values – and, as
such, the dominant social order.” (Campbell, Jensen, Gomery, Fabos, Frechette, Media in Society, 2014,
pg. 223). Master narratives are a product of hegemonic power and are defined as “when mainstream
media privilege certain ideas and belief systems over others through images, visuals, and texts, they
represent a dominant ideology” (Campbell, 2014, pg. 223). Master narratives are essentially heavily-
fortified-stereotypes or beliefs about a group of people, religion, class, race, etc. and are fundamental
for the hegemonic elite to keep society the way they want it to be. The hegemonic elite, in our country,
are primarily the wealthiest few that own just about everything we see, touch, and inevitably consume.
The more we consume, the more power they have and the more power they have, the more normalized
and sophisticated these master narratives appear to be. Capitalism is what drives the U.S now more-so
than ever before. The amount of power that those who own and run the largest businesses and
oligopolies around the world is unprecedented and unparalleled. For this reason, we, as citizens, are not
looked at as citizens any longer, but rather as consumers. This reduces us from living people to pawns on
a capitalistic chess board. “Being exposed to cultural messages that define us as consumers instead of
citizens supports a capitalist ideology that defines us through what we buy over other characteristics,
values, or behaviors” (Campbell, 2014, pg. 223). This is a scary notion and one that defines us as a
society.

John Berger, an art scholar, has studied some hegemonic values and master narratives in the
past and made some interesting findings. Back to what I had previously mentioned about how young
women were so turned on by Fifty Shades of Grey, Berger made a similar conclusion: “The unequal
relationship between men and women is ‘so deeply embedded in our culture that it still structures the
consciousness of many women’, making it so that women judge their own femininity as masculine
culture does” (Campbell, 2014, pg. 225). To my previous point, the film turned young women on
because it helped to fortify their place in a man’s World in a sexy way. Almost as if they are given an
ultimatum in which they can either work a shit-job and make ok money, but still be mostly dependent
on a man, or they could be a sex-slave to a hot-young-wealthy-man and they are more than alright with
that. That is a master narrative at work. Master narratives are seemingly inescapable even to some very
powerful men and women in politics. Obama was the first black president and was often referred to as
basically the black candidate and was judged based on that identity, while Hillary was seen as the
woman candidate and was judged based on preconceived notions about women in power.
 Through reading the majority of Media in Society, I would say that I agree with over 90% of the
content, but there are parts of this book that I disagree with and two of them are in chapter 8 and also
in the movie we were shown, Tough Guise. I would argue that the hyper-masculine, hyper-sexualized,
violent male, although are not all ideal, are a lot of times better than their opposites. Maybe this is a
master narrative that is embedded in my brain that I can’t shake, but it is how I feel. For example, there
are few things in this world that bother me more than weak-minded, weak-willed, and ultimately soft
men. This is not a gay or straight thing, this is men as a whole, as I know plenty of gay guys that would
kick my ass without breaking a sweat and that are not afraid to voice their opinions or hurt the feelings
of their opposition. The idea that a masculine or even violent male is a bad role model, I think, is
detrimental to young men all over. If your idle is, for lack of a better word, a pussy, then what will you
grow up to be? If a young boy’s father is soft and not willing to be beaten down verbally or physically to
stand up for what he knows to be right, then what will come of his son as he grows older? He will also
become soft and ultimately ineffective. This is not an argument about the physical strength of a man,
although I do believe that as men we should at least care a little bit about our strength in order to do
even simple things like move furniture for someone or carry a person that may need help, whatever it
may be, but this is more a testament of the will of a man. As a man, I find myself immediately respecting
weak-willed men who share my beliefs far less than a man that I may even disagree with about
everything that at least has the balls to voice his opinion. With that being said, I also believe that being
too masculine or too strong willed is a weakness in itself as it leads to nothing other than bias and
conflict on a daily basis. I understand the idea that the men that we see in commercials and on TV can
really do some mental damage to the minds of young men who do not understand that those depictions
are not realistic, but is it better than the opposite? I would argue that yes, it is far better than idolizing a
weak-man (mentally more than physically). Also to my point, a man like Bernie Sanders who stands at
5’7 and weighed about 150 pounds (found these stats on a .com site, but they sound right when looking
at a picture of a younger Sanders) in his heyday is not necessarily a physically powerful man, but he is
extremely passionate in what he believes and doesn’t back down to anybody in the past or the present
and has even been arrested a few times fighting for what he believed to be true. That is a strong man
that should be admired. Now if Bernie were a soft-spoken weak-willed man, he would have never had
the influence nor the following he did during the 2016 presidential campaign. My point is that of all the
stereotypes in the media, the hyper-masculine male is, to me, the least problematic as it at least
motivates young men to be the stereotype of a man. Another great example of this, I think, is Bill Maher
who resonates with me on the deepest of levels and claims time and time again that the only reason
liberals keep losing and are brushed off by their corporate-allied-conservative-counterparts is because
they’re pussies. In an epic rant, Maher reiterated this belief with this: “What matters is that while
liberals were in a contest to see who could be the first to call out fat shaming, the tea-party has been
busy taking over school boards. Stop protecting your virgin ears and start noticing that you’re getting
fucked in the ass!” and with this other lengthy dialogue: “You know, the majority of Americans are
actually with the democrats on the issues; raising minimum wage, sensible gun laws, path to citizenship,
abortion rights, pro-environment, you name it. But we keep losing. Now, there’s a lot of reasons for
that, but the one we can immediately fix is that too often democrats remind people of a man who has
taken his balls out and put them in his wife’s purse. And please, someone tweet me right now and tell
me how that was somehow inappropriate, so I can tell you to go fuck yourself!” (Bill Maher, Real Time
with Bill Maher, 1-27-2017). Both of these statements were followed by huge applause.
 The other part of this chapter that I disagreed with I am not as passionate about and therefore,
will not spend as much time with. It is the section about women in sports broadcasting. I read this and
obviously cannot disagree with the facts that this profession is widely occupied by men, but feel as
though, for this very specific industry of sports casting, not news broadcasting or any other form of
media, it is an industry that is mainly occupied by men because it is an industry that is overwhelmingly
consumed by men. I would be interested to see statistics of the number of men and women who apply
for these jobs, and have not done so myself, but would be extremely surprised if women accounted for
even close to half of the applicants for the profession. I think that this is a male-dominated industry,
which in itself can be problematic, but statistically, far more men watch sports like football, hockey,
baseball, and basketball for their own enjoyment than women do. I know two girls that can talk sports
with me, especially football because that’s really the only sport that I follow religiously, and although
they sometimes have good input, they are usually far less knowledgeable about the game itself, the
players, coaches, etc. and would find it hard to believe that sports broadcasting or journalism is a
profession that many women (in comparison to men) apply for. Also, as a communication major with a
concentration in broadcasting, I would absolutely love to be a sports broadcaster or personality (I’d
rather cover sports, but think that in a different industry I could make a more useful and important
impact on society, so I aim to do something other than sports and more to do with politics) and if I
applied for that job and lost it to a woman who knew half as much about the game as I do, I would be
extremely aggravated. Now, if that same woman was more qualified and knowledgeable than myself in
sports, than by all means she should get the job over me. Again, maybe this is a master narrative that I
cannot shake, but that is what I believe in this respect. In other industries like regular news and other
TV-related jobs, I agree that the huge difference in employment from men to women is absurd and think
that most women in the profession to just as good, if not better, than their male counterparts. For
instance, Rachel Maddow is one of my favorites and when I am driving, I am usually listening to NPR at
the same time of day. I don’t even know the name of the show or the name of the host, but I do know
that she is a woman and that I prefer her over her male counterparts on the station.

In a reading about Katy Perry and Taylor Swift and their unnecessary feud, it became clear that
even empowered women have trouble distancing themselves from narratives and are constrained to
gender-roles. This is because in the eyes of the hegemonic elite, a number of powerful women all
unified together is terrifying. Katy Perry was chosen to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show in
2015, but the focus was on a beef that the performer had with Taylor Swift in regards to another show
and stealing backup dancers. “The problem isn’t so much that they’re fighting in the first place, but
rather that the public is feeding into this notion that women can’t revel in each other’s successes – they
have t compete against each other” (Natalie Morin, TIME, 2015). The focus of this petty little feud with
one another greatly outweighed the focus of the actual performance which implied that a woman’s
success is far less important than the anticipation of a cat-fight. “this pattern of pitting women against
each other for their personal and professional choices exemplifies the feminine-feminist conflict at
the core of media stories about women’s identity and search for fulfillment in the realms of work,
sex, and motherhood.” (Julie Frechette, WSU, 2015). This further fortifies the notion that women
should compete with one another for a man’s attention. Women, from this perspective, should
constantly be fighting one another in order to win over a man, which also fortifies the notion that
one man is worth multiple women and should be given the winner of the cat-fight because any
man deserves the best woman. This is a hugely problematic narrative, especially to young women.
 This issue of gender-inequality and male-dominance has become more clear with all the
recent allegations against several men of power from women, mostly women who worked for or
with the men, in regards to sexual harassment. These allegations took the most powerful and one
of the most influential men in news out of business in Bill O’Reilly. Good riddance. O’Reilly spoke
on these issues as only a racist, sexist, scumbag could; “If you don’t like what’s happening in the
work place, go to human resources or leave” (Frechette, Project Censored, 2017). This statement
indicates that first; this was definitely not his first time dealing wit h these kinds of accusations,
and second, that he had no interest in changing his behaviors no matter how much they affected
his company, coworkers, peers, and most of all, his female subordinates. These allegations led to
investigations and it was found that Fox and 21 st Century Fox paid about $13 million in settlements
with several different women who worked with O’Reilly. Even after being fired from the company,
the mogul was given $25 million from the company as a sort of parting gift. O’Reilly was the first of
many heavyweights to begin to come under fire with sexual harassment allegations. Since the
O’Reilly case which happened earlier this year, many others have dealt with similar issues from
Harvery Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K, and many more.

The objectification of women has long-been a staple in media production and causes
women, especially young women, to feel as though they are only as good as their bodies. They
should be cherished for their sexuality, but condemned for speaking too much or getting in the
way of men working. This is evident in just about every movie, commercial, show, etc. ever made
in the form of the male gaze. The male gaze is when, in film, a woman walks past the center -action
and the camera follows her backside from the point of view of a staring man. It is also used to
emphasize women’s attributes such as their breasts, butts, legs, stomachs, whatever the man may
be looking at. This is detrimental to the way that women view themselves as it creates the notion
that all men want is a skinny, big breasted, perfect butt, long legs, long eyelashes, and so on rather
than an intellectual or knowledgeable woman as that is against the hegemonic powers that reign
elite. In a banned Snickers advertisement from Australia, men are seen as construction workers
hollering at women walking down the street and saying nice things, one being; “You know what I’d
like to see? A society in which the objectification of women makes way for gender neutral
interaction free from assumptions and expectations”, which is immediately followed by the famous
Snickers slogan – You’re not you when you’re hungry. This shows that a man respecting a woman is
irregular and an anomaly and that men really do view women simply as objects.

Race and women almost go hand-in-hand in this sort of discussion due to the nature of
society and the suppressing stereotypes that reign supreme throughout most media. In Disney
movies, women are almost entirely portrayed as I described above, big attributes, skinny, etc. the
ones that are not given these preferable qualities in the eyes of a man are mostly dark and
primarily antagonists in the films. Throughout most Disney films, the bad guy is usually dark, has
some sort of foreign accent, and often portrayed as either dumb or foolish or as evil and scary.
This pushes onto young children that dark colored characters or people are to be seen as bad. This
is all beneficial to the hegemonic elite as it makes these ideologies clear to people at a young age
and is mostly accepted as true and/or harmless. If women are encouraged to be, for lack of a
better word, sexy objects, then they are less likely to make, or even want to make, advances in any
professional field as they are too caught up in their image and wanting to be wanted by a man to
worry about a career. It also helps keep minorities in their place and viewed as detrimental or evil
entities that are not to be trusted. Disney “Exercise(s) unprecedented control over the images and
messages we’re exposed to. The result is that we’re presented with a very limited world-view;
skewed and dominated by corporate interests” (Chyng Fen Sung, Mickey Mouse Monopoly).

Going back to post-World-War-II times, black people, mostly men, were a large portion of
the American military. After the war, they wanted to have more freedoms as they felt they had
earned it through fighting for our country in the war, which they absolutely should. They began
appearing more and more on TV and radio than before, but the depiction of the black community
was hardly helpful. “The country’s image of the Negro, which hasn’t very much to do with the
Negro, has never failed to reflect, with a kind of frightening accuracy the state of mind of the
country” (James Baldwin, Color Adjustment). Black people on TV were often portrayed as dumb,
inadequate, maids, lazy, and often talked in ebonics or slang. These images did not help the black
community, but arguably alienated them more than before due to their representation in the
media. Fast-forward to now and not much has really changed. Of course, there are wildly
successful black actors, newscasters, sports players, musicians, even politicians and business -
people, but for the most part, the representation of blacks in U.S media hasn’t changed much.
They are often seen as crooks, or thugs, as doing drugs or engaging in criminal activity. All of these
images and messages have been prevalent in the media for as long as they have been a part of the
media. This is the fortification of stereotypes in order to keep the World order of today. Blacks are
not supposed to obtain and wield power, they should be in ghettos and prisons. Just as with
women, a strong unified black population is extremely dangerous towards those in power. This is
extremely prevalent in the NFL National Anthem protests. The owner of the Houston Texans, Bob
McNair, was quoted earlier this month as saying “We can’t have the inmates running the prison”
which just goes to show the huge disconnect between owners and lower-level employees. Bob
McNair represents more than just an old-white-racist owner of an NFL team, but rather owners
and CEO’s of a vast number of companies in every industry that has been tainted by capitalism
throughout the world. He represents the hegemonic elite. These men do not identify with the
struggles of the majority of citizens, especially not the minority-youth. The men that are kneeling
for the National Anthem are not doing it out of disdain for the country or disrespect to the military
of the flag, but to point out issues that they know of firsthand from growing up in impoverished
communities and from themselves or their peers being treated unfairly by law enforcement. This is
yet another example of blame diversion and an attempt to strengthen the divide between us and
them.
This same tool was used during the duration of the Obama presidency. The election of the
first black president of the United State of America should have surely given blacks a more even
and balanced portrayal in the media; arguably the most powerful man in the entire country at the
time was black. But, no. The media did not pay more attention to blacks or their struggles
throughout the country, they actually changed very little. A study done by the Pew Research
Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that the media “tended to focus more on specific
episodes than on examining how broader issues and trends affected the lives of blacks generally.” (Salim
Muwakkil, Media Blackout In the Age of Obama).
The same divisiveness is often used in the LGBTQ community as well. Gay representation in the
media was started as a minority model: “Gays and lesbians were seen as being subordinate to the
heterosexual majority, with equality and acceptance hinging on their ability to show that they were ‘Just
like everyone else’”(Media Smarts, Queer Representation in the Media). The issue was not only about
not being represented enough, but that when they were represented in the media, gays were often
shown as pussies, drag queens or uncomfortably flamboyant. They were also mainly showed as only
white-male-gays. The term queer was actually created to show that the term gay is not all-
encompassing and that just like with any group of people, there are many sub-groups that make up the
full group. The media presents the LGBTQ community the same way they do the minority community
just with different harmful stereotypes. In the film Further off the Straight and Narrow, Katherine
Sender explains what happened with Ellen Degeneres. She was on a cable TV show and when she came
out of the closet, the show was cancelled. In an effort to retain the viewership of the LGBTQ community,
NBC made the show Will & Grace which shows the main characters as once being in a relationship, but
now Will has realized he’s gay. His friend is very flamboyantly gay, but Will, being the main gay
character, is seemingly straight in order to not lose viewership of people who see gays as a problem.
Often times, gays are used in film as filler-characters and comedic relief, but portrayed in a similar way
as blacks were, especially when they first came on the media-scene.
Straying away from LGBTQ and minority representation, looking at the advent of the first media
systems is still useful when analyzing the media of today and how they operate. All the way back in
1830’s, the rotary press was invented, and widespread print media was available for consumption. In
order to boost readership, companies sold the papers for one penny and told stories primarily about
“scandals, police reports, serialized legends of frontiersmen like Daniel Boone, and fake stories about
life on the moon” (Campbell, 2014, pg. 135). Advertisers began offering money to newspapers to have
their products advertised in the paper and owners began publishing any ad, no matter what it was, in
order to make more profit. Both of these occurrences still go on today in a huge way. Then the
consolidation of power began as the likes of Joseph Pulitzer and Adolph Ochs and their peers began
buying up papers left and right in order to corner the market and make as much money as possible.
Pulitzer would have fit in well with the likes of media owners of today due to his capitalistic tendencies
and emphasis on profit over information. Then came the advent of yellow journalism; “dramatic,
sensationalized stories about crimes, disasters, scandals, and intrigue; and news reports that exposed
corruption, particularly in business and government, and which laid the foundations for serious
investigative journalism” (Campbell, 2014, pg. 137). Yellow journalism is still a template for many news
agencies of today. Newspapers became increasingly profitable and competitive with one another and
some began using a non-partisan model of news in order to not alienate certain groups of people due to
conflicting beliefs. Adolph Ochs began also selling his papers for a penny each and “the times began
attracting more middle-class readers who gravitated to the paper as a status marker for the educated
and well-informed” (Campbell. 2014, pg. 138). As a result, the paper’s success skyrocketed. “The Times
became more than just a powerful alternative to the story-telling of earlier papers; it became the official
and authoritative way to practice U.S journalism” (Campbell, 2014, pg. 139). This lead to the watchdog
role of media. Journalists began playing a more adversarial role with the elites of the time and began to
give power back to the people in the form of credible information. As owners gained more power and
control over society and the government, playing the watchdog role became increasingly challenging as
to be the watchdog, the reporter would have often-times have to expose his/her employer for their
wrongdoings. Bill Kovach is a prime example of this as he was a credible-investigative-journalist in
Atlanta who reported on bank loans, real estate, the unfair treatment of the black middle class in
Atlanta, and more. He attacked Coca-Cola, one of the largest corporate powerhouses in all of Georgia,
let alone Atlanta, and its financial board which included the owners of the paper he was working for. He
was later squeezed out of his job due to his ability to change public opinion and his critical analysis of
the hegemonic elite in his community. After leaving, Kovach said “I didn’t leave the newsroom because I
wanted to. I left because I had to. There was not a lot of beating down doors by other news
organizations to get me inside” (Campbell, 2014, pg. 141). Kovach was essentially an example made by
the owners and powerful men in the area to show that if someone got too loud or brought to much
attention to the conduct of business being done by the powerful that they would no longer be
employed. Kovach’s departure was an illustration on how the powerful can condemn a respected voice
and made other journalists and broadcasters reluctant to report on the actions of the elite.
As time went on, other journalists took on the watchdog role, some with success, some without
it. Reporters became “surrogate citizens who represented both leaders’ and readers’ interests.”
(Campbell, 2014, pg. 144). Now, through reporting for long periods of time, reporters became ‘experts’
in their own way, but were not usually opinionated about what they knew, but would bring in an outside
expert on the subject in order to create the façade that the news being presented was more credible
because of the use of outside sources. In local news stations, reporters usually begin their programs
with crime-stories and stories about whatever the worst thing(s) that happened recently were. News of
today are also made to almost replicate the advertisements on TV by using flashy imagery and sexy
content “to create continuity between the look of news and the look of the advertising that the news
interrupts.” (Campbell, 2014, pg. 150). This helps to create the false-notion that advertisements are
more realistic than they actually are because the news looks about the same and the news is supposed
to be realistic. It closes the gap between reality and fantasy which helps drive consumerism.
Sociologist, Herbert Gans, studied some mainstream news outlets throughout the ‘70’s and
found that most reporters shared the same values, some of which are still prominent today:
ethnocentrism, “reporters judge other countries and cultures on the basis of how they live up to or
imitate American practices and values”, responsible capitalism, “journalists have assumed that business
people compete with one another not primarily to maximize profits, but ‘to create increased prosperity
for all’”, small town pastoralism, “favoring the small over the large and the rural over the urban”, and
lastly, individualism, “reporters are attracted to the profession because of its own powerful master
narrative that celebrates the adversarial tenacity needed to confront and expose corruption” (Campbell,
2014, pgs. 149-150). Of all of these, unfortunately, I believe that the most prominent in todays society
would be responsible capitalism and/or small town pastoralism as they are more beneficial to the
employers of the reporters. Individualism would be the best for the masses, but detrimental to the
hegemonic elite and is much more prominent in alternative media.
According to Robert McChesney in The Political Economy of Media, democratic journalism is
essential to a democracy and is ultimately the watchdog role that the media should play for the
betterment of society. He also claims that the crisis of journalism “occurs when there is corruption of
journalism, decline of investigative reporting, horse race coverage of political campaigns, degeneration
of political reporting and international journalism, collapse of local journalism and increased prevalence
of news of celebrities and scandals.” (McChesney, Political economy of media). I would argue that, for
the most part, the media of today is stuck in this model of crisis-journalism. He also states that media
corporations aim to allow sinking media companies to merge with other media companies and become
“effective monopolies at the local level” and that governments should increase their total funding to
these new monopolistic entities in order for those entities to have the means to produce the needed
journalism. This leads to a much more biased and profit-driven way of conducting business and
eventually the creation of propaganda. In the current rise of fascism in America, the role of propaganda
has become ever-clear in the media.
With the 2016 presidential election under way, Trump was the biggest thing in the news for the
duration of the campaign, not because he was favored per-se, but because he was so profitable for
media outlets. Everything he did was in the news, both progressive and conservative. Whether the
viewers of a program liked him or not, nobody would stop watching his every move as he was such a
spectacle and an oddity that people couldn’t get enough. He saved CNN as the network was plummeting
towards a 20-year-low in ratings until they started showing heavy coverage of Trump, and their ratings
went up about 170% during prime-time hours. Being the egotistical maniac that he is, he obviously took
notice of these huge ratings spikes from just about every outlet and claimed “I go on one of these shows
and the ratings double, they triple… and that gives you power” (Jim Rutenberg, 2016, The mutual
dependence of Donald Trump and the News Media). Networks trying to get a piece of the pie were
relentless in covering Trump’s every move and focused far less on every other candidate from both
political parties. During these political times with skewed coverage and the knowledge of Russian
meddling in the election it is essential to look at how outside of mainstream media the advent of fake
news is sweeping the nation and is getting people to believe crazy things.
Kate Starbird, a University of Washington professor, noticed a surge of “social media traffic that
blamed the Navy SEALS for the (Boston) bombing” (Danny Westneat, Seattle Times). These reports were
so out of control that they were ignored. Then another mass shooting happened at Umpqua Community
College in Oregon and again, social media was all over it claiming it was fake and staged for political
reasons. Starbird stated that “these ‘strange clusters’ of wild conspiracy talk, when mapped, point to an
emerging alternative media ecosystem on the web of surprising power and reach” (Westneat, Seattle
Times). This is a terrifying notion that multiple ‘sources’ were all claiming the same crazy information
that was being consumed by regular people who, without education on the subject, may read these
reports as true. This type of false information can be extremely bad for democracy if it is widespread
enough and focused on things like the 2016 presidential election. She catalogued a total of 81 sites that
were all connected by shared followers and found that many of the tweets were replicated by AI.
Surprisingly enough, the sites that she found were not coming from the alt-right or alt-left news
organizations, but found that the true common denominator was anti-globalism. “To be anti-globalism
often included being anti-mainstream media, anti-immigration, anti-science, anti-U.S government, and
anti-European Union” (Starbird, Seattle Times). Many of the sites were also found to be pro-Russian,
which makes sense due to the recent findings that Russians played a part in the division of the country
during this past election.
In another article about the amount of partisanship in fake news on Facebook, PC World’s Mark
Hachman, conducted a test in which he would find how prevalent fake news on Facebook really is and to
whom it affects more. He created two accounts, one pro-Hillary and the other pro-Trump. He liked ten
total pages on each account, the first three were politicians from both sides and the rest were picked in
the same order on each page on the ‘recommended for you’ tab. On the democratic page he was
offered pages like Hillary Clinton, Democratic News, Rude and Rotten Republicans, and Exposing facts to
the misinformed viewers of Fox News. The republican page was given a few gems like Hillary for Prison,
TRUMPTRAIN, and my personal favorite I Hate Hippies and their stupid lightbulbs. The republican page
was flooded with many more total posts than the democratic page (129-41) and the republican page
found 10 fake news posts while the democratic page found zero. This is extremely problematic as the
republican base is already, especially in places like the bible belt, mostly less-educated than the
democratic base and to flood their little minds with false information is not good for anybody.
In conclusion, I think it is relatively easy to surmise that the role of today’s media, especially
mainstream, is doing the citizens of this country more harm than good. There is less of a watchdog role
than we need, there are unfair and unequal representations of the people of this country and of this
world that heavily favors the American-white-male, and the consolidation of mainstream media must be
more heavily contested. Analyzing media of the past and comparing it to the present is almost eerie in
its similarities and In the way that ownership has consistently handled itself over the past 200 or so
years despite the many different players involved in ownership over that span of time. Changes must be
made to level the playing field for all citizens of this Country, but given the rise in fascism throughout the
U.S and Europe, that may be harder now than ever before.
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