Forms of mass media have completely affected the way the “average” American goes about their daily life. The ability to catch up on news from all across the globe simply by reading a news paper at the local coffee shop, going to a news site on a phone, visiting a news site on a computer, or simply watching the news on a television has completely altered the way some Americans go about their day. News coverage is seemingly instantaneous and available at almost anyone’s finger tips. Due to this over saturation of media coverage, especially in the areas of crime, drug use and possession, and gang-violence one’s image of humanity can be easily distorted. Combine this distortion of the nature of people all around the world with key words used by news anchors such as “white” or “African American,” can create racial tension. Subliminally, people are being fed the notion of racism. As a cognitive process, learned behavior can be through repetition of words or phrases. If a person hears about how a race, other than their own, is up to no good enough, eventually racism can easily be seen as the expected result.
Racism has existed since the dawn of time. Whether it was through the fear created by someone looking “different” than what an individual was used to seeing or just a strong belief in racial superiority. Albeit not necessarily a race, more of a creed, Hebrew people have received prejudice for centuries and in some countries, this shows no indication of slowing down.
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Learning through repetition is known as “classical conditioning” in the psychology world. In short, classical conditioning is “a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired; a response that is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone,” according to the DSM IV, a book heavily used by psychologists. This theory was first proposed by John Watson; although, the most famous example of classical conditioning is referred to as “Pavlov’s Dog.” A man named Ivan Palvlov conducted a study on the digestion of food by animals, specifically of dogs. During the study of one particular dog, he noticed an increase in salivation from the dog in the presence of the person who normally fed him. From this moment, his study turned into one of a psychological nature. After assembling a few items, Pavlov rang a bell in front of the dog. He referred to the bell as a conditioned stimulus; because, he was teaching the dog to salivate at the bell. Every time Pavlov rang the aforementioned bell, he gave the dog some food. Eventually, he noticed the dog salivating at the sound of the bell and stopped giving the dog food immediately after. This experiment completely symbolizes the process of learned racism through the influx of mass media.
Media outlets have seemingly stereotyped youths, especially those of African American decent, as gangsters or drug dealers; when, in all actuality only a small portion are this way. This of course is not to say gangsters or drug dealers are only black, this is incorrect. There are plenty of drug dealers and gangsters from all different races or creeds. Sadly, the media feels the need to focus on one aspect of life in lower income communities and inflate a situation in order to generate more viewers; when, in all actuality they are fueling racism almost to a point of no return.
Viewers of a typical news station hear descriptions of drug dealers, gangsters, and violent offenders as “African American” through media outlets repeatedly in a rather short period of time. Through this repetition, or classical conditioning, media outlets are driving the idea of racism into the heads of the everyday person. Eventually, through hearing these unnecessary descriptions people begin to notice how almost every drug dealer or violent offender seems to be African American. Sadly, this isn’t true and only reaffirms an unnecessary and negative stereotype.
The overall description process in media outlets is rather baffling to begin with. There is no reason a news outlet should have to describe an offender when a picture of the offender usually accompanies the story. The picture of the suspect, usually appearing over the left shoulder of the news anchor, is usually displayed as the news anchor is referring to the story. People can see what the offender looks like; there is no reason to describe him or her. This description of course is a necessity if the offender is still at large.
Not all black people, white people, or any other race of people for that matter, are terrible individuals. According to many psychological theories people are born with a “clean slate” consciously; so any information or behaviors the individual displays is usually a learned behavior. Media outlets all over the world should stop focusing on an individual crime and focus on the epidemic of crime as a whole. Furthermore; not all news displayed through a media outlet should be in reference to a crime. People all over the world need to know about the good things people do on a day to day basis.
Although stories of good natured individuals seem few and far between, an influx of news worthy individuals who try their best to make a positive impact on the daily lives of those around them in a complete necessity in this world. People need to be reminded of how good natured people can be. Although, “good” natured individuals also had to learn their behaviors from their “clean slate” these individuals can impact the world in a more positive fashion than any violent offender can through negative actions. These types of stories are the ones which should be displayed on news outlets and the unnecessary descriptions of race should be omitted.
- Ronald L. Taylor, “The Harm Wrought by Racial Stereotype,” Hartford Courant, 19 March 1995, D1.
- David Goldberg, Racist Culture (Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), 42. Cornell West, Race Matters (Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), 74
