Our opinions and behavior are a reaction to the way we view the world. Lippman believes that what we view through different forms of media leaves “pictures in our heads” that influence our actions and feelings. Many people depend on the media for information on our society and world, however he thinks that these “pictures” do not always represent absolute truth. Everyone knows that reports about the world and its relentless issues come from the mass media.
Gilens aims for readers to understand the core of American public opinion, to understand Americans’ viewpoint of the social and political world we live in, and also the role the media plays in developing those views/ideas.
One of the surveys show that public views of poverty is exaggerated by Americans in regards to the belief that African Americans compose to be the poor over any other race. The Gilens states “…news media distortions coincide with public misperceptions about race and poverty, and that both are biased in ways that reflect negatively on the poor in general, and on poor African Americans in particular”(P. 258). In Gilens’ argument he believes that the relation between misunderstanding by people and the media’s inaccurate representations of poverty goes hand in hand. The Medias distortion of what they present to our society are directly connected to our misperceptions that continue to build existing stereotypes and personal views.
Americans, who believe that there is an array of opportunities, also believe that poverty itself is for those who have personally failed. Americans have distorted ties between poverty and race, and these continuous stereotypes lead to the idea that African Americans are lazy and poor (P. 259).
I question Gilens studies because he admits in the reading that the depiction of poverty by American media has never been systematically studied; how can I as a reader be convinced that this research is accurate or done without bias?
Under the section of Findings (Page 532) there is a lot of statistics that support the issue of readers who read magazines like U.S. News and World Report are likely to have an influence that African Americans make up a large number of the poor. I could see that the majority of the reading was based with some truth, but I also think that the author ignores the fact that not all Americans are gullible and naive when it comes to seeking out information from the media. I do not buy into everything that I read or watch. I am somewhat of a skeptic. I believe that most people do not lack commonsense, and could agree with me. Didn’t your Mom or Dad warn you on how to view the media? Although, TV is a main source for Americans…I believe that sometimes information we receive does install to an unconscious level, but I think the Gilens is a turd to assume that Americans as a whole can not make conscious decisions for themselves about the media and its misrepresentation of poverty and race.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
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Firstly, the fact you called Gilens a turd.. fabulous... but onto the material.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was about as straight forward as they come. Can't really dig too deeply into any one topic unless your like Briggs and just want to argue to the fact that personal opinions are strong in this article, which I do agree to some extent, but in reality I have to say, there are a LOT of dumb, I mean really dumb Americans. Therefore, to say that Americans should be told not to trust the media is isn't really a legit idea, there's parents who let their kids drink before they hit double digits in their ages...
On the other hand, the media I believe is a major source to blame for the inconsistent representation of African Americans as the most poverty striken group in the United States. Although, given the state that African Americans started off as in this country as poor, uneducated slaves a mere 200 years ago, the idea that these beliefs may still be present is not hard to fathom.
In addition, people don't read newspapers anymore. In my neighborhood at home, we only get the paper 3 days a week now because demand has decreased considerably. People would rather turn on the news on T.V. and be told what is going on rather than have to read a whole 200 words, hell most of us don't even read this blog I'm sure because you'd have to scroll down to read it all and that's A LOT to read..?
As to WHY the media portrays this, my only idea is that maybe the individual racism in the United States is still persistent enough to unfluence enough people to portray African Americans as the majority of poverty-stricken Americans. I asked a few of my friends and they all answered that 50% of the poor were African American, but all of my friends are white, so I wondered would this answer have changed drastically if I had asked African Americans...
As previously stated by both H. Briggs and Kyle McGraw, this article is pretty straight forward. There are few items to discuss in great detail because the article does a good job doing it for us. The article goes in to great detail explaining the effect the media may portray on an individual’s thinking about race and poverty, as well as age. In addition to the article doing a good job explaining this phenomenon, H. Briggs and Kyle McGraw had good feedback in regards to the article.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned above, Americans have a misconception of poverty in regards to race because of the media. The article makes it clear that the media does not influence our thinking through television, but also through magazine articles and pictures, as well as newspapers. In addition, the article states that individuals are more influenced by television, then magazines and newspapers. This is due to the fact that we tend to base our opinions more on pictures than on actual facts. The article states that many Americans believe those who are in poverty are just lazy; coincidentally, is it not also true that those individuals making their assumptions off of pictures rather than reading the facts about poverty also lazy?
This article portrayed the fact that most Americans are just truly unaware of what is actually going on. Many base their opinion off of what others think or feel and do not actually make an assumption for themselves. The article left me embarrassed to know that the individuals included in the study highly over guessed the percentage of black individuals in poverty. It just shows that there is a vicious cycle when dealing with items of race. Though slowly things have gotten better, African Americans are still viewed as less privileged and capable than white individuals. Perhaps the issue should put some focus on why the individuals are in poverty rather than who is and where Americans get their opinions from.