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Ryan Mills
Professor Ogbara
English 100, Section 0813
November 17, 2014
Racial Stereotypes in Media
When people rely on surface appearances and false racial stereotypes, rather than in-depth
knowledge of others at the level of the heart, mind and spirit, their ability to assess and
understand people accurately is compromised. - James A. Forbes
Throughout history the media has always perpetuated stereotypes of minorities. The
media regularly assumes a huge part in today's reality, it conveys data to individuals at a quick
pace and gives diversion to an extensive group of onlookers. The media comprises of daily
papers, magazines, television, motion pictures, radio, books and the web. The web is a standout
amongst the most creating media alongside television which has a wide field of impact, and it
has the ability to shape individuals' brains and how they see the world. The media today is an
influential instrument, and that lets the individuals who are in control of the media effortlessly
send their message to the masses and leave an impact. I would like to focus this paper on the
media in general and why they perpetuate racial stereotypes.
A racial stereotype is a general representation of a race. They involve overstated mental
images that describe the race as a whole. Many different communities have diverse and
exceptional attributes, which gives a feeling of possession and identity towards their culture.
Some of these stereotypes may be portrayed as humor, which can be aggravating to the targeted

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race. Stereotypes have incredibly influenced societies in their state of mind towards certain
races, marriages, the workplace, and politics.
The media uses stereotypes as a quick way of defining people in ways that are easy for
others people to identify. What all racial stereotypes have in common with each other is that
they reduce a people to a simple and exaggerated depiction of the real person. The media is
more sensitive to issues such as race and gender then they used to be, but many misconceptions
about different races still continue. The inaccurate and simple portrayals of different races has
profoundly affected how we perceive other races and how we relate to them and each other.
Racial stereotypes in the media tend to group up different ethnicities by the most
common attributes which characterize them. They concentrate such a great amount on the
particular practices of different ethnicities just to impress their audience and get more viewers
or readers. According to columnist Earl Caldwell, "Race stories sell, but only when the blacks
are criminals and the whites are victims." (Kurtz). When crime are committed against whites
they are the victims, when it is against blacks thats nothing new and isnt news worthy.
Accents, skin color, and social practices are the fundamental viewpoints that characterize these
stereotypes. With the emphasis that the media display on these traits, it prevents people from
learning of that given racial group. This encourages the media to ignore the actual attributes to
each person of that race.
In the media, all races are subject to racial stereotyping; however, the majority of the
time it is African Americans and Hispanics who suffer from it the most. Ramasubramanian
claims that, African-Americans and Latino-Americans are often under-represented,
marginalized, and demeaned in mainstream media in stereotypical ways. (Ramasubramanian).
It is the Hispanics and African Americans who get the worse of the racial stereotyping.

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Hispanics are usually portrayed by the media as lazy, unintelligent, and criminal; According to
Stein The cartoon, News Watch claims, maintains the stereotype of Mexican men as being
lazy and indolent and Mexican women as being of easy virtue. (Stein). The stereotypical
Hispanic is depicted as being lazy and being beings of easy virtue [sluts]. Many African
Americans are portrayed as loud, lazy, and criminal; A common theme of these recent
stereotypes is that of the angry black woman In the current era, however, this stereotype is
no longer being used to portray a particular type of black woman. Instead, it is increasingly
being used as a standard template for portraying all black women, regardless of social class,
skin tone or body type. (Kretsedemas). A common stereotype of black women in television is
the angry black woman. It should not be like this but many of these stereotypes are relentless,
systematic and are widely held to be true by most people.
The television is one of the most popular ways that racial stereotypes are spread. It is
something people watch every day. People use it to watch the news, for entertainment and some
leave it on for the background noise. Television is a prominent part of many peoples lives and
we use it to determine many of the ways we act in our society. Professor Ramasubramanian
describes television as
They define what are normal and acceptable behaviors. They tell us who are to be
admired and who are to be ridiculed. They teach us who are of a higher status and who
are of a lower status. Most importantly, they subtly inform us about why status and
power differences exist in society. Media messages subtly legitimize existing status quo
by providing causal explanations for why subordinating groups deserve to be in their
assigned positions. (Ramasubramanian).

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The media, television in particular tells us who we are, who we should be and who is better
than us. Television holds great power over those who do not have strong opinions or have no
information about a particular topic. Television may be the only source of information for them.
In dealing with a variety of topics like race and culture, television does not only entertain, it
also conveys messages that people can unintentionally learn. This can lead to people believing
in stereotypes without realizing it.
As a medium, film is very limited in how it can represent race of people as a whole. No
two people are exactly alike regardless of their race. There is no way a single film could
accurately represent a race of people. It is unfortunate, but many people believe the
stereotypical representations of black people in film. This belief can be very dangerous because
this can perpetuate stereotypes and discrimination of races. The average movie goer pays to
watch a movie and therefore movie directors tailor their film so that the majority of their
viewers will enjoy their movie. The majority usually means white, so even movies based off of
other races are made for white audiences or are white-washed. Because of this, the
representations of different races in movies are almost always the white ideas of who that race
is, and not who they really are.
The media definitely does perpetrate racial stereotypes. Most news articles that are
posted are built around the news attempt to make people feel emotional and make them more
inclined to argue about their news story. Pickering clams that, One of the paradoxes of the
news is that it is not new at all. News reporting is always about some recent event, but the
manner in which reporting occurs conforms to long-established values and practices. This is a
widely acknowledged feature of news journalism. (Pickering). The news isnt really news at
all but confirming long held beliefs. This creates more viewership for them. It also creates the

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belief that certain racial stereotypes are true, although this might not be their reason for it and is
just a way for them to get viewers. No need to look any further than a story about a black man
robbing someone or a story about some ethnicity murdering a white man. According to McCall
when talking to a white editor, If a murder took place on the city's south side, where most
blacks live, he'd say, `Okay, give me a brief', ... If it happened on the predominantly white
north side, he'd often say, `Look into that, let's see who that is.' The implication was that the
people on the south side aren't anybody, just those homicidal blacks who commit murder, but if
it happened on the north side it must be somebody. (Kurtz). When an editor sees that the
crime is happening on against the white side of town something must be serious, but if its
crime against the black part of town thats just another part of daily life. Anytime some crime
like this happens the media jumps on it and sensationalizes it, dividing races into their
respective stereotypes. There are whites committing murder and blacks committing murder, yet
the media only reports certain types of murders; Perpetuating one of the black stereotypes, that
they are criminals.
Media is a powerful tool, it can be used for creating and shaping peoples opinions. Mok
claims that, The media, in all its formsprint, news, entertainmenthas a powerful influence
on racial attitude development in the young and elderly alike. Children, adolescents, and adults
develop perceptions of racial/ethnic groups consistent with the way members of these groups
are portrayed (or not portrayed) in the media. (Mok). The media has a strong influence on how
we see other races. The media contains dominant and well known stereotypes of different races.
Media is produced in a structure that is familiar and easy for people to grasp in order to gain
mass receivers. Therefore stereotypes are often used in television and film as a way to get an
audience. Mok theorizes that, Indeed, the media certainly may, in many instances, rely on

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stereotypes and characterizations of various groups (e.g., African Americans, women, parents,
gays/lesbians, etc.) and portray characters or people in general as one-dimensional or
simplistic. (Mok). However, they use a general descriptions of a race, regardless of individual
differences of the people.
Why the media perpetuates stereotypes is to have a universal and relatable image for
everyone, in order to get the largest audience as possible. Therefore the media mirrors what it
sees as reality, which are the stereotypical views of people. However, because of the medias
stereotypical way of showing the world, some races are ignored and or underrepresented and
therefore there image of the world is incomplete. Although many people are aware of these
stereotypes, the media tends to conform and would rather stick to their pattern than to change
and risk a negative reception or a loss of viewers.

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Works Cited
Kretsedemas, Philip. "But Shes Not Black!." Journal of African American Studies 14.2
(2010): 149-70. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.
<https://login.ezp.pasadena.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dir
ect=true&db=aph&AN=48587199&site=ehost-live>.
Kurtz, Howard. "Some Journalists Link Crime Coverage, Racism." The Washington Post (pre1997 Fulltext) 29 July 1994: 0-A11. National Newspapers Core. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.
<https://login.ezp.pasadena.edu/login??url=http://search.proquest.com.ezp.pasadena.
edu/docview/307761997?accountid=28371>.
Mok, Teresa A. "Getting the Message: Media Images and Stereotypes and Their Effect on
Asian Americans." Cultural Diversity and Mental Health 4.3 (1998): 185-202. Web.
17 Nov. 2014.
<https://login.ezp.pasadena.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dir
ect=true&db=pdh&AN=1999-00186-003&site=ehost-live>.
Pickering, Michael. "Sex in the Sun: Racial Stereotypes and Tabloid News." Social Semiotics
18.3 (2008): 363-75. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.
<https://login.ezp.pasadena.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dir
ect=true&db=aph&AN=33622397&site=ehost-live>.
Ramasubramanian, Srividya. "Television Stereotypes and Affirmative Action." Television
Stereotypes and Affirmative Action. National Communication Association, Apr.
2010. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.natcom.org/CommCurrentsArticle.aspx?id=972>.

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Stein, M. L. "Racial Stereotyping and the Media." Editor & Publisher 127.32 (1994): 12. Web.
5 Nov. 2014.
<https://login.ezp.pasadena.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dir
ect=true&db=aph&AN=9408242750&site=ehost-live>.