6.17

How do the media, stereotypes and discrimination relate to each other? I'll take a crack at it based what I've learned about the media's role in society and the agenda-setting theory.

A. the media --> stereotypes --> discrimination

or

B. stereotypes --> the media --> discrimination

or

C. stereotypes --> discrimination --> the media

A. The media gives meaning and definition to code words, which enter the public lexicon for everyday use via the mass dissemination of information. Through convention, society connects these code words with people's behaviors, appearances and beliefs. These code words then elicit positive, negative and neutral feelings for whatever artifact they represent. Code words are easy to trigger, easy to use and require little mental work to link the meaning of the word to whatever the user wants it to represent in reality. "Lazy," "slow," "egghead," "airhead" and "stingy" are negative code words that become prejudices when connected with a type of people. From A, the media is responsible for the birth of stereotypes, which the public abuses to its petulant desire.

B. People are predisposed to stereotypes, living their lives with "little biases" and mentally tagging everything they see in a normative scale of good, bad and indifference. Boys like violence, girls like cute = not strange. Boys like cute, girls like violence = strange. All societies have this, they are called social norms, or how we expect people within a group to behave in predictable ways. When people think or behave in ways that deviate from the norm, the media absorbs the information, synthesizes it and releases it to the public while giving it context by framing the stories.

Framing is a social theory involving a collection of stereotypes. Framing gives stories significance and "relateability" (not a word, but it makes sense).

Once the media distributes these popular stereotypes, people who previously had been unaware or indifferent of some stereotypes begin recognizing it because of its ubiquity. If people only have the media to inform them about some stereotypes while lacking direct experience to give them a better understanding of certain people, attitudes or behaviors against how they are portrayed in the media, then these people may combine their own predisposed feelings with the possibly narrow interpretation of a subject presented by the media. If these feelings are negative, then it will be reinforced by the media and become strengthened discriminatory beliefs and practices.

C. People have predisposed feelings about other people based on limited experience and understanding. These feelings serve as the foundation for negative judgment and treatment of other people. The media's role is simply to generate news stories that reflect this behavioral process in society through impartial and rigid reporting of the facts without playing an active role in correcting the destructive happenings resulting from discrimination.

Which one is the most appealing - A, B or C? Is there a D, or an E, where the terms can be re-arranged even further? Is there another important term besides these three that should be in the discussion? Are the options too grossly simplified for such a complex subject?