‘Both Age And Ethnicity Are Still Too Often Portrayed By The Media In Ways That
Reinforce Stereotypes.’ To what extent do sociological arguments and evidence
support this view?
The media puts a large focus on particular types of people but the way in which they do
it is not always positive. The stereotypes created can portray people in negative ways, or
in ways that make them seem vulnerable or antisocial etc.
For example, when it comes to age, there are many different stereotypes of
children. The majority of them are in a positive light, such as ‘cute’ and ‘brilliant’ but
others are more focused on making the public feel sorry for them, ‘brave little angels’.
The way that children are portrayed as cite is usually in TV advertisements, like the little
boy in the toilet paper advert. The children seen as brilliant are those who have helped
save lives or a child prodigy, these children are usually shown on award shows such as
the Pride of Britain awards. Children who suffer from long-term illnesses are the ‘brave
little angels’; Children In Need and interviews with them and their family are done to
reinforce this stereotype. Heintz-Knowles back up the idea that most representations
are positive and the children in the media are seen to engage in pro social actions e.g.
telling the truth and helping others. He also pointed out that by using children in
adverts, other children are likely to become active consumers. He uses the term ‘pester
power’ to show how children these days can manipulate their parents into spending
money which will improve the way they are seen by their peers. This has a negative
effect however as Chandler and Evans (2006) say, pester power creates anxiety among
parents who often go into debt to provide for their children.
The youth of today are seen very differently to children. Wayne et al. (2007)
studied 286 stories from newspapers that focus on young people, he found that 82% of
those stories showed them as either perpetrators or victims of violent crime. He also
said it was rare for the papers to feature a young persons perspective or opinion. This
reinforce the stereotype that youths are a social problem. They are seen as folk devils
and there are concerns about their membership of deviant subculture such as ‘hoodies’
and ‘teddy boys’. People seem to think they are anti authority. It is also as if the media is
focused on youths, because they are seen as the ones who use Facebook, watch the
most TV and listen to a lot of music. They see it as a way that young people express their
identity.
The elderly are seen as quite the opposite to children and youth. Some people say that
the media is focused on providing entertainment for youths although recently there has
been a realisation that the elderly may have more disposable income and therefore
adverts etc. should focus on them. However, when they are in advertisements or other
forms of media the elderly are stereotyped in certain ways. Research has shown that the
main types are as grumpy, as mentally challenged, as infantile, as a burden and as
reliving their childhood. Most of those are viewed negatively, with only enjoying a
second childhood being positive. Those elderly people are usually shown as being
affluent and are attempting to relive their youth and do things that they have always
wanted to do. An example of this is the film ‘The Bucket List’. The common stereotypes
of them being ‘busybodies’ or bemoaning the behaviour of youths is portraying the
elderly in a bad way, also by showing them as needing to rely on people for help creates
a somewhat false image of what older people actually are like.
When it comes to ethnicity there are a lot of stereotypes that may influence the
public’s perception. Again, they are mainly negative for example they are often seen as
a threat. This stereotype is mainly used for Muslims, especially since the 9/11 terrorist
attacks and between 1995 and 1996 most representations of ethnic minorities in
newspapers were as a threat to mainstream society, values and society. There is also
the idea that they are abnormal due to the culture differences, for example, what Asians
may consider to be normal we might not, this includes things such as arranged marriage
and the style of clothing – the hijab and veil. A study by the BBC (2002) shows that Asian
audiences were unhappy in the way the media failed to differentiate between Asian
groups. All were put together and called Asian despite there being many different
cultures and values. The stereotypes are not all negative though; ethnic minorities are
often seen as good at entertainment. Agebetu (2006) says that black people are
constructed by the media in 3 ways; these are crime, entertainment and sport. He says
that they are not seen to be interested in anything else. There is the issue though, that
the rapping that black people are usually good at promotes things such as violence,
materialism, sexual objectification and misogyny. These things bring down some of the
positive aspects to this stereotype. Being dependent is another form of stereotype. With
the shows such as Comic Relief and G8, ethnic minorities come across as needing out
money to survive and as if they cannot do anything without us. The Glasgow University
Media Group says we focus on war etc. and seem to think that is it their own fault
they’re in that situation.
From this we can conclude that the media still too often stereotypes age and
ethnicity and there is plenty of evidence to support it. Some people feel that tokenism
us used and that they should show all different aspects of age and ethnicity but don’t
really think of the consequences and whether they are actually realistic. The use of
stereotypes however, does influence our opinions of these types of people and we are
often guilty of being prejudiced because of them.