Stereotypes

Robbie Jackson
AMST 357-B
May 7, 2009
Stereotypes in the Media
Why do people and the media always focus on the differences instead of searching for similarities? Many would say that it's just human nature. Personally I don't believe that it's human nature to talk about one another because we are not all alike. Prejudice may be a human characteristic but it is not a part of our natural make-up. Human beings are social creatures, not hostile isolationists. If we were meant to be separate from one another then civilized society would have never evolved in the first place.
The Implicit personality theory is the universal opportunity that we build about a person after we know something of their central personality. An example of this is people assume that happy people are nice and friendly or quiet people are shy. In today’s society, people hold an arrangement of assumptions that are based around relationships between various traits and behaviors. People who recognize that there is one exacting trait associated with someone will also assume that the individual possesses other character traits, which may or may not be true. One example might be someone who is considered unpredictable is also dangerous or someone who speaks slowly is unintelligent.
In today’s society the media often generalize descriptions and characteristics. The media stereotypes are predictable, especially in the sports, advertisement, entertainment and news industries, which need as broad an audience as possible to swiftly comprehend information. Stereotypes perform like rules that give audiences a rapid, general perceptive of a person or group of people involving to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.