Kadie Sizemore
Honors Humanities
Misuraca/Pelster
September 21, 2017
The Impact of Media on Racial Tension With all of the new forms of media, whether that be social media platforms, television, or online news sources, it is certain that media is an influential part of people's lives. Media is known to express people's opinions on various topics, one of the largest topics in 2017 is race. The media unintentionally provides support to race-related uproars by illustrating misleading news stories to the community, highlighting government bias, and increasing the overall likelihood of repetitive patterns in racial tension. Undoubtedly, each community has its own unique social norms. What can be said of all communities, however, is that race influences a great deal of how the people there function in their day to day lives. In a PBS documentary, Policing the Police, a resident of Newark states that “After the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, I took this cell phone video of cops trying to put down the protests.” Since the creation of cellphones, there has been a giant growth in social awareness and involvement on racial issues. Minorities can use this technology to instantaneously raise
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A recent NPR article exposes facts about determining whether or not something is “fake news”. Referring to a number of people who can’t decipher biased text it says, “The idea is that people should have a fundamental sense of media literacy. And based on a study recently released by Stanford University researchers, many people don't.” With this information, it can be determined that when the media puts out biased or misleading stories, there are many people who think it’s valid. Political figures and people of power talk about racial issues and their quotes can be used out of context to create the illusion that they are more biased than they are in