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Stereotypes In The Media Essay

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Serving as a reoccurring pattern from historical depictions of the LGBTQ community in news media, mainstream publications depicted these individuals and their bodies in stereotypical ways that demeaned them of their accomplishments, worth, and existence within society. The danger of stereotyping certain individuals is that stereotypes are deceptive and this leads to a whole host of innacurate connotations, while invoking a sense of otherness towards the stereotyped when deciding when one does not belong, as defined by Richard Dyer (298). The media frequently published stories that claimed to feature actual scientific, psychological, and technological studies that backed up claims of homosexuality as an illness, claimed the TIME in a 1963 article, …show more content…
Not only are most reporters who interact with the public, white, straight, and cisgendered, but members of the LGBTQ community are underrepresented in the journalism field. The majority of these individuals who are employed in this area, mostly work in privatized sectors, as ordered by their employer, or remain “in the closet” in fear of losing their job, being demoted, or that their abilities and worth will be undermined by their colleagues. Homophobic, sexist, or transphobic exchanges are often circulated around the newsroom, where, “the new level of openness among gays and lesbians created an uneasy tension inside the newsroom,” because of the anti-gay norms that existed for so long (Alwood 161). These queer reporters are even tokenized and their queerness is generalized onto their entire being, leading to ideas that “homosexuality was the only subject he (they) could write about” (Alwood 157), although only 73 percent of gay and lesbian reporters have actually ever covered a queer rights story (Bernt & Greenwald 108). The lack of representation of the queer community by the news media, may be directly correlated to its lack of queer

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