Com 101

Final Paper

Racism in the Media

“Due to the growing media influence, racism has evolved from “black and white” in the past to the multi-cultural issue it is now.”(Media and Racism) In the past, racism in the media was conveyed only through the use of the newspaper. Newspaper was the fastest and most popular way of receiving media information and was often more direct and bias to the gatekeepers. However, the current day variety of media types and sensitivity to racism has evolved media to sending the message to target different demographics, using an array of tactics to deliver the message. The tactic that we chose to talk about is the satirical presentation approach. In the past there were a lot more people who were racist and spoke out about it. This led to the media sending messages that were more directly to the point instead of “sugar coating” the words or situations. The newspaper or radio would cover stories that would be broadcasted for the people who could afford the paper or to have a radio. These people at the time were also the wealthy white men. The gatekeepers of these papers and broadcasting were usually powerful white men that were heavily racist themselves. This led to people only seeing that blacks at the time were terrible people being punished, this is what they wanted the people listening and reading to feel.
As time went on racism started to become more discrete and behind closed doors. People became sensitive to the terms that at one time were used everyday. The media as time went on grew also into a huge industry with multiple outlets to gather sources from. We discovered that a common way the media gets their message across to this generation is through comedy. This generation people wont take the time to sit down and watch the news and wait to see the current situations going on everyday. So the media uses shows like “The Daily Show” to get their messages across because people are more likely to watch “The Daily Show” over the daily news. Another common show that we found uses this approach with racist stories is “Colbert Nation”. He uses and episode called “Color-Bind”, where they are successful with getting their message across over racism because they take the time and piece a bunch of news clips together to show the views of these other powerful white men. (The Word) The daily show used an episode called “The Amazing Racism” where they talk about the ending of racism. (Steward) The episode shows how the Supreme Court states they have passed laws and that racism was no longer alive. Then just days later there was a man on the media using a racist term, then Easter eggs found filled with racist remarks. Jon Steward continues to make jokes to bash the Supreme Court and large U.S. officials, stating that racism was no longer. The media has found that this approach reaches more people of this generation because people are just to fast pace to sit down and watch a news program. People want to be able to pull up a clip on their phone or a website at work and see their stories. A very controversial case that has been shown on the “The Daily Show” is the Michael Brown case.

Steward, J. (n.d.). The Amazing Racism. Retrieved December 15, 2014, from http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/5dbo97/the-amazing-racism
The Word - Color-bind. (n.d.). Retrieved December 15, 2014, from http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/3vijkd/the-word---color-bind