Following the presentations our classes produced, I was very impressed. I think the mediums in which the groups created their projects were very effective, each format gave me a great insight into the finished project. I found a particular interest in the infographic produced by Emily, Anna, Mishal, and Emma. It seemed that every element of the project was symbolic of, and greatly connected to the topic of which they studied, The Chung Collection. The Chung Collection was created to provide a background for Canadians into Chinese immigration, so they can better understand the “struggles and joys of those who have come before them” (The Chung Collection). I think that the infographic, displaying a railroad linked to a series of important events related to Chinese immigration, was extremely effective. Along with their work, I think the rest of the projects did a great job of displaying a gap they had uncovered within the archives.

For this week, I have decided to look at the skewed frame of focus of which media outlets consistently harness in order to place stories of marginalized peoples further in the margins, and evaluate how these frames seem to further isolate these groups from joining into a mainstream thought. After looking at the article, “When The Media Treats White Suspects And Killers Better Than Black Victims”, I was astounded by the ways in which media seems to portray white people who have committed, or are suspects of committing horrible atrocities, as better than black victims. I found that the prevalence of this phenomena relates into Jennifer England’s ideas of hyper-visibility and invisibility of which are discussed in Yasmin Jiwani and Mary Lynn Young’s article, “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse”. In this article, the idea of hyper-visibility is correlated with “deviant bodies” and invisibility is correlated with “victims of violence” (899). As seen in “When The Media Treats White Suspects And Killers Better Than Black Victims”, the ideas of hyper-visibility and invisibility can be taken to a new level, with invisibility being able to be linked to white suspects and killers, and hyper-visibility being able to be linked to black victims. In the cases seen in the article, even though black individuals were being displayed in the media not because of a crime they committed, but rather because they were victims, deviance was still in some way tied into the situation, making faults from their past hyper-visible. At the same time, the individual who was at fault for the crime, or murder in most cases, was often seen as invisible. In the case of the article about the shooting of Sgt. Manuel Loggins Jr., the thoughts of the police officer who shot him were displayed, but only in positive light. Sgt. Manuel Loggins Jr. received little acknowledgement, and what he did receive in the article was mostly thoughts from the police officer who thought he was going to steal two young girls, who were actually his daughters. Just the thoughts of the officer display how prejudice is present in our society, as prejudgment of Loggins was obviously present. Rather than any negative light being shed on the officer, he was swiftly moved past, as if invisible. If the officer were black, and the suspect were white, how would the situation have been displayed? Another example lies in the article about Julius B. Vaughn, who was found slain in his car at the age of 19. The article makes his past hyper-visible, displaying him as a deviant body, while investigations into who killed him are totally left out, invisible.

In these cases, even past acts by victims of violent crimes are displayed as hyper-visible, leading into their further marginalization, while white suspects and killers are in a way viewed as invisible, further leading to the marginalization of the black victims of many of these crimes, due to the medias negative focus on them. The presence of this issue in the media causes me to wonder how and in what way we will be able to make a change to the way marginalized groups are displayed in media. It seems that institutionalized racism is very much present and a real threat, but I’m hopeful that soon, hopefully with our generation, many of the issues of racism can be settled fixed.

Jiwani, Yasmin, and Mary Lynn Young. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31.4 (2006): 895-917. ProQuest. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.

“The Chung Collection.” The Chung Collection. Web. 10 Feb. 2016. <http://chung.library.ubc.ca/node>.

Wing, Nick. “When The Media Treats White Suspects And Killers Better Than Black Victims.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 14 Aug. 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.