The set of presentation done in my last Academic Writing class were all educational and entertaining. My presentation, which talked about the Jack Shadbolt and his artistic creations, gave me more insight and understanding of Greek mythology in connection with art. However, the presentation on the Japanese Canadian Internment, which concentrated on the detainment of the Japanese Canadian Chinese Canadian Immigration in one case or another, relates to what we are discussing in class at the moment; the work of the media in representing cases of racial and gender violence of the marginalized in the society.
I believe it is obvious what the media chooses to talk about and what they deem ‘irrelevant’ for coverage. Such stories deemed ‘irrelevant’ normally are centered on racial violence, institutionalized racism cases, sexual assault and gender violence. In Yasmin Jiwani and Mary Lynn Young’s article, it shows how Aboriginal women and in some cases, African American women are being murdered or missing without a single concern from the police and media. Through strategic silence, the Aboriginal women are being represented as people who deserve violence (Jiwani and Young, 899). However these cases involving violence against women tend to receive a one-dimensional kind of coverage (Carter, 1998; Meyers, 1994; Wykes, 1998).
Similarly, last year, a white young boy shot black church attendees at church whiles having a bible study. Furthermore, the Charleston Police department believes that this shooting was ‘racially motivated’. The Police Chief George Mullen said, “We believe this is a hate crime; that is how we are investigating it”. However, it did not take long for people to comment on how the media was trying to keep everything on the low by not getting the public the information that they needed. They were tweets all over by public figures to express their disdain and disappointment for the media. An example of the comments was made by Rob Lowe and other people.
Rob Lowe has a lot of retweets and likes from the public and this shows how much people all over the world agree with what he said. However, this is a complete example of the media choosing what to talk about or to give full coverage in the news. Through what is called ‘Framing’ according to Entman, specific events are highlighted and selected to be analyzed or interpreted (Entman, 2003). Why are cases of sexual assault and racial violence not given the right amount of attention they deserve?
In all, if the media represents cases of violence, it is believed that there will be a decreased rate of crimes.
Works Cited
Entman, Robert. (2003). Cascading activation: Contesting the White House’s frame after 9/11. Political Communication, 20(4), 415-432.
Jiwani, Yasmin, and Mary Lynn Young. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31.4 (2006): 895-917.
Meyers, Marian. (1994). News of Battering. Journal of Communication, 44(2), 47-63.
