Dan Thomas
11-21-01
The Media as a Social Problem
The mass media plays a large role in modern society. Indeed, many have argued that
people spend more time in “mass-mediated” interaction than in actual human interaction.
The mass media, then, would seemingly be an excellent position to initiate social change,
positively affect social problems, and help combat social ills that are considered normal
patterns of behavior. Yet, the mass media has largely failed in addressing and helping to
solve social problems. As seen through its presentation of the three major variables of race,
class, and gender, the mass media has actually served to contribute to the social problems
it covers, reinforcing them, and creating an inter-related cycle in which these problems
continue.
TV has become perhaps the primary vehicle that society receives its information and
presents its values and expectations. One of the most important roles television plays is its
presentation of news and information. What a station chooses to present as newsworthy
can play a strong role in how people view their society and the world around them. Often,
television news sources have followed a philosophy of “if it bleeds, it leads”, focusing on
violence in urban environments. This violence occurs more frequently in black
neighborhoods, resulting in what amounts to essentially as a steady, nightly stream of
reports on violence in the inner-city by and among African-Americans. In this way, the
television media plays a strong role in formulating racial problems as seen by the
interactionist approach. With the constant display of these images two problems quickly
emerge. First, the minority groups become subject to stereotypes as the images presented
become fixed mental images and are exaggerated and applied to the group as a whole.
Whites, according to this model, “learn” that minority groups are “less intelligent, more
violent, or generally less human”. Additionally, the minority groups themselves can
develop reactions that are turned inward and create a sense of hopelessness, despair, and
self-doubt that can lead into even more sociological problems in the form of alcoholism,
drug abuse, aggression, and crime. Thus, the images presented by television news help
contribute to this vicious, self-reinforcing, cycle as the news they present help to continue
and promote the problems and the stereotypes.
Closely linked to race becomes issues of class. As those in minority areas are portrayed
and viewed negatively a flight of capital and economic activity develops in conjunction
with the stereotypes. Those with capital, typically white, avoid neighborhoods seen as
