Ideologies are present in almost everything. It is not something we choose to adapt or dismiss. Ideologies are something that exist predetermined when we are born. This is something Stuart Hall touches on in his writing titled, The Whites of Their Eyes. We use ideologies to understand and have others make sense of us. Hall explains that ideologies can change over time. This process is done collectively rather than individually. This also means this process is an unconscious intent rather than conscious. Where do these ideologies come from? Many come from our media. Media is a major factor in the construction of ideologies as well as the articulation of these ideologies. Its in every media piece we consume. If its intentional or not is another question. Like I said before, ideologies are typically unconscious intentions.
This ideology that media spits out at us, can directly affect our prejudices. Edward Schiappa, a media studies researcher at MIT, decided to put this to the test. He studied how shows that show prominently gay men might lower prejudices towards LGBTQ people. The results supported this claim. People who watched these shows showed to have lowered prejudices. This is obviously a great thing and can be used in a positive manner. Despite this, it can also work the opposite way. And in our current state of media, it is often hidden in between the lines. Take a scroll through a news outlet home page and view the titles and the thumbnail used. I did this on a few websites and though I did not see any overtly prejudice titles I did see a recurring theme with the thumbnails connected. When a story is covering a general story regarding homelessness, unemployment, poverty, and other similar topics, the people in the thumbnail are typically black or Hispanic. When stories cover the new apple watch the thumbnail used is a white mans are with an apple watch on it. I also saw several “how to “ articles such as, “how to file your taxes” or even “how to listen to the right audio book”. All these thumbnails including people of color. This was all found on CNN’s website. To the youth this may appear as, people of color don’t know how to do these things white people may know how to do. Or even that poverty is specific to race.
Media like this just furthers these ideologies. This can consequently lead to inferential racism continuing on as well as other prejudices. But, as mentioned before media ideology can be used for positive impact. Such as encouraging all media consumption regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, and so on. This is how the ideology can change long term.
Multiculturalism and Media 