Media and Sociology essay
In this write up, it is my noble intention to put forth clearly the relationships between the media and sociology especially in recent times. I will further express how the media presents the grouping and stereotyping processes.
It is the media that easily portrays the values of individuals and their relationships as people living together in a particular location and having some things in common. The value-system of different individuals is different and this of course makes these individuals pursue totally different course in life generally. If the media portrays these things, it makes it easier for people to have much more understanding about each other.
Concerning any arguable issues, views and different types of mentality, the media also easily reveals the stands of different people from different ethnic backgrounds. For instance, we can watch the news that shows us the speeches by the heads of the different member states of the United Nations (UN) and makes us understand their stands based on their own views and mentality on a particular issue.
Of one of the important usefulness of the media to sociology is its informativity. We cannot easily ignore the educative ability of the media to us. It increases our knowledge of happenings around us, educates us socially yet the more and makes us know about many different things pertaining to different individuals indifferent areas, locations and ethnic backgrounds.
Many individuals make their researches using majorly or solely the media. The present age has advanced in many aspects of lives. Gone are the days when individuals have only hard copy of written books as research tools. In recent times, there are electronic copies of books and more importantly media videos as research tools.
Entertainments function of the media can also not be forgotten. In many youthful activities today both individually and collectively as a group are their orientation towards utilization of the media as their entertainment tool. The spending of time and watching video clips of songs or even movie videos is so entertaining.
My chosen video on you-tube which is an online media website is “Hispanics and their stereotypes”.
Who are these Hispanics? These are regarded as group of individuals with ancestral historical origin from Spain. This country geographically coincided with Iberian Peninsula. The Hispanic America includes; Mexico, Greater Antilles, Central and South American countries.
I will at this juncture yet define the word “stereotyping” as a commonly held public beliefs and opinion (which even by the society can be acceptable as a factual classification) about specific social groups, or types of individuals that is based on prior assumptions.
The media I chose shows a lady that explains her experience of Stereotyping in her work place. This lady explains that she has been assigned this group and has observed a reserved way of relationship with her colleges and even her boss in her workplace. She further explains the experiences of not getting these job easily due to discriminating actions shown by many employers she had gone to earlier in her job search. The amazing thing is that this lady’s color is dark and as a result she is even more discriminated according to her than any other Hispanic individual. She mentioned also that even some individuals go to the extent of calling her “A Black Hispanic Lady”.
Conclusion
There is indeed an influence of media on sociology and relationship exist between media and sociology. This video therefore shows Hispanic Stereotyping and presents the grouping as Hispanic by emphasis on their origin, race, socioeconomic background and their characteristic features. This signifies and implies that even the individually acquired socialization, social class and wealth does not remove the stereotyping activities. This stereotyping normally brings with it prejudice, racism and discrimination.
