Media and Mind Final Project
With this final project, I wanted to highlight how storytelling in the news and media bias becomes a huge problem when it comes to matters of race, gender, and crime. In this class, we have repeatedly talked about perspective shaping realities, media influencing opinions, and words affecting our world views in ways that we often don’t even notice. It’s also very hard to change this even while becoming aware of this. Understanding that there is racial bias in the news is one thing, but seeing the stark differences in how certain people are portrayed through photographs, descriptions, and framing commentary is a completely new experience.
I also wanted to focus on short form content, news articles, and social media posts (Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc.) because these are the avenues that people consume media through in this modern age. People are no longer reading long winded newspaper articles that give every single detail of the event- they get bored after reading anything for 30 seconds, so I believe that my project and my examples should reflect that. This is also the reason why I chose a web page as my medium for this project, because this way, I can write copy that is brief yet succinct, informative, and important.
Case 1- Photography
“Same day. Same crime. Same news station. One University pics. The other mugshots.” -@honeycoquette (via Twitter)
These photos come from the same news organization, for two different crime stories with two different groups of suspects and containing two very different sets of photographs. The white men who committed burglary were pictured in their University wresting photographs in their suits and ties, while the black men who committed the same crime were pictured with their mugshots.
Case 2- Word Choice
“This is how a convicted rapist was portrayed by @washingtonpost. Include his swimming creds, avoid the word "rape". -@justkelly_ok (via Twitter)
For contrast, here's @washingtonpost coverage of other rapes. All … headlines use the word, use mugshot.” -@justkelly_ok (via Twitter)
The difference in photographs is stark here, but the wording is far more telling. Brock Turner, according to this media source, is an “All-American swimmer” who “sexually assaulted” a woman. The word “rape” is explicitly never used in the article. Not only that, but the article goes on to describe him as “baby-faced” and that this incident was a “shocking fall from grace.” Keep in mind that this man raped a woman. By comparison, in the article about a black man accused of the same crime, the word “rape” was used multiple times, and his background is not mentioned at all. The words that the media presents to the public profoundly affect our opinions on the subject.
“baby-faced Stanford freshman”
“stunning fall from grace”, “record setting swimming prodigy”
Case 3- Framing
“This is a good example of bias in the @nytimes: a picture of a person who is considering not complying with a subpoena is basically a glam shot, and it’s framed as a thoughtful, perfectly equal choice.” -@soledadobrien (via Twitter)
“Oddly, the NYT didn't frame Chelsea Manning's refusal to testify against Assange in the same way...” -@dangillmore (via Twitter)
Moving to a more recent and relevant subject matter, on Thursday May 23, The New York Times released an article about Hope Hicks, a former aide to Donald Trump, and portrayed her “existential crisis” over whether or not to comply with a congressional subpoena, complete with a glamour shot of her looking quietly troubled and deep in thought. Not complying with a congressional subpoena is completely illegal, and yet this article frames her decision as a rational, careful, and equal choice.
Compare the rhetoric used when talking about Hope Hicks to when The New York Times wrote about army veteran Chelsea Manning, a transgender woman who refused a subpoena herself. She is not facing an “existential crisis”, she was ordered back to jail. Where is her glamour shot? Where is her charitable take? Why is Hope Hicks not getting the same coverage of the consequences of her actions as Chelsea?
Media and Mind: Reality
In her essay “New York: Sentimental Journeys,” Joan Didion states “Stories in which terrible crimes are inflicted on innocent victims, offering as they do a similarly sentimental reading of class differences and human suffering, a reading that promises both resolution and retribution, have long performed as the city’s endorphins, a built-in source of natural morphine working to blur the edges of real and to a great extent insoluble problems.” In this study, “the city” is the media- blurring the edges of the real to construct a narrative that might influence or resonate with the public. I was deeply affected by this, as we, as a public, generally believe that news is objective. Things happen, and the news reports it, and we usually don’t question the rhetoric of it all. Doing research for this final project has only proven to me how storytelling is prevalent in the news media in more ways than one. We are affected by the photographs we see, the specific words we read, and how the story is framed to us. Becoming aware that there is a significant racial and gender bias in the media is only the first step in unlearning our own implicit biases.