Cultivating Reality through Stereotyping in the Media

Abstract

Often our judgment related to certain people or groups in the society are created with no actual contact and with superficial cues. In nowadays society the information we got on the world are much greater, as a result of increasing of the role media plays in the society. Today media using major achivements of communication tools&techniques, manages to reach every member of society. In particular, the extraordinary growth of the Internet has become an enrmous tool to access media which to uses this new channel of communication, in addition to other traditional channels such as television, radio or newspapers. This access has made society utterly dependent and on the other hand has made media an important factor which creates perceptions and even affects the education of whole society categories. In particular, the impact is greater among children and young people with less life-experince. They create shared convictions and beliefs influenced by the media. In this context, in many cases, if a media creates stereotypes of various persons or social categories, they are transmitted through it to a large part of society, affecting primarly those with less life-experince. This a how, often, a stereotype is communly believed as truth. This phenomena can be observed greatly even in the Albanian media, which commonly categorizes people of different social groups, based only on one point of view. This impacts society greatly in creating prejudices that affect directly our lives and those of others. This article assumes precisely analysis through focus group discussions with students of communication sciences. These students are able to think critically about the role and influence of stereotypes in the media and give their opinion on this phenomenon.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3s1p618