Stereotypes and First-Year College Students
By: Anna Thach
Social media can be a catalyst for stirring up conflicts about stereotypes conjuring race, gender, social economic status and/or class, etc. Social media platforms facilitate a space for individuals and users to hypothesize ideas and generate concepts about anything and anyone. I believe that people use social media platforms to kind of hide behind a screen because it is easier to express their opinions open-mindedly without any regard to potentially hurting others. It’s important to recognize any analyze differences among race, gender, social economic status, etc., in our society so that it gives the power and opportunity for people to fight for their rights. It’s also important that our modern society work on combating these stereotypes specifically targeted towards people of color because it can have a negative impact on how others view them. What are stereotypes and how do they affect people’s lives? Why do people tend to see one person as representative of an entire race or ethnicity? How can we reduce bias? How have stereotypes influenced first-year college students?
Stereotypes and Social Media
“Social media can be powerful tools for rallying support for a social cause, political mobilization, and social commentary” making it a platform for users to fiddle and type opinions and ideas to promote a message. Social media platforms and ‘memes’ can encourage and stimulate racial stereotypes to produce.
I’ve read a journal, Canadian Journal of Communication, titled “Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That!”: Framing and Stereotyping in Legacy and Social Media; and the author talks about a local news interview featuring an African American female who became an overnight celebrity in 2012. In the interview, she talks about a fire that occurred in her small town in Oklahoma. The way that she conducted herself and her speech to the interviewer sparked attention on social media platforms in which she ultimately became a ‘meme’. Audiences on social media saw the image and produced stereotypes and created poverty-bashing memes essentially imitating and provoking the image of the African American interviewee as a representative of the entire African-American community. The author also states that, “Social media, as a relatively new site of social interactions and cultural reproduction, both copies and reshapes the practices of legacy media…” (Gilbert & Karahalios, 2009). The ‘Sweet Brown’ case study portrays that her image during the interview plays a role in conducting damaging messages and negative stereotypes about race and socioeconomic status / class, etc.
The author, Dodson, concludes that “there is much discussion about the potential for social media to democratize, empower, and emancipate, representing a more participatory model of media production and distribution that opens up gateways and removes barriers…” Essentially, social media can influence / encourage / facilitate pernicious actions but, it can spark change in a positive way. It’s a way for people to come together, as well as split apart.
It’s important to recognize that these representations of social and cultural hierarchies gratify appropriation. For example, the 14 year-old Caucausian female, Danielle Bregoli, became a viral sensation when she appeared on the Dr. Phil show, in which she uses her phrase, “cash me outside”. The interview on the Dr. Phil show gained mass attention on social media outlets in which some accused Bregoli of “appropriating Black culture”. With the internet exponentially fueling her fame, she gained popularity and capitalized on music deals and merchandising.
Stereotypes and Gender
What do you think of when you hear the word “masculine” and “feminine” traits? An example of a “masculine” trait is ‘strong’ or ‘aggressive’ and an example of a “feminine” trait is ‘emotional’ or ‘passive’. I’ve noticed in many Hollywood movies and films, there’s a stereotype incorporated in characters and individuals to kind of entertain and cultivate interest to specific target audiences. Hollywood directors often utilize stereotypes to categorize and represent one individual as kind of a representative of an entire race or gender, which could be detrimental and damaging in our society.
My Findings
I created a Google form document and sent it out to my LANG120 freshmen college class and here are the results below. If you would like to fill out the Google form document, click on this link.
Google Form Results:
-insert table, pie chart?, results
Opinions Around Campus:
insert audio files? video recordings?
