Political Protest (further research)

We finally narrowed down what topic we would explore for our political protest. Misrepresentation of minority groups in the media. This was a topic which is still relevant and will continue being relevant till there is appropriate representation and a lack of bias in how news is told to the masses.Also this episode of Scandal staring Kerry Washington was ringing in my mind looked at representation of the main character by the American public "dog whistle politics" (Dog whistle politics usually refers to the use of certain code words or phrases that are designed to be understood by only a small section of the populace.)  and they showed a great biasd which was real and interesting and I was eager to find out more


basically the media is shown as getting away with using little words that if not magnified don't say anything to the general public but when the group targeted by the phrasing knows exactly what it means.

Research 

I conducted some research finding out what minority groups there were and how they weren't properly represented in the media eye. I tried t find evidence of the media actually misrepresenting groups that usually do not have a voice in public or who's voices are warped in order to coincide with an image or stereotype that society is used to seeing. 

Black males

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/12/media-misrepresents-black-men-effects-felt-real-world

After reading this article I found that:

 Lives of males in the US adversely affected by negative public perceptions 

Eg being turned from jobs

Police suspicion - a thing black males in Britain search they are 90% more likely to be stopped and searched and only 2% of those stops and searches lead to actual arrests or convictions 

Black males are seen as being aggressive or even beastly the article references what Michael Browns killer Police Officer Darren Wilson said about Michael Brown "“when I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan,” even though the two men had the same height."

The article references a 2011 study *( http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Media-Impact-onLives-of-Black-Men-and-Boys-OppAgenda.pdf )* on the impact of this misrepresentation "negative mass media portrayals were linked with lower life expectations among black men" helping to create barriers to the progression of black males within society and they also normalised these barriers as if they were natural or to be expected "inevitable" says the article.

The article gives a clear example of the median misrepresentation of the 1967 riots saying the reporting was inadequate and exaggerated. This calls back a memory of a post sir made on his blog that showed the same newspapers report of a protest outside parliament and how they were so contradictory and one was inflammatory and the other less so. 

At this stage I thought of several ideas for our performance possibly asking black people who'd walk past "trapping" or "leading" questions to get them to say something the media would frame them as so asking if a black student had a job and then their answer would probably be no  this would then push the idea black people are unemployed and that's a norm for them to be out of work, which is a common misconception of Black males shown in the media. The triggering or leading questions would be demoralising and negative for the person being questioned and those who'd see this would then understand this is how the median forceful Misrepresentation impacts young black males. This was slightly inspired by the article which did mention a negative impact on black males self-esteem due to the media representation which leads them on to "internalising the biases and stereotypes" and then perpetuate the misrepresentations.

I know understood further from this article that the plight of black males is strongly impacted by the media Misrepresentation  and have solid ideas for the questions to ask during our protest.

Another interesting article was done by the huffington post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/darron-t-smith-phd/black-men-media_b_2844990.html

Women

Obviously prior to this research I was aware of a biased in how women are shown in movies film and other forms of the media. There has  always been the generic categorising of females with them either being the mother, the whore or the house wife and it has been hard for females to break away from these stereotypes and be more than just a pretty face without a voice. This is shown as women who are in high positions are often asked very superficial questions and shown in the media as the female stereotype or an outrage anarchist corrupting the minds of young children because they don't fit into societies already pre-described boxes.