Prejudice in American Pop Culture Annotated Bibliography Essay Example
Prejudice is defined as the belief or perception that people of different cultures are inferior or possess negative characteristics as a result of their skin color, cultural background or religious beliefs. The internet has created a different perception in which we view the aspect of prejudice for instance through films and television shows. Some movies and TV shows attempt to address the issue of prejudice head-on.
The first article done by Ting-Toomey, S., & Chung, L. C. (2005). Understanding intercultural communication. New York: Oxford University Press Explains that the internet signifies a shift in humanentertainment and communication of comparable proportions. It also that television advent has had much negative effects on prejudice. The relevance of this is the intergroup bias this is because social involvement or intergroup contact is a mechanism demonstrated for reducing bias.
...Progress can be undermined if the internet goes to the extent of limiting personal contact. It has also been noted that television and telephone as with several tech innovation received skepticism and apprehension when they were first introduced and the same as happened with the introduction of the internet due to people’s perception about existence of pornography on the web but for sure internet has helped in making sure there is communication in many ways. The World Wide Web has enabled easy posting and retrieving of information such as graphics, videos and music. E-mails and chatrooms facilitate free and real-time communications without border restrictions. To the extent of communication building bridges and breaking down barriers, one expects the internet to be a force reducing bias but this depends on the information being shared on the internet platform.
However in his book Gillmor
(2006). We the media: Grassroots journalism by the people, for the people. “O’Reilly Media, Inc." he claims that the internet has turned to be a platform where racist slurs are being exchanged every time like it is not a big deal. The gay and women are systematically thrown in internet communities and being discriminated to an extent that they cannot participate in this communities. There is sexism on MySpace, YouTube, on political blogs on tech blogs, feminist blogs, tech blogs, in games, on bulletin boards, and all over the place. Research has also found sexism in all aspects of the internet culture.
Fisher, R. A. (1936). The use of multiple measurements in taxonomic problems. Annals of eugenics, 7(2), 179-188. Through this scholarly article we get to under that nature of interactions happening on the internet is important in getting to know prejudice in the internet. The fact that these interactions have been mostly text they do not have enough information has compared to those conveyed in the traditional or face to face or even audio-only communication such as volume, tone, facial expression, gesture as well as communicator characteristics such as gender, size, ethnicity/race or physical stigma. This condition of affairs prompts us to make some projections concerning prejudice in cyberspace. The projection may include those informed by classical research on the issue of prejudice but deviate meaningful as a result of historical change and the distinct internet qualities and the nature displayed by social interactions mediated by the computer.
Tynes, B., Reynolds, L., & Greenfield, P. M. (2004). Adolescence, race, and ethnicity on the Internet: A comparison of discourse in monitored vs. unmonitored chat rooms. Journal of Applied Developmental
Psychology, 25(6), 667-684.
Through this article we get to understand that prejudice is likely to be expressed and communicated on the internet than majority of other modes of communication. This is as a result of high level of anonymity created by it thus individuals express themselves mostly in socially undesirable ways. This anonymity combined with the efficiency and unbounded nature of the communication over the internet as resulted to proliferation of racist hate groups which promote intergroup bias but the internet also offers promising ways of limiting this bias as well
Frost-Arnold, K. (2014). Trustworthiness and truth: The epistemic pitfalls of Internet accountability. Episteme, 11(01), 63-81.We get to know from the article that anonymity is one of the very distinctive and also influential features of communication over the Internet and is the most significant aspect with respect to prejudice. It has also precisely notes that the notable anonymity afforded on chatrooms and e-mail encourages people to engage in anti-social behavior.
Kahn, K. B., Spencer, K., & Glaser, J. (2013). Online prejudice and discrimination: From dating to hating. The social net: Understanding our online behavior, 201-219. Evidences collected by the authors of this article have shown that people will be more likely to show bias in the anonymous and impersonal conditions offered by the cyberspace. However there weakness in this area and therefore requires more study. It will be important to determine if there is increase in expression of bias in anonymous communication over the internet transmission of such biases occurred. One should consider that the persuasiveness of messages is only dependent to some level on the reputation of the source and there is possibility that can undermine the credibility of the source.
Gerstenfeld,
P. B., Grant, D. R., & Chiang, C. P. (2003). Hate online: A content analysis of extremist Internet sites. Analyses of social issues and public policy, 3(1), 29-44.Online hate-groups are also part of platform that prejudice is happening, through this online hate-groups extremist activity are conducted. Research has shown that the number of these hate-sites on the web range in hundreds and continue to grow each day.By some accounts, the thousands extending at least across the U.S., Canada, South America, and Europe . The Anti-Defamation League (ADL, 2000), has warned that the internet acts as an excellent platform for hate-group promotion this is after it compiled a very extensive inventory and conducted an analysis of extremism in the internet. Where extremist once used to depend on standing on street corners so as to reach few passersby as now been replaced by the internet where they can reach anyone and they can be able to send their messages whether they are good or bad around the globe.
This site http://www.adl.org/education-outreach/curriculum-resources/c/talking-to-young-children-about-bias-and-rejudice.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/#.WF31ofB97IU also provides information about the Anti-Defamation League and how it has further noted that extremist presences in prejudice further notes that extremist presence in Prejudice is not only limited to chatrooms and electronic mail, but also includes selling of hate-group rockmerchandise, music, racist video games and even providing of internet service because many main internet service providers and most countries prohibit any kind of hate speech or websites promoting hate.
Das, E., Bushman, B. J., Bezemer, M. D., Kerkhof, P., & Vermeulen, I. E. (2009). How terrorism news reports increase prejudice against outgroups: A terror management account. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(3), 453-459. This journal explains how extremists groups
have also devised other ways of promoting their agenda through circulation of racist and anti-semantic urban legends online. Experimentally carried out a test on the effectiveness of online “persuasive story telling”precisely of racist urban legends, on teenagers, finding that explicit, low narrative messages perhaps conforming best to most contemporary urban legends – had the most lasting persuasive effects. Extremist groups have a higher probability of raising prejudice in the society and also across the society by spreading racist rhetoric and recruiting members online they are able to do this easily because of the high prevalence and the breadth of their ventures. It has been noted by several scholars that the qualities of the internet are highly suitable for hate-group recruitment.
Another citation is Deal, M. (2007). Aversive disablism: Subtle prejudice toward disabled people. Disability & Society, 22(1), 93-107. In this citation it is stated that the significance of anonymity for instance in the general use of the internet by extremist groups and their recruiting accomplishment. Deal remarks that people can get into websites, participate and at the end hide their identity. He also notes that web page posting makes it easy to have high degree of image control; this might proof it hard for extremist to have control of traditional mass media. Dealalso observed that “soft core” hate sites, those that can be categorized as being more subtle and maybe even misleading, for instance children sites can be turned into recruiting sites and the nature of the borderless nature of the internet enable recruitment in other countries around the globe.
