Media Blogs

          Women Beauty Standards in Media            When I was a child, I saw a celebrity entertainment news anchor called the singer Beyonce fat. It was the early 2000s, and many women who were quite average in size was seen as fat. Diet culture rules this era, and you can see it creeping back with some commercial advertisements. From yogurt ads, weight loss shows to fitted clothing many women did not fit the skinny America’s Next Top Model figure. It was all placed to sell women a body that is manufactured by editors on a super model’s body.                 When women are placed with clear definitions of femininity, they are seeing themselves as less than a woman. They are seen as masculine, and it is worse for black women. Like Beyonce, many black women are placed adjacent to men. Black women are not seen as desirable and major woman athletes like Serena Williams are co...

Racism in Media            There was a court case in 1964 that argued about the First amendment right to freedom of press. It was called New York Times v. Sullivan. This court cased was one of many that tried to censor news outlets for covering the Civil right movement protest in the south. Many media outlets were scared and afraid of retaliation. They knew that delaying the progress will hinder growth. This in itself is racism that is seen on a national scale.            The thing that’s stuck out to me was that journalist did not stop; they kept doing their job regardless of what was going on. They documented truth and pushed for those voices to be heard. It is important for black journalist to know that you must find your truth in the ways of which you see it. The world is not black and white and is full of people of all backgrounds.            This is the thing though. Many peopl...

  How Black people and Minorities are Portrayed in Media          I recently took the BuzzFeed quiz that check a person’s privilege. My results were 13/100. Which to them means that I am underprivileged. I have known this all my life. I did not need a quiz to know that. I was just curious as to the questions that was asked.   This quiz got me thinking of the multiple times that have been on social media and the things that people would way.            There was a time that I posted how I missed going to mariachi practice in the mornings at school. I went to a performing arts school in downtown Dallas that was very diverse, yet I was the only Afro-Latina there. When I posted it, people thought I was being culturally appropriating Hispanic culture. I thought that this was crazy to think so because my mom is Dominican, yet it happens every day in media.            I had a...

  Implicit Biases and Stereotypes in Media      While in a photojournalism class, my professor, Dr. Assaf, said “We try so hard to be neutral about certain topics, but we can never quite get away from our biases.” This got me thinking about biases in media and how journalist have to navigate through them.       The Federal Communications Commission was introduced in congress in 1954. It was enforcing the policy of ensuring that all media outlets show all side of the news it presented. Now in the court case Red Lion v FCC, Fred Cook sued a Chrisian radio show. He felt like he was being attacked and said that it was violates the first Amendment. In 1985, the FCC did away with this Doctrine.  Soon after this doctrine ended, there was an influx of media outlets being very secluded with their media and align themselves with onions that are true to the people of the station.       I think that it is important to look back at hi...