I honestly try not to measure my worth or try to compare myself to what is popular in the media, I think it can be extremely difficult to try to live up to all the expectations that media force on to us. However, as a young black male I do believe that in certain ways the media impacts how others look at me. I know that often times Black people are depicted as loud, rowdy, obnoxious, and a slew of other stereotypical behaviors. In turn people may automatically think negative of me, creating a tension between us. Outside of that I believe that entertainment media can also be harmful. We see people who are internet famous being praised and almost worshiped on social media. As a regular person sometimes it does make you feel inferior and can cause minor or major, depending on the person, self-esteem issues. I do also know that I spend a lot of time on social media, get most of my news from social media, new music, trends, etc., so while I try not to compare and contrast myself to the things I see, I know that a big part of me relies on social media.
I think that a large portion of our shared experience uses shared media. Several social media sites have News Feeds that usually highlight similar stories, which results, for instance on Twitter, in the stories trending meaning that while people are on Twitter they see similar stories. Also most people use their phone's News App which suggests news based on a limited amount of topics that smart phone users can choose from. I do know that the app only pushes trending stories and/or big news casting, meaning that once again most people are possibly seeing the same headliners at around the same time.
I believe that media plays a crucial role in how acts of protest are perceived by the public. As mentioned before media usually pushes negative stereotypes of different minority groups. Outside of that of course, as mentioned in class, racism and sexism amongst other -isms and -phobias play a huge part in the perception as well. For instance in media many networks, publications, etc. are criticized for how they portrayed The Black Lives Matter, pushing fake stories, which then made way for "All Lives Matter" movement. Which like many counter/anti-movement was used to silence the voices of Black activists. We see it in Charleston, where white supremacists were able to start riot and basically incite a race riot. In turn the president of the U.S.A. went on national television and basically commended them, with no objection for the bias that they stand for. Moving on we also see media being tampered with and even large businesses are being stagnant in dealing with topics like "fake news". In the past few months Facebook has been under fire for fake news and media outlets becoming popular on the site's official News Feed. Within the past few weeks and even within the past few days Facebook's higher-ups have stated, for lack of better words, that little to nothing will be done on the matter. Meaning that fake news and media outlets can actually begin to spread and further push whatever they please.
Here is a link that talks about how fake news spread.
This post is from a Twitter page that was posing as a group of Black Activists but was actually supposedly run by Russian government to cause chaos among races during the 2016 presidential elections. Sites and accounts like these which trend on Twitter, Facebook, and other social medias push fake news. This page on Facebook, under the same name, had around 36,000 likes/follows while the official Black Lives matter had only around 30,000 likes/follows.
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