Stereotype 16 : News and Stereotypes

 News and Stereotypes

In the age of the Internet, news often makes it easy for audiences to form stereotypes about certain types of groups. When media reports are associated with certain keywords such as occupation, gender, and age, the news content is often difficult to break out of the similar plot and narrative framework, leading to the audience's facialization and labeling of the group being reported. Stereotypes can profoundly affect people's existing cognitive structure, for example, after receiving media reports on a certain occupation many times, when they see this occupation group, they will ignore the individual differences in the group, form a stress reaction, generalize and "characterize" this occupation group in a preconceived way. Such biased judgments will form a powerful and biased public opinion.

The most important reason for the formation of stereotypes lies in the repeated media coverage of such events, such as the case of missing female college students, who easily become the protagonists of news reports. From 2014 onwards, news about "female university students being murdered" has become a common occurrence, and it has become a "sensitive event" that has received widespread attention because of its bad social impact. At one time, the topic of "female university students" was often reported as the front page headline in the media. The high frequency of similar events has created a pattern of public awareness of such events.

We have to admit that while technology brings us convenience, it also makes our minds and cognition lazy. When receiving news information in hand, and associating it with their own life experiences, they will make some simple and common sense judgments about the objects they come into contact with in the first place. Stereotypes abound because of this cognitive inertia; professional status, age, gender, race, etc., can all be sources of stereotypes, and stereotypes often become excuses and justifications for Internet keyboard warriors to denigrate others. The audience is accustomed to this so-called association, so when they see a certain keyword they automatically associate it to the behavior associated with it in their minds, saving themselves the maximum time and energy to think.

With the development of big data and artificial intelligence, news clients led by Today's headlines have taken over people's mobile terminals. These clients rely on a powerful technical background to scientifically analyze users' browsing records, interests, news comments and other information, and then make accurate news push to users. Take Today's Headlines as an example, as shown in Figure 16-1, it is a news information platform that pushes according to users' needs. The user's browsing history becomes the "first reference" of Today's headlines, and based on the browsing history, the backend of Today's headlines makes algorithmic recommendations, guesses your preferences, and recommends the content you need or are interested in. This means that when you click on such clients and see negative news about a certain group, the client has already recorded your browsing behavior, and when such news appears in the future, the news platform will automatically push it to you, and you may browse it again, and even if you don't click on such news, its headlines will be reflected in your eyes from time to time, and unconsciously you form stereotypes about certain groups. You unconsciously form stereotypical impressions of certain groups.

(16-1)

References.

Gao Ya, stereotypes and media communication [J], Think Tank Times, 2018 (48)