Stereotyping In Sociology

Words: 1441
Pages: 6

Introduction
In the first chapter of Lewis Carroll's “Through the Looking-Glass”, the main protagonist Alice proclaims “One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it:—it was the black kitten’s fault entirely.” Though seemingly innocuous, this chapter reflects a significant issue and a sentiment paralleled by many people in today’s society. Stereotyping is an inescapable aspect seen in the lives of many ethnic and racial minorities and this has only increased with the dissemination of information of popular visual medias including television and newspapers. An interview with Lila Abu-Lughod, author of “Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East,” explains how after the news of 9/11 spread throughout the United States, everyone considered Muslim women damsels in distress in Islamic society despite many, including Abu-Lughod, being
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Even decades after the Civil Rights Movements, stereotyping remains and continues to impact the lives of ethnic and racial minority groups largely due to the overwhelming popularity of visual media. In fact, Dana Mastro of the University of California Santa Barbara School of Communication, and a seasoned researcher on the effect media has on ethnic and racial minorities found that humans are hardwired to categorize and store general information per group, thus leading to stereotyping (Mastro & Tukachinsky, 2011). In this paper, Mastro, in collaboration with Tukachinsky (2011), continued to explain how exposure to particular portrayals of ethnic and racial minorities in media strengthened existing feelings towards that group. While this can sometimes have a positive effect on sentiment towards minorities, this is not always the case: the outcome is dependent on portrayal of these ethnicities and races. As seen in a study published in the Journal of Social Psychology, only certain depictions of ethnic and racial minorities are shown, most particularly in