Media, Diversity & Our Society

Features, Sociology, Viewpoints

By Katie Weiss

Realizing our own opinion can be difficult at times. Influences from friends, family, and particularly media can create confusion about what to believe. With media pouring information into our daily lives shouting out advertisements and opinions, how can we decide what is valid or not, biased or well rounded, censored or uncensored?

For example, Disney, seen as a world of dreams for children, can become our nightmare when we learn about all of our democratic candidates for the 2008 presidential election. Disney is one of the most powerful corporations in our media and owns American Broadcasting Company, among others. This corporation deliberately censored Dennis Kucinich from the democratic debate, hosted by ABC in August 2007. What might the general public think of Kucinich and others who were given a very limited amount of coverage?

On the other hand, we also need to be aware that small, locally owned media corporations (radio stations, television stations and newspapers) can also be just as biased through opinions of the locals and minorities. Would it be fair for a smaller corporation to censor McCain and Obama?

The fact is, large and small corporations can censor information, but it is the larger corporations who have the economic ability and popularity to enhance niche-marketing and minority opinions. However, it is the audience who needs a diverse source of information; not only to see all perspectives, but to enrich knowledge and create a well rounded opinion.

For further reading, please see:
“Do Media Monsters Devour Diversity” by Joshua Gamson and Pearl Latteier, Contexts Reader Summer 2004 and the Youtube Video: “ABC News Censors Dennis Kucinich”

mwalsh @ November 17, 2008