In general, I like science fiction movies, Television shows and video games. One of the favorite program I watch on TV is Sci-Fi. I love science fiction because it represents the impossible border for me. It is fascinating, enjoyable, and expendable. There are so many thing that are possible within it. Science fiction is not similar to the reality, where a certain numbers or laws are required to be known and true (the law of nature).On the contrary, It is based on the pursuit of an alternative solution, an alternative reality to a problem. These are the reason why I am an adept of science fiction artifacts.
Kanahara, S. (2006) defines the word stereotype as ‘a belief about a group of individuals.’A belief about an individual who is from the stereotyped group is designated as ‘an application of stereotype.’ From this definition, we can now find the stereotypes that are hidden in our selection done previously. Explicitly, I am stereotyping the technology, referring to the way all the resources (advances technology, Robots …) are used by one community. For example, The movie "Independence day", with the well know actor Will Smith. This movie portrayed a group of aliens coming to invade the planet earth; Those aliens have all the technology to destroy the earth, but, they have been defeated by humans, principally Americans on the 4th July, day of Independence. This example show how human's will to survive can be more powerful than any sophisticated weapons. Implicitly talking, I want to stereotype all group of people that are technologically advance here on our planet. This is called racial ethnic stereotype. for example, USA is the first powerful and industrial country, East and South Asians are considered to be smart, traditionalists but really advanced technologically, and Europeans are nationalists and good fighters. All theses stereotypes emerge in movies, where each group shows what they are capable of.
Depending on the actual context, I believe that those stereotypes can have a negative impact in our society for others cultures. If a group is characterized as dominant, it is normal that
another became a minority. In our case, it is the people of the third world and some middle east country, where poverty, famine and under development are prevalent. As an example, in USA, the Blacks and Indian Americans are minority groups or in my country, Ivory Coast, for example, the stereotype is not at a racial level, but at an ethnic one.
The media also play an important role on the stereotype. I'll consider it as the principal reason of stereotyping. In our current world where we talk about globalization and inter connection, the place of the mass media is important. According to Mason, S. E., Darnell, E. A., & Prifti, K. (2010) , quantitative and qualitative analyzes reveal that media representations often contribute to misunderstandings and stereotypes. In simple words, it means that we do not need too much information,and / or justifications to show that the place of media is undeniable in stereotypes. The same way an advertisement assume that a X product is going to work in 99.99% of the cases, the same rules is applied with any stereotype. We generalize and reduce differences between groups and categories whether or not it is right or wrong. For example, the stereotype that blonde women are dumb is most of the time shown on TV, on radio, and on advertisements. As a negative aspect of this stereotype, you may have heard about jokes on blonde. This shows how effective are the media on the proliferation of stereotype ideas into the population.
In conclusion, stereotype is one of the principal issue of our world today. I touches the social, religious, cultural, economic and technological domain and it is most of the time promoted by the mass media. Contrary to what we may think, a stereotype could be either negative or positive. I choose to talk about the negative aspect on my paper, but I believe that in some cases, this rules do not apply.
References
Kanahara, S. (2006). A Review of the Definitions of Stereotype and a Proposal for a Progressional Model. Individual Differences Research, 4(5), 306-321. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Mason, S. E., Darnell, E. A., & Prifti, K. (2010). Stereotypes and Representations of Aging in the Media. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 37(2), 189-190. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
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