A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

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media stereotypes – of race, age, sexual orientation and other social categories – we
open ourselves to seeing through the eyes of the media instead of through our own
eyes (Dill, 2009:89).
While I dispute Dill‟s supposition that it is ever possible to see through „our own eyes‟, so
culturally structured is our life experience, I agree with her main point – that it is easy to let
media representations shape our understanding and knowledge of people beyond our direct
experience. Developing this discussion, Dill distinguishes between what she describes as
positive media communication of social information and information which reflects a pre-
packaged, mass produced vision, driven by media producers‟ desire for profit above other
motives:
Producers may have hidden agendas. They may simply tell a story for the shock
value of it in the hope of getting ratings. The producers themselves may help create a
story so they can report it and gain an audience for their advertisers. Or perhaps
those who produce the story have a personal interest in telling a story in a personal
way (Dill, 2009:90).
It is easy, suggests Dill, to digest „a vision of how life is without questioning it‟ (Dill,
2009:90). In her discussion on the way media stereotypes work to reinforce exiting relations
of inequality she focuses on race and gender. The example she gives of „positive media
communication of social information‟ focuses on impairment. She describes listening to a
National Public Radio story told by NPR‟s science correspondent. The story was entitled
Susan‟s First Snowfall and described how:
Susan – a visually impaired woman who had never seen the world in three
dimensions – underwent a treatment that miraculously gave her binocular vision for
the first time in her life. Through the interview, Susan relates that snowstorms had
always looked more like distant white sheets than like individual flakes dancing
around her. I am mesmerised listening to her describe being overwhelmed with the
joy of seeing the big flakes of a snow shower falling lazily around her for the first
time (Dill, 2009:89).
Dill says that this is positive media communication of social information because:
I have never experienced what Susan did; I didn‟t know about her condition or its
treatment or what it would be like to go from 2D to 3D vision. But after listening to
the story, I feel like I understand something about the essence of that experience