Media Portrayal Of Religious Minorities Cultural Studies Essay

Media Portrayal Of Religious Minorities Cultural Studies Essay In this modern society, media can be seen in every corner of the world. At the same time, its influence is also touching on everything and every people of the world; no matter it is the majority or minorities. Comparing with the majority, minorities are disadvantage group. What is the medias portrayal on religious minorities? Some people often stated that media just provide an overall negative portrayal of religious minorities. Is it true? This is also the main topic of this essay. For illustrating this topic clearly, first part of this paper will state about the concept of religious minorities through explaining the words of religious and minorities. Following it, it is a part about the medias main features in the minorities area. With so many different cases and comparative analysis ways, this part will found that in the minorities area, the medias language, content, mainstream value and channel all are different from the medias transmitting in the majority area. Next part of this essay is the main topic of this paper, which will give the general portrayal of media on the religious minorities through quantitative approach and cases analysis. With all the above analysis in detail, the last part of this paper will tell about the conclusion of this topic. Through the different cases and quantitative approach, the author of this paper thought that although in the history of human being, media did not give enough attention on the religious minorities; while along with the time going, more and more people began concerning about this topic. What is more, media is also not just providing the negative portrayal to the religious minorities; it also brings the positive description to the religious minorities. As a small essay, this paper mainly uses the case approach and quantitative approach, these two main methods to analyze the relative topics. Besides with these two methods, comparative analysis is another method which has been used in the whole papers editing and writing process. Although this paper has been finished smoothly, there are still some limitations of this paper. Such as the studying areas are limited, just about the minorities in China and USA; the studying scope is not very comprehensive, just focus on religious theories transmitting and religious ceremonies hosting; while the minorities religious feeling as a hard topic to analyze with little data to reason or with little case to argue, this paper neglects it. Even with these limitations, this paper still has some advantages to be read. For the following researchers, it will be a good reference in the cases and quantitative area to reason about the medias influence on the religious minorities. 2.0 Discussion 2.1 Concept of religious minorities For discussing about the medias portrayal on religious minorities, the religious minorities should be explained first. It can be seen as the basement to understand the topic of this paper. Religious is a part of culture phenomenon. It can be seen as a kind of society ideology. In most of the time, religion is seen as a kind of faith that people worship the God who exists supernaturally and has the supernatural power to control this world. Besides with this type of definition toward the religion, some other people believes that religion also can be seen as a type of ceremony to worship some human being, who might exist in the history of human being. Comparing with the first God Religion, this can be called as Human Religion and the human religion is more rational. In this paper, the religion is defined as the God religion (Michael J. Breen, 2001). Toward the God religion, there are more than ten types of religions in the whole world. The religion minorities refer to the religion those minorities trusting or believing. No doubt it, minorities is a word comparing to the majorities. It is smaller than the majorities in the quantity. For example, in China, Han nationality is the majority, while Hui, Miao, Zang, Zhuang and so many other nationalities are the minorities toward Han (Yang Fuquan, 2003). In USA, White American is the majorities; Black, Asian and Hispanics are the minorities. 2.2 Definition of Media After stating about the religion and minorities, this part will tell some basic contents of the media. Media is a carrier or a tooling of the informations transmitting and spreading. It includes so many different types, such as newspaper, television, cinema, broadcasting, magazine, internet, books, advertisement etc. (Manoucheka Celeste, 2005). No matter for human beings living or for the societys development, media does play great role and affect the outside heavily. Through different program or different articles, it changes human beings living gradually. No doubt it, the mighty nationalities will play greater roles in the media area. This is decided by their positions in the media industry and their stronger cultures. Comparing with the mighty nationalities, minorities will sit in the poor situation. Their cultures cannot be described and reflected like the majorities in the media. Some people even said that media provides the negative portrayal on the minorities culture. Whether is it true? Following part will reason it through different cases and data 2.3 Medias main features in the minorities area Media widely exits in this world, not only in the majorities area but also in the minorities area. For illustrating the topic of this paper, over here, this paper will give some information about the medias features in the minorities area. Considering about profit and audiences acceptance, media always put the majorities feeling in the first position. Most of time, media use the majorities language as the transmitting tooling. So many times, they did not consider about the minorities language. For example, in China, there are 16 channels. 14 channels of 16 are broadcasted with Chinese; 1 channel is broadcasted with English; another 1 is broadcasted with Spanish and French. There is even no channel broadcasted with the minorities language, even there are 55 other minorities in China. There even is not any channel broadcasted with their language of CCTV (Li Qin, 2005). Even like this, in the minorities living area, such as Tibet Autonomous State, the media are transmitted with both languages, one is the Tibetan language and the other one is Chinese. Besides with the language, most of media put their main attention on the relative living, news or other cultures related with the majorities, rarely mentioning the minorities, just like the past researchers said that even minorities are mentioned, they are represented as others. In the minorities area, although some of minorities living will be reported, most of times, the majorities living and culture is the main content. According to Bradley S. Greenberg Jeffrey E. Brands study in 1998, even in 6 cities of Southwest USA, Hispanic Americas takes up 20-65% population; there are only 10% local news related to the Hispanic Americas. If the contents are rarely related with the minorities, let alone the minorities living values or religions. Sometimes even the religions are described; they are portrayed in a negative way, such as the outdated, benighted, savage or uncivilized etc. What is more, because of medias widely reported about the majorities living, values and other cultures aspect, as one special civilization and culture in the world, the cultures of minorities are suffered widely and seriously assaulting. With this situation, so many minorities civilization died away. Some minorities language even disappears in this diversity world.

The Girls in their Summer Dresses

â€Å"The Girls in their Summer Dresses† by Irwin Shaw is about romantic love, fidelity, and marriage. The story is about Michael and Frances, a rich, young, outgoing couple living in midtown manhattan, who's marriage is going downhill because of Michael's desire for other women. Eventhough Michael has desires for other women, his wife, Frances, is unable to do anything about it because of society's stagima. Also due to the time period the story was written in, divorce was considered a really bad thing. Throughout the story we discover how Frances loves Michael so much, but Michael does not love her. Michael being totally disrespectful puts their marriage in jeopardy. There are many points in the story from which we find out that Michael does not love Frances. Firstly, Michael disrespects Frances by looking at other girls. If he really love her, he should show respect and pay attention to her instead of looking at these other women on the street. Even when he is with his wife he looks at other girls. Who knows what he does when she is not with him, even though he says he hasn't touched any women in past five years since he is with her? Who knows! He isn’t even afraid for a single minute that his wife is walking with him and he shouldn’t watch other girls. He still think that he is macho guy according to the story â€Å"I am the envy of all men between the ages of fifteen and sixty in the state of New York.† He forgets his wife, his love. He didn’t even care once about what she will think about. He was totally not in love. They don’t have mutual understanding at all. Second, not that Michael is unfaithful now but as he said he could be in future. When they are having the discussion at a bar on 8th street, Michael tells Frances that he not only looks at pretty women on street but also fantasizes about being with them. He tells her â€Å"I love you, but I also want them.†(Shaw 8) This is no way to express that your love someone. This is considered cheating and obviously if there is cheating than there is no love at all. Furthermore Michael does nothing when Frances is crying face down into her handkerchief. â€Å"Michael didn't say anything. He sat watching the bartender slowly peel a lemon.†(Shaw 8) This shows that Michael does not care about Frances' feelings. It looks as though for Michael the relationship is based on physical appearance because even after a long discussion at the bar when Frances got up from the table, â€Å"Michael watched her walk, thinking, what a pretty girl, what nice legs.†(Shaw 9) If Michael really loves Frances he should try to see her inner feelings instead of her physical appearance. On the other hand, Frances being a good wife loves her husband. She tells him â€Å"Lets just hang around with each other. You and me.† This proves that she like being with him. She also has respects for him. Unlike Michael who is always looking at other girls she tells him she hasn't looked at another man since the second time they went out. Moreover, we find out that she truly loves him when she says â€Å"I'd do any damn thing for you.† This shows that she is a good wife deeply in love with her husband. Frances being respectful, faithful, and loving proves that there are no complaints about their marriage from her side. In the ending, the most effective part of the story, we see how a women at that time period could not do anything to solve the problem but instead deal with it. Frances ends up calling the Stevensons instead of asking for a divorce. She could not be divorced because the society wont let her live. People will look at her with bad eye. Her love for Michael fades away because he shows neither commitment nor love. who would love someone that wants to be with someone else, especially after finding it out? Overall it seems as though Shaw is trying to tell the reader that not all marriages are same. He shows how for some, marriages are build with honesty, fidelity and love while for others, it's just about physical apperance. And yes, time period is definately a matter.

Campbells Hero Essay - 1147 Words

In this essay I will examine how Gilgamesh would be an example of Campbell’s hero. I will first introduce Joseph Campbell and his â€Å"hero.† By summarizing and analyzing the story, I came to the conclusion that Gilgamesh is a good example of a hero. I will point out in the text what lead me to that realization and explain the journey of the hero. Joseph Campbell was a well known mythology teacher who spent his whole life trying to understand the different types of stories that are told. To Campbell â€Å"all humans are involved in a struggle to accomplish the adventure of the hero in their own lives.† He made a list of stages that every hero goes through, and sums it up to three sections: separation (the departure), the initiation, and the†¦show more content†¦They decide to steal trees from a forest that mortals are not allowed to go in. When they return, Ishtar, a goddess, is filled with lust for Gilgamesh, and he rejects her. She became angry with G ilgamesh and asked her father for the Bull of Heaven to punish him. When the bull comes down Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill it, causing the gods to decide they must be punished. The gods decide that one must die, and they choose Enkidu. When he dies, Gilgamesh is devastated. Gilgamesh cannot accept what happened and sets off to find Utnapishtim, who was given eternal life by the gods, in hope that he too can have eternal life. On his journey, he meets Siduri, a tavern keeper, and tells her about the quest he is on. She warns that if he gains immortality, he will not be able to enjoy what the world could provide, such as a family. Gilgamesh does not care and continues his journey. He finds Utnapishtim and is told the story of the flood and how he was rewarded with eternal life, for humankind to continue. Still insisting to live forever, Gilgamesh is given a test, which he fails. He is then told about a plant that restores youth. 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