The media’s role in promoting unity and reducing ethnic and racial prejudice is undisputable, and the effective use by admirable media celebrities has had a positive impact. Discrimination and bias among intergroup have become a global issue, which has seen increased cases of terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. The effect of such occurrences are long-lasting and have resulted in destruction, deaths, and illnesses. Despite the existence of civil rights movements, interracial tension, profiling, and mistrust among people of different color remain high. One critical way of promoting intergroup harmony is through promoting public policies that support racial equality. However, the primary channel that the social activists, scholars, and educators can use to reach a broader audience is through media. Media-based sensitization on anti-racism is a less intrusive path compared to face-to-face interracial contact that can create anxiety. Positive media celebrities from marginalized o racial out-groups can activate favorable attitudes to counter stereotypic racial attitudes. The exposure to news stories about admirable personalities from the marginalized group reduces the symbolic racism and stereotypical perceptions of the discriminated group.
Additionally, the favorable attitudes translate to increased support to anti-racial policies, creating more significant opportunities for ethnically profiled groups to access their societal resources. Although the media is a tool for advocating racial equality, it has also been used to create media-based prejudice and stereotyping. Notably, the media influence the maintenance and formation of cultural stereotypes by encouraging favorable out-groups attitudes. However, while using the application of media contexts effectively enhances intergroup contact that leads to affirmative action policies on eliminating symbolic racism. Certain races have historically been depicted through a negative light that includes laziness, dangerous, unintelligent, and associated with relatively low professional and social status. Such stereotyping is had priming effects on social judgment while dealing with specific people of color. However, the modern media scenario has created a platform that depicts people of color with equal capabilities by highlighting their successes. Various entertainment genres and non-crime drama have gradually become accepted and popular that highlight the discriminated groups in a more favorable light. However, the media responses are limited by the overall television news consumption and the social identity and self-categorization theory. According to the above theories news consumption influence, racial evaluations as some people desire to protect their status and continue judging the out-group members accordingly.
External forces influence children functions and development, and media has played a critical role ranging from the content they access on television to internet usage. Exposure to media alters the children’s personality and their perceptions of society. The use of internet exposes children to world threats such as terrorism, crime, floods, and other social vices that touch on their vulnerability. Mass communications are dynamically changing, which has altered the environmental development of children and youths. The world is a global village that has brought people together, and the majority of the youth spend enormous time consuming the Internet and social media. Arguably, the television portrays a scary and mean world that has distorted people’s view of the world. The children grow up believing the world is a threatening and dangerous place that changes their perception of the world and social norms. The Internet is limitless and teenagers and youths can access any information including unsubstantiated propaganda that could have detrimental effects such as terrorism and racism. Although mass communication has an adverse impact on children and adolescents, it equally acts an s a learning, educative, and entertaining channel. Whether the Internet and media have a positive or negative influence on children partly lies on the parents. The children should be subjected to parental media regulation to minimize the personal and societal risks on the perception of the world.
Hence, there is an increased need to promote media literacy education as a way of intervening on the effects of media on children development, and racial profiling. The effective implementation of media literacy curriculum can shape attitudes and media-related knowledge to encourage a critically active stance towards the media. The education efforts seek to mitigate the role of press on how it depicts various social groups. The target is to examine the practices and principles governing media production, media reception, and media content. The response the media attracts from the society opens up a forum for views on ethnicity and race. Media treats the underrepresented social groups differently, and engaging in literacy education will go a long way in shaping media’s practices and roles on ethnicity and race. Mass communication should adopt balanced portrayals of the society as it significantly influences on how the children picture of the world as they grow. The increased media knowledge will increase a heightened awareness of the influence the media has on the society by promoting processing routes where the audience can sieve what they consume and make sense of the media message. Despite the role that media literacy plays in reducing stereotypes it has been inadequately utilized, and the media is still dominated by class and race stereotyping, as well as the absence of gender balance.