Critical Issues Assignment.docx 1.The Medias Contribution to the Construction and Persi

Critical Issues Assignment.docx    1.The Medias Contribution to the Construction and Persistence of Gendered Racial Hierarchies.  The media plays a very large role in todays society. It is not limited by space, time, or geography, and therefore it is accessible to essentially everyone. This availability causes it to have an immense influence over our world, ultimately causing the medias opinion to become the opinion of the majority. This results in the construction of gendered racial hierarchies.  Although gender and race are two very different concepts, they do have one prominent similarity; they are both constructed by society. Gender is the state of being a female or male, usually defined by society and/or culture. It differs from sex as sex differences are determined biologically. Similarly, race is a social construct, as it has almost no basis in science or genetics. The meaning behind ones race has been manufactured by society over time, in order to meet the needs of various social institutions. These social constructs cause individuals to understand the meanings behind masculine, feminine, white, black, Asian, etc. These ideas are supported and spread throughout the world by the mass media, causing hierarchies to be produced.   A common example of the gendered racial hierarchies seen in the media is the negative representation of African American women. Typically, they are portrayed “as mammies, matriarchs, jezebels, welfare mothers, and tragic mulattoes” (https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/fi