Discussion 2 "Media Stereotypes" by Yau Yau

What is media stereotype?
According to the Webster's Dictionary, stereotyping is defined as a fixed conventional notion or conception of an individual or group of people, held by a number of people. Stereotypes can be basic or complex generalizations which people apply to individuals or groups based on their appearance, behaviour and beliefs. Stereotypes are found everywhere.  Though our world seems to be improving in many ways it seems almost impossible to liberate it from stereotypes. Stereotypes have existed since the beginning of time in our everyday life through religion, politics and the media.

Media stereotype was widely used in our life. For my experience and research, women or girls are shown as slim and men are shown with muscles and with perfect appearance in the movies or in all the advertisement. Not only that, even on video games, the male characters are always likely to be heroes and with big muscles, great power and lots of abilities. Female characters are always likely to be shown as sexy, pretty and frequently wearing revealing clothing.

However, video game teaches kids that violence is acceptable. In video games, the way to beat an opponent is to punch, kick or knock him out. In movies, the good guy wins when he violently defeats his enemy. This is bringing wrong information to people. After kids are play those video games or watch those movies, they will follow the action that what they was seen on the games or movie. This is because those characters in the games or movies are already stereotypes in our mind.