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The Virginia Tech shootings and the media
For China-based bloggers, the Chinese media's reaction to the Virginia Tech University shootings was of most interest. This was mainly because the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the gunman may have come from China. The blog Beijing Newspeak, written by Xinhua employee Chris O'Brien, gave an eyewitness account of the hand wringing that took place among the press agency's editors. I was initially scornful of Xinhua's hesitation to report on a Chinese gunman, but I think it is very difficult for a white Westerner to understand the effects of negative race-based reporting. Initial reports did describe the gunman as being Asian, thus lumping together a huge number of races and nationalities. As soon as I read that the suspect was Asian, I immediately wondered whether he was Chinese. The effects of this racial stereotyping are well described in this article published on AlterNet.
Perhaps the Chinese media's reaction isn't so strange after all. Obviously Xinhua's editors were worried about China's harmonious image being tainted by a crazy Chinese gunman. But whose fault is that? The media shouldn't describe people according to their race or religion because it immediately creates an 'us against them' mentality. By describing Cho Seung-hui as an Asian or a South Korean, the media conveniently skipped over the complication of Cho being an American citizen who had spent a considerable amount of time in the US. Sure, his American citizenship was reported in the latter half of reports, but the damage had already been done. Even the Chinese media were happy to label Cho as a South Korean -'Virginia Tech killer was South Korean' was one bold headline that I read in a Chinese newspaper.
I would like to go one step further when writing about the media's reaction to the shootings. I think all detailed coverage of Cho should be banned. The video package that Cho sent to NBC news proves that he wanted to become famous. Of course Cho will never know how famous he has become, but he would've had a good idea following the Columbine shootings. Not only has the media allowed Cho to achieve his goal, but mass reporting on the shooting is encouraging the next lone shooter to claim their own 15 minutes of fame.
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Posted: 10:38 PM, 21/4/2007 in Blogging and the mediaShare on Facebook |
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Untitled Comment
Banning public access to detailed information about a murderer is not an easy task. For one, it could increase the perceived value of this information (value in terms of monetary value and social/right-to-know value). Combine this with the ease in which information can be made avialble via the Internet, and the likelihood of such information 'leaking' to the public would increase significantly. In other words, such a ban would be costly to enforce (and have little benefit).
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<br>Your entry is a criticism of the use of prejudice. Information about an individual murderer is not prejudiced - ethnic background, occupation, behaviours are all verifiable and of themselves do not convey much meaning. It is in the interpretation of these facts that prejudice comes into play. A prejudice is a social construction, thus, merely 'hiding' facts from people who are predisposed to a particular interpretation of such facts does not extinguish the prejudice. In other words, banning information does not work as it fails to address the root cause being prejudice.
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<br>A better proposal would be to encourage editors and journalists to consider the relevancy of information, and provide an explanation of why such information is important. For example, training, codes of practice, regulation, legislation, public pressure are all devices through which this can be achieved. |
Posted by tkrautz at 8:44 PM, 2/5/2007 |
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<i>Untitled Comment</i>
Tristan:
Yes, you are right that a ban on information regarding killers would be hard to police, especially with the internet. However, the mainstream media is usually the one with the most access to information and harnesses the most influence. When the NBC received that multimedia package in the mail, they had a choice - publish it and increase the company's profits or be a responsible corporate citizen and file the package away and forget about it. Their failure to implement the latter option has ensured that there will be more school shootings to come.
Edited by zhangbohan on 12/5/2007 at 4:36 AM |
Posted by zhangbohan at 5:36 PM, 12/5/2007 |
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