Media Discussion: At least 220 words

1. Select a news story related to a event that has happened outside of North America within the past year and is being reported to a U.S. audience. Do not use an article on U.S. politics or COVID-19. You might select an article from the AP News or CNN’s website, although articles from other U.S.-based news organizations are acceptable.

2. Post a link to the story on that event.

3. Cite the definition of gatekeeping from the readings provided below. (I put the readings here below everything and also uploaded a file and a youtube video).

4. Using your knowledge of gatekeeping from the readings below and from the file uploaded and from the youtube video, Identify some of the voices that are excluded from the news story you have selected.

5. Explain why those voices would be excluded from a story aimed at a U.S audience. As this is an exercise in gatekeeping and target audiences, your answer should discuss what the target audience for the story would want to hear about the event, or more specifically, how that version of the coverage of the event does the best job of gathering that particular audience.

For example: The U.S. lists certain countries as state sponsors of terrorism. Would an article about the activities of that country include comments and statements from that country’s political leadership? Would those comments be something a U.S. audience wanted to hear? Would those comments help attract a U.S. audience?

Minimum word count should be at least 220 words. Bold each question and then for each answer use a regular font.  

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-ZA2R0OyAg

Readings:

Ethnicity, Race and Gatekeeping

The essay Deconstructing an Enemy in the back of this book illustrates how gatekeeping explains the representation of the Japanese-American during World War II.

Mainstream newspapers – those aimed at an audience that did not include Japanese-Americans – excluded articles that portrayed Japanese-Americans as law-abiding members of U.S. society engaged in the same day-to-day activities as other members of that society. During World War II, when the U.S. was at war with Japan, members of the broader society’s families were being sent off to fight the Japanese military. And because stereotypes are based on easily observable physical characteristics, the popular press presented the Japanese-American in racial terms – in other words, there was no difference between the Japanese citizen and the American citizen of Japanese descent.

Articles portraying the Japanese-American as living lives similar to that of the non-Japanese-American could be produced. The ethnic newspaper Rafu Shimpo regularly wrote articles about Japanese-Americans engaged in business, education, sporting and religious activities that were identical to the activities non-

Japanese-Americans engaged in. Rafu Shimpo didn’t publish inaccurate stories about the Japanese-American. It pointed out how the mainstream publications and critical statements made about the

Japanese-American population by publicity-seeking politicians were factually incorrect.

Rafu Shimpo did so because it delivered audiences of Japanese-Americans to advertisers who wanted to reach that audience. Mainstream newspapers were trying to deliver mainstream audiences to advertisers, and thus were more likely to report (accurately, it must be said) factually incorrect statements and stories about Japanese-Americans, and those newspapers were more likely to ignore the mainstream activities of Japanese- Americans.

Each type of newspaper – mainstream and ethnic – selected the articles that did the best job of attracting the audience it delivered to its advertisers. This principle – gatekeeping – explains how the same group of Japanese-Americans can be simultaneously presented in two dramatically different manners. And it explains how the mainstream population developed its views of the Japanese-American population.