News media bias, a problem for aros?
Feb. 1st, 2021 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mesotablarI couldn't work out where to put this on Arocalypse so I put it here!
I'm not sure what cultural barriers might be between my experiences in Australia and where all you readers may be from, so just understand that the following is Australian.
I watched Gone Girl and a quote stuck in my head 'America loves pregnant women' and it has been in the back of my mind as I watch the news. It seems Australia loves the idea of babies and potential babies.
I find it kind of sickening when a young person dies and the statement from the family is along the lines of '...had their whole life ahead of them....would have made an amazing husband/wife...would have been an amazing parent', that was 100% the parent's dream of their child's ideal future, not the reality.
Families who say things like '...wanted to be a vet/doctor/astronaut/whatever' get much less news coverage than those that mention potential grandchildren. So there is some sort of systematic bias that prioritises partnering and breeding, which becomes uncomfortably noticeable in the news.
The Sriwijaya Air flight that crashed in January was covered on Australian news. At least three channel's coverage included a segment that started 'among those feared dead...' and only consisted of the names and a picture montage of the women who were pregnant/traveling with small children and men whose partner was pregnant/had small children. Either the media was ignoring the other people on the flight or they violated the privacy of those specific families to specifically identify them.
I know I wasn't greatly critical in the past, so I can't tell if it is a new phenomenon or not. It is just uncomfortable to know that this sort of coverage seems to make people who partner up and breed more of a loss, which implies they are of greater value. Even in the case of children who die, the expectation that they would partner up and breed makes their story more news worthy.
Single people, people without children, are given less coverage or ignored. I have heard 'LGBTQI' used, but no 'A'. The news style seems to be creating more barriers to accepting single people which will probably lead to a longer time before acknowledging Aromantics.
Have you noticed how the media where you live works? Does it seem to have the same bias, or a different one?
I'm not sure what cultural barriers might be between my experiences in Australia and where all you readers may be from, so just understand that the following is Australian.
I watched Gone Girl and a quote stuck in my head 'America loves pregnant women' and it has been in the back of my mind as I watch the news. It seems Australia loves the idea of babies and potential babies.
I find it kind of sickening when a young person dies and the statement from the family is along the lines of '...had their whole life ahead of them....would have made an amazing husband/wife...would have been an amazing parent', that was 100% the parent's dream of their child's ideal future, not the reality.
Families who say things like '...wanted to be a vet/doctor/astronaut/whatever' get much less news coverage than those that mention potential grandchildren. So there is some sort of systematic bias that prioritises partnering and breeding, which becomes uncomfortably noticeable in the news.
The Sriwijaya Air flight that crashed in January was covered on Australian news. At least three channel's coverage included a segment that started 'among those feared dead...' and only consisted of the names and a picture montage of the women who were pregnant/traveling with small children and men whose partner was pregnant/had small children. Either the media was ignoring the other people on the flight or they violated the privacy of those specific families to specifically identify them.
I know I wasn't greatly critical in the past, so I can't tell if it is a new phenomenon or not. It is just uncomfortable to know that this sort of coverage seems to make people who partner up and breed more of a loss, which implies they are of greater value. Even in the case of children who die, the expectation that they would partner up and breed makes their story more news worthy.
Single people, people without children, are given less coverage or ignored. I have heard 'LGBTQI' used, but no 'A'. The news style seems to be creating more barriers to accepting single people which will probably lead to a longer time before acknowledging Aromantics.
Have you noticed how the media where you live works? Does it seem to have the same bias, or a different one?
