Media Essay

The public’s perceptions are built on the information provided in the media. Therefore, if the media wants to control the thinking of the media, it will frame the story to force a given conclusion. For instance, while the United States was at war with not only the Japanese but also the Germans and the Italians, the perception created by the commercial media was that the Germans were humanly while the Japanese were cruel, sneaky and dishonest. This is the reason why only the Japanese were rounded up and locked into cells. This write up seeks to demonstrate how the ethnic media and the commercial media portrayed the Japanese- Americans in totally different ways and yet the two newspapers were written during the same time. This aims to prove how newspapers can frame stories to achieve a certain agenda.

According to the mainstream media, Japanese-Americans are depicted as people only interested in war and sabotage. This is because nothing positive is said about them. Therefore, as much as the Japanese-Americans would want to defend themselves and argue that they are not the enemy that they are being portrayed, this only cements the idea that they are the enemies. Basically, mainstream media is aimed at profit making. Therefore, it has to come up with stories that will appeal to a large mass of people. Obviously, there are more whites in the US than the Japanese-Americans and a story against their enemy would sell more. In addition, mainstream media is owned by renowned people in the society. Therefore, any news has to appeal to their views. Unfortunately, the public will believe what the mainstream media says because if falsehood is repeated many times it tends to be assumed to be the truth.

Therefore, the media is capable of selecting the good guys and the bad guys. In this case, the Japanese-Americans are the bad guys. Similarly, it is clear that most of the information and resources to present the data was only available to the mainstream media reporters. This gave them the power to twist the information in a way that would meet their interest. It was very unlikely that the public would sense that the information they were being given was not the truth.

On the other hand, the kind of conclusion that the readers of the Rafu Shimpo made was totally different from that of the mainstream audience. Basically, this was because the information they read stated otherwise. For instance, a story aired by Rafo Shimpo on February 8, 1942, demonstrated that the Japanese-American were humanly people who were not interested in the war in the first place. In fact, they loyal to the US government and were ready to defend the country by all means. Unfortunately, considering that this was the view of a minority group, it only sealed the fact that what the mainstream media stated was the truth and the Japanese-Americans were only trying to defend themselves by acting nice.

Similarly, Rafu Shimpo shows that the Japanese-Americans were not the enemy but they had other interests such as studying, humanitarian assistance, family men and women, among others. This is demonstrated by the fact they were members of YMCA, the Red Cross and the Church.

From the differences, it is clear that the newspapers frame their story to suit their target audience. In this case, the mainstream media’s target is the elite in the society while that for the ethnic media is the minority in the society. Ultimately, it is important to note that mainstream media is a business entity and its main objective is profit making. Therefore, most of their stories are aimed at creating a larger audience so that they can sell more. On the other hand, the ethnic media is meant to serve the interest of the minority and tell the honest truth in most cases. All in all, it is important to consider the untold dimension when reading newspapers.