Back in university I did a course on politics and the power of words, and one project I did involved researching how the same publications used vastly different language to describe the same incident.
For instance, we looked at the murder of a black teenager by US cops (isn't it sad how many names just flashed through your mind), and how that same crime was described differently by the same website, depending on which country it was geared towards.
The difference was pretty staggering. In the US edition he was no longer a teenager, or even black, no he was just 'the suspect' (despite not having done anything), the cops no longer shot and killed him, no he had just been shot (no indication how or who did it) and so on and so on. Oh and in the US edition the teenager was never even named, but the cop was.
Now I'm not saying the US is the only country with this issue, I'm more using this as an example how even the same publications will use words to uphold the status quo. And that it's important to be aware of the words being used. Or the ones being left out.
A similar thing was highlighted by the English football player Raheem Sterling.
The same newspaper printed similar articles on two young football players. The black player had ‘bought a flash pad despite never playing a match’ while the white player ‘looked to the future with a new home purchase’ he too had never played a match.
Edit: the white player ‘starlet buys £2m home for mum’
Esuwood on December 4th, 2019 at 12:35 UTC »
Back in university I did a course on politics and the power of words, and one project I did involved researching how the same publications used vastly different language to describe the same incident.
For instance, we looked at the murder of a black teenager by US cops (isn't it sad how many names just flashed through your mind), and how that same crime was described differently by the same website, depending on which country it was geared towards.
The difference was pretty staggering. In the US edition he was no longer a teenager, or even black, no he was just 'the suspect' (despite not having done anything), the cops no longer shot and killed him, no he had just been shot (no indication how or who did it) and so on and so on. Oh and in the US edition the teenager was never even named, but the cop was.
Now I'm not saying the US is the only country with this issue, I'm more using this as an example how even the same publications will use words to uphold the status quo. And that it's important to be aware of the words being used. Or the ones being left out.
AkrinorNoname on December 4th, 2019 at 13:27 UTC »
Why do loaded terms like "thug" even appear in a newspaper outside of quotes?
CYBERSson on December 4th, 2019 at 13:41 UTC »
A similar thing was highlighted by the English football player Raheem Sterling.
The same newspaper printed similar articles on two young football players. The black player had ‘bought a flash pad despite never playing a match’ while the white player ‘looked to the future with a new home purchase’ he too had never played a match.
Edit: the white player ‘starlet buys £2m home for mum’