This week I want to focus on the Asian group in the United States. According to data from the Pew Research Center, the population of Asian Americans has tremendously increased since 2000. However, this group of people is still underrepresented by American media. Even when it comes to the discussion of bias in media, journalists tend to neglect the Asian group of people. Therefore, I hope to bring the topic of Asian media coverage into the discussion.
First, Asians don’t receive enough media attention. According to the article in Journalists’ Resources, Asian Americans are described as “unseen” and “absent” in several academic studies on how the media portray this group of people. Due to the lack of coverage of Asian people, Asian people are not invited into the discussion on many aspects. For instance, the Asian group is seldom seen in reporting featuring voting. This can make decision-makers pay less attention to groups that are rendered invisible in news stories.
Second, the stereotype towards Asian people worsens the situation. One of the most common stereotypes towards Asian people is “model minority,” which means that Asian members are perceived to achieve a higher degree of socioeconomic success than the population average. The help center at the University of Texas and Austin has provided concrete examples of “model minority” stereotypes towards Asian students.
Others (peers, professors, teachers, counselors) tell you that "you must be great at math and science! Are you going to go to med school? "
Professors and classmates assume that you "study all the time" and that you're "doing just fine" without any additional help
Besides, Asian people are also expected to have higher achievement in media stories. They are expected to lead a more successful life than people in the other groups. However, as the article in Journalist Resources said, this stereotype cannot accurately represent the lived experiences of a U.S. population consisting of people from more than 40 Asian countries. Asian groups vary widely in terms of their education and income levels. Not every Asian person in society can receive success. This tendency may hurt the group of people as a whole, making people more likely to ignore the struggles and difficulties of Asian people. Thus, Asians are often considered as someone who does not need help from society, which can deprive them of opportunities of being portrayed by media.
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