A fixed or conventional notion of a person or group, allowing for no individuality.
One of the ways we are informed about Thai people in general is how they are portrayed in the media.
This can be a dangerous thing. The Media Awareness Network, an organization whose goal is to inform and educate people to read the messages that "inform, entertain and sell," states that "members of ethnic and visible minorities are inadequately represented in entertainment and news media, and that portrayals of minorities are often stereotypical and demeaning."
Stereotypical and demeaning. Does that apply here in Thailand as well?
The website adds:
Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information. Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people—usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.
But stereotypes can be problematic. They can:More often than not, the groups being stereotyped have little to say about how they are represented.
- reduce a wide range of differences in people to simplistic categorizations
- transform assumptions about particular groups of people into "realities"
- be used to justify the position of those in power
- perpetuate social prejudice and inequality
I walked over to a newspaper stand to look at some of the magazines and newspapers to look for English headlines that involved children. The newspapers didn't reveal much, but the magazines were alarming. It didn't have much about Thai children from what I can comprehend, but the covers alone were consistently glamourized:
From what I see -- context notwithstanding -- there is a push towards appearing more Westernized, from the clothes and make-up to skin tone and attitude. Flawless, light skin, coloured hair, revealing, non-traditional outfits -- they mirror the very magazines that can be picked up at Canadian newsstands. Disturbingly, the middle one, Kira Magazine, is geared towards the teenage crowd, while the other two towards the twenty-something generation. And with headlines such as "Sexy body," "Emergency boyfriend," or "I am polyamorous," I cannot help but think that younger Thai children, much like in the west, are also feeling pressured to look and be a certain way. Especially the women.
It's a rather entertaining thought that Caucasians strive to look darker by tanning, meanwhile Asians strive to look lighter by applying products with skin whitening on themselves and walking with an umbrella under the hot sun.For Caucasians, the idea is that looking tan equals you've been somewhere exotic. And it makes you look less sickly, I'm told -- the healthy glow as it is called. For Asians, looking lighter means you don't work in the fields, and it also give a hint of European ancestry (read: upper class elite).
A walk through the cosmetics aisle in Tesco Lotus reveals a lot of this:
Skin whitening and skin lightening products. In lotions, facial cleansers, bug spray, and soap.
Media affects societal perception in two ways. First, they portray an ideal body image, and second, they add to the creation of stereotypes. This can be examined in grade five, because Cluster 1: Maintaining a Healthy Body has an STSE learning outcome that states:
5-1-14 Evaluate information related to body image and health from media sources for science content and bias.Lertlah being a school for the slightly more affluent, I see some of the young parents dressed up like they had just stepped out of the dressing room in the mall. I wonder if any of their children are feeling the pressure.
"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."
- Malcolm X
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