National, racial and religious stereotypes provided by the Mass Media.
Stereotypes were developing since humans first appeared. Originally, stereotypes were helping people of one tribe to adapt to unknown world around. Later on, many other kinds of stereotypes occurred, such as gender, racial, religious and national ones. Most stereotypes are misleading, because they don’t provide people with the whole set of information. They make the individual features look similar. Stereotypes generalize people applying to individuals or groups based on their appearance, behavior and beliefs. Stereotypes are usually false, stupid and offensive. Stereotypes have more influence on those people who don’t have enough accurate information about the world and limited range of knowledge and interests.
A large amount of stereotypes are created by mass media, literature and even art. Although the media usually misrepresents stereotypes, they are significantly accepted by people in society. Most common kinds of stereotypes are national and race. These stereotypes are often exaggerated and have one main purpose: to join groups of people, call out patriotic feelings, set one nation or race against another or just prepare people for a fight.
For instance, during the period of the “Cold war” between Russia and the United States of America, the mass media was working hard to create an enemy image of Russia, trying to terrify people with Russian mafia and for some strange reason in all American movies Russian women were fat and ugly, except for a few. While the Russian nation doesn’t differ from others, because there are various personalities just as anywhere in the world some aggressive, others calm, the rest terrified and so on. And usually people who emigrated from Russia to the USA were not satisfied with governmental policy or the quality of their lives in Russia. So, it was embarrassing and offensive for Russian people who came to the USA looking for a better life and happiness to...