In the collection to law enforcement, media, and gender there has been a decrease in the number of missing children for this year of 2017. Many people who saw many of this missing children report mainly focused on the fact of the girls in this aspect being missing not so much for the boys that went missing. This article also went on to mainly focus that white females gained the most attention in being represent or for finding out what happened in these missing person’s cases due to the widespread use from the media. This article also pointed out that research that looked into the FBI 2013 missing person’s cases went on to show that the focus was mainly on white women when looking into these kidnapping offense to use the news as on outlet to find their predator. The numbers stated inside of this article had white girls in comparison to be about 50% of the total cover of the stories for this stories of missing children while the number of these children who make up the total percent of the missing reports are equal to about 33% of the individuals that go missing. This number shows how even are involvement with amber alerts or looking for certain individuals can be focused on biases even through other cases are stilled unsolved that could be solved just be paying some attention to what is going on within that scene. The news media will also use strategies to bias the audience of the costumer watching them to seeing pictures that will draw attention to the victim by showing positive happy moments of the victim lack of the resources tend to also indicate that the media will make people of a different race or color look to have a bad reputation and that are the foreface of crime. The amber alerts and the missing person’s cases going across the news media should be equally represented as each missing person’s cases effects the community in a harmful matter that effects many others, in terms of trust, confidence, compassion losing this family member may even cause others to turn into criminals as well as they lose trust in the ability to have society protect them or other loved ones which they may take these matters into their own hands. This focus of the media also will bias the way in which the public may see crime unless they are educated about the given issue and have pre knowledge. This can also lead into law enforcement agencies that pick up a bad reputation in the communities that are not represented within these news media outlets. Officers suffer due to the help from cooperation from forces to gain information about if a crime is occurring within a given area just outside the eyes of other law enforcement agents but from civilians on what different eye witnesses saw or even turning certain evidence to help obtain information to convict a lot of offenders who are ripping a good majority of these communities apart. Also by focusing on only certain cases where kidnaps occur for women this is missing out on the opportunities to save the boys, men, other females who do not fit into being part of this white girl syndrome. This is also critical to lives being saved this could be the difference between life or death for the people who are kidnapped as the offender may try to kill off their victims. Based on this reasoning news media needs to change the focus of how information is presented as this could save a life this can’t be replaced so overall the main goal shouldn’t be picking in choosing who to save but present the information equally as each life matters and is important in same way not ratings, or making sure the news station has the highest viewers. Eagle001 Eagle002
This is something that should be more talked about. This was very interesting to read because I didn’t know that cops and reporters were so one way when it came to this. They stated in the article that young white girls get the most attention. Which makes since because there are movies of some white girls that were abducted. When this happened it was everywhere and everyone knew about it. Though you never hear or see movies about guy or young African American females. The one thing that they stated that really caught my eye was that the numbers of missing children has gone down. It’s just unfair that young African American girls and men don’t get the same treatment as the white girls. Some facts that were stated was that white girls are about fifty percent of the total cover of the missing people. The cases they choose are all biased and if they feel that the person put themselves in that situation then they will go to a different case. The media has a big role on who they feel like helping which they shouldn’t they should do it for everyone. They have come up with Amber alerts so if someone has been abducted then they will give clues on either what the person looks like or what car someone saw driving around suspiciously. Whatever it is they really get it out there so that everyone has their eyes open. As Mr. white stated about child abduction everyone should be treated the same way doesn’t matter if you are yellow, black, white, brown or whatever race you are. Everyone should be helped because if that was your kid and you weren’t being treated with the same resources as other parents who have kids missing then that’s just not right. As law enforcement we need to give better information to the people who do the news and amber alerts. This does also help them with the community and their trust. If they go about it right and do everything in their power to find that kid, then the community will be more eager to go to their local police. If they don’t then the community loses respect for them and will just stop communicating with them. CRC001,CRC002
I agree with you. The media needs to work more with police departments as well as make more of a conscious effort on putting out amber alerts not only when there are just little white girls that go missing or get abducted but with every gender race or ethnicity. The media is practically based completely around biased. What people need to realize is that the media only covers what they think the People want to hear. HsP001
I agree with you, and it is interesting how abduction movies typically involve a white girl. The media is giving the public very bad misrepresentations of the people who do go missing. Everyone should be treated the same; that is how the criminal justice system should ideally work. No matter the race or gender of the abducted person, the same resources should be given. As the future of the criminal justice system, we can help reverse this huge issue. We need to recognize the race and gender issues and take the necessary steps to fix the problems that exist in the system today. This issue of “Missing White Woman Syndrome” can easily be solved if the media stops trying to cater to what they believe people want to hear and start reporting all of the facts. Scuba002
This was a very interesting issue to read about and brought my attention to the fact that in all honesty I hadn’t really thought about how underreported male abductions as well as minority abductions go. In relation to law enforcement and the justice system the media does tend to portray more negatives then positives. As is stated in the article when talking about the difference in disparities of news coverage if it lacked a sense of intensity then it was almost certain to go unreported or underrepresented. The media is all about views and “what the people want to see”. They also stated in this article that gender and race disparities play a major role in the amount of news coverage the case will receive. I think a possible main reason for this is that when the media does cover something about a minority then it typically has something negative to do with it. This is wrong however it does happen. When looking at the gender side of it (boy versus girl gone missing) yes the media coverage might hit the public and they are going to have a reaction towards it but not even close to the same intense reaction the public might have when they hear little sally has been abducted. When they hear of a boy missing they might have thoughts like oh he’s out with friends or out somewhere doing something he probably shouldn’t be. When they hear a small little innocent white girl has been abducted they are more than likely going to start assuming the worst possible scenario. HSP001
The media does only cover these individuals when focusing on the disappearance of these individuals. The missing white girl syndrome only represents a small portion of the population as a whole males and others are majorly represented when it comes to these white young rich girls as a whole which is a sad reality. Issues definitely do arise within the media ratings should always be the less important factor when the media is involved this has no proportional into how effective law enforcement is doing their jobs or into how to catch these preps that are involved with the kidnappings of all these individuals. Eagle001 Eagle002
I think that the JonBenet Ramsey case was a good example for the point you're trying to make. Her case was given so much coverage because of her wealth and popularity. It's not necessarily a bad thing that Ramsey's case is still trying to be 100% solved, but if you reflect on the issues today, there are many more cases that can be solved to save someone's life now. I also like how you said the media needs to share the case with the media, inform them of what they can do and how to help, but leave their opinions to themselves. behappy001
I think that not only the race aspect of this case is important, but also the gender aspect as well. When that little boy in Pekin went missing he received very little news coverage, and has yet to be found. He deserved just as much news coverage as anybody else, and that goes for all missing persons.-OKC001
The shocking statistic out of Washington D.C. that suggested that fourteen girls has gone missing in the span of twenty-four hours was proved to be exaggerated. According to Washington's Metropolitan Police Department, the number of cases of missing children actually has declined slightly so far in 2017. Although this is true, there are still factors on the coverage of these missing children. Observers have found that these children were lacking media attention due to being African American. The article mentions a critique called "Missing White Women Syndrome" or "Missing White Girl Syndrome," suggesting that missing white women and girls, particularly young, wealthy, and attractive white women and girls are given a disproportionate share of news coverage for the case. According to Zach Sommers, a law and science fellow at Northwestern University, he examined four major news sites and found that African American missing persons were significantly underrepresented in the news, whereas girls and women were significantly overrepresented. Gender and race are definitely factors in how missing persons cases are broadcasted and the amount of coverage they receive. It's proven that men and boys are much less covered in the news channels when it comes to missing reports, compared to missing women and girls. This affects not only the missing, the family of the missin, and the searchers but also local police departments where the missing are located. This is because the number of missing reports that are cold cases and left open, are then reflected back to the officers and law enforcement officials that had to close the case without any sign of the missing. This also impacts the officers personally because when they have to let a case go and focus on others that have greater chances. The article also suggested that the kind of pictures posted to the public can impact the amount of media coverage as well. This is unnerving considering all missing cases should be handled in the same way. "Going missing. after all, is a tragedy that affects all ethnic groups and genders. Media coverage should make that clear." behappy001
Its crazy to think of how unreported things are and how we don't seem to talk about some problems. Its crazy that males abductions and minority abductions can go unreported or even under reported. you think that more people or news crews would be trying to get on to these stories more. The news thinks that they need to focus on the search for one white women and wont even look over at the 3 or 4 missing minorities. with the news putting so much on the missing white women, it will not allow the others to be even be looked at because the news thinks the missing white women is better. its funny this crazy over exaggerated stat come out and wasnt even true. they didnt even mention that their was a slight decline in 2017. they call this the "missing white girl Syndrome". where the new exstasterbates the story to focus on the one white girl. evo001
This article was very informative to me. I never really paid attention to the amount of media coverage on missing person cases that much(since there aren’t a whole lot around here anyways) and never really noticed the bias. I am however not really surprised in the slightest. News companies today are completely biased, and are not afraid to show it. However, I feel that this problem is rooted far deeper than that. I feel that no matter what color you are, no matter who you are, you should receive the same amount of help and coverage from the news media. Media coverage can be of great help in missing person cases, and in some cases it has actually helped solve them. The fact that if a black woman goes missing she receives less media coverage than a white woman who is missing, as stated by this article, is a sad but true fact me must live with today that we must change. I feel that it is everybody’s obligation to change this. We need to come to a point in our society that when somebody goes missing, and as I stated earlier it should not matter what color they are, should get the same amount of news coverage as anybody else. No matter who the person is who goes missing, they have a family that is missing them. They have a large amount of people around them that will be affected by this event that love them, and that deserve justice. The person who goes missing, deserves justice.-OKC001
I do think that it is solely the news that needs to change their ways. A lot of the time I think funding for missing persons depends on the family and organizations that involve themselves. If the community learns how to lean on each other for help and support I think more news outlets would be willing to report on the cause. Just because they get information from the police doesn't mean they have a lot to go on. As far as coverage of something like this the parents, the police, could reach out further ask for more in depth story aired or provide pictures and better description of leads and details. News outlets are always going to be bias, they are supported by those who invest in them and pay them. However any active community member who works for those news outlets should be seeing this lack of diversity or rather over representation of white females and correct their own behavior. Marras002
One part of the article that I found very interesting was when they stated that they would be wasting precious time and resources if they addressed every case of immigration that they came across. The police force is not big enough to handle the every day to day calls and handle the cases of immigration. They state that they are not going to take time away from serving the city to question maids, workers, busboys, labors, mothers and fathers. I do like the fact that they said they will address the fact that they are an illegal immigrant and make the transfer to federal agencies if there is a warrant or if they are participating in illegal activities. If they are not going to be productive members of society, then they should not be allowed to enjoy the benefits of being in this country. Blachawks001
Whenever any child goes missing no matter the gender, race, social economic class, or where they live, the case should be taken and handled the same way. Sadly, this is not the case. From class we know that when a boy goes missing or doesn't come home we see a more relaxed state of mind and it is not as serous because we assume that "boys are just being boys". But when a girl goes missing, we deploy full force and take the case a lot more serious. Why is that? we hold gender to two completely different levels. Its the same for treating suspects of different genders in a crime. when police handle calls, if the suspect is a girl who lets say is out past curfew, we tend to see the officers take her home and let her off easy. But when a boy is caught past curfew, we tend to handle the call a little different and treat him differently. That is just how todays society works and views the two genders differently. Blackhawks001
It's honestly confusing to me as why men and women are held at such different standards. Especially when someone goes missing. Why do we have to alert everyone when a woman goes missing, but when a man goes missing it's like it doesn't even matter. It's sad our society is this way. -dicaprio001
This article was very interesting to me. Missing white woman syndrome is a phrase used by the media to describe the extensive coverage of missing persons cases involving young, white, upper middle class women and girls. It's honestly very sad to me that a missing-persons case will get more media coverage if your an attractive young white woman. This article made me think about many "famous" missing persons cases. One in particular was Natalie Holloway I remember seeing so many stories about her and it's still talked about on tv to date. It should not matter what your race, gender, social class anyone who goes missing should all get the same amount of attention. Honestly, that's just this country for you. It's really sad to say that. Minorities are not properly represented in this country. Like this article stated that most minorities are only represented in the media when it comes to something negative or fatal. This problem is deep at the route. It honestly makes me sad that it's 2017 and we are still talking about this. It's sad how alive racism still is in our country and sadly it always will be. -dicaprio001
I agree with you but at the same time don't you think most of those upper middle class women and girls family's probably went to the news station themselves, and got their story's televised. The probably put fourth more effort time, and money into it. That could have a lot to do with it to, because that's the main priority nowadays. MSSA002
Biased news coverage isn't new. It's something we discuss all the time even when it comes to political side of the spectrum, race and gender are huge parts of that. The missing white woman syndrome is just one main example of how women are viewed in the media. First of all more females than males are given more precedent news coverage. Always viewed as damsels in distress. When a female goes missing we sort of assume the worst and that its also for sexual reasons versus males who we hope or assume will just turn up soon. Race also or still is not fairly represented in the media, as we have learned in classes Minorities especially Black Males are presented in a gruesome or violent way no matter who they are and anyone who is white is portrayed as an angel or good kid influenced by horrible drugs etc. It's time the media has a wake up call and fairly represent all humans the same way. News being biased creates communities who are biased. A lot of what we learn about the world around us comes from what we learn from the media. The media just by changing how the represent race and gender can effectively help a society to care more about crimes and actively participate in things like helping locate missing children.Marras002
You're very right on how we view women in general. We view women as less able to get themselves out of bad situations and more easily victims than the female population. We more so expect men to use that testosterone to aid themselves. When men go missing we assume they left of their own accord, unless some extremely incriminating evidence pops up that leads us to believe it was a hostage situation. I think that media does need to work on representing the country better. We are a very diverse population and in turn many diverse nationalities and races go missing. This needs to be fairly shown. Hootie002
This is something that should be more talked about. This was very interesting to read because I didn’t know that cops and reporters were so one way when it came to this. They stated in the article that young white girls get the most attention. Which makes since because there are movies of some white girls that were abducted. When this happened it was everywhere and everyone knew about it. Though you never hear or see movies about guy or young African American females. The one thing that they stated that really caught my eye was that the numbers of missing children has gone down. It’s just unfair that young African American girls and men don’t get the same treatment as the white girls. Some facts that were stated was that white girls are about fifty percent of the total cover of the missing people. The cases they choose are all biased and if they feel that the person put themselves in that situation then they will go to a different case. The media has a big role on who they feel like helping which they shouldn’t they should do it for everyone. They have come up with Amber alerts so if someone has been abducted then they will give clues on either what the person looks like or what car someone saw driving around suspiciously. Whatever it is they really get it out there so that everyone has their eyes open. As Mr. white stated about child abduction everyone should be treated the same way doesn’t matter if you are yellow, black, white, brown or whatever race you are. Everyone should be helped because if that was your kid and you weren’t being treated with the same resources as other parents who have kids missing then that’s just not right. As law enforcement we need to give better information to the people who do the news and amber alerts. This does also help them with the community and their trust. If they go about it right and do everything in their power to find that kid, then the community will be more eager to go to their local police. If they don’t then the community loses respect for them and will just stop communicating with them.Ciaccio001/002
One of the Merriam-Webster definitions of the term "syndrome" is that it is a characteristic combination of opinions, emotions, or behaviors. In this case it is a negative combination of opinions leading to the idea that the number of missing white women trump this of missing minorities and men. The article stated that about 33 percent of the missing women found in four different news sites were white women but that those women comprised over fifty percent of the news coverage for missing persons. This means that minorities and men are vastly under-represented for their numbers. The media tends to put more coverage onto the pretty, young, wealthy white women than they do the minorities. And like the article said, even when minorities do make it into the news section they tend to be talked less highly on and not put onto the same pedestal that white women are. Many of viewers have seen this and probably haven't thought twice on it. Sometimes a minority women's description isn't as specific and they're aren't as many details about her life, while other times the young women might be talked about in a way that makes viewers see her poorly, almost as if the trouble she's in was of her own cause. Changes need to be made in the newsroom, like the article said. Most missing person coverage is done via newspapers, television news, or social media news. Not allowing missing minority women the same help and information as their white counterparts lowers their odds of being found, because it decreases the number of people looking for them. There has to be better pictures shown by the news, better descriptions, and more coverage. Hootie002
It is hard to believe that the color of your skin can effect how much effort is put into finding you, if you were abducted. This particular article contained interesting information pertaining to "white woman syndrome". This refers to the belief that more effort, resources, and people are involved in a case when it deals with a suspect that is typically a younger, white female as opposed to an African American woman.The article mentions observers being troubled by the fact of black women not gaining as much media attention than white women when dealing with a missing-persons case. On the other hand, not only does color matter when it comes to finding a missing person, but their gender too. When a young girl goes missing, more attention is given to that case by law enforcement officials and the media rather than a missing young boy the same age. Age, gender, or race should not matter when it comes to any sort of dispute or incident, especially in a missing person's case. The same amount of effort should be applied to each case depending on the circumstances of evidence. Nobody should be neglected of attention due to something that they have no control over. Bry001
“Missing White Woman Syndrome” refers to our media focusing on the disappearance of white woman and not focusing on the disappearances of minorities. In relation to law enforcement and the justice system the media does tend to portray more negatives than positives. As is stated in the article when talking about the difference in disparities of news coverage if it lacked a sense of intensity then it was almost certain to go unreported or underrepresented. The media is only worried about if the story will sell. They unfortunately know that a story will sell better about a missing young white female over a missing child who is a black male. The numbers stated inside of this article had white girls in comparison to be about 50% of the total cover of the stories for this stories of missing children while the number of these children who make up the total percent of the missing reports are equal to about 33% of the individuals that go missing.The amber alerts and the missing persons cases going across the news media should be equally represented as each missing persons cases affects the community in a harmful matter that affects many others, in terms of trust, confidence, compassion losing this family member. I am all for having the amber alerts but I think it would be more useful to maybe only send them out if they are in the surrounding states. Here in IL. we are not as likely to see the suspect who kidnapped someone from CA. As Mr. white talked about in our class with child abduction everyone should be treated the same way doesn’t matter if you are yellow, black, white, brown or whatever race you are. These are still kids that are scared for their lives and just need help. Pie001,002
Zach Sommers said that Washington D.C. static suggested 14 girls had gone missing in the span of 24 hours. Which was wrong because it showed that so far in 2017 their missing children were declining slowly. He said a large percent was female and African American. He also said the white girl syndrome is when white women receive more of the media attention when they go missing. He did some research and found that African American missing persons were significantly underrepresented in the news. He feels that they only way to change this could start with the news agencies. He believes they need to make an effort to demographically represent the population of missing persons. I think that its just that most of the time its probably the white people who will decide to go to the news and if they think it's a good story they may accept it. African Americans don't really want to be on television or even think to do such a thing. The news people don't know what's going on unless they want to and their not going to chase after a story that's not interesting or that they don't know about. MSSA002
In the collection to law enforcement, media, and gender there has been a decrease in the number of missing children for this year of 2017. Many people who saw many of this missing children report mainly focused on the fact of the girls in this aspect being missing not so much for the boys that went missing. This article also went on to mainly focus that white females gained the most attention in being represent or for finding out what happened in these missing person’s cases due to the widespread use from the media. This article also pointed out that research that looked into the FBI 2013 missing person’s cases went on to show that the focus was mainly on white women when looking into these kidnapping offense to use the news as on outlet to find their predator. The numbers stated inside of this article had white girls in comparison to be about 50% of the total cover of the stories for this stories of missing children while the number of these children who make up the total percent of the missing reports are equal to about 33% of the individuals that go missing. This number shows how even are involvement with amber alerts or looking for certain individuals can be focused on biases even through other cases are stilled unsolved that could be solved just be paying some attention to what is going on within that scene. The news media will also use strategies to bias the audience of the costumer watching them to seeing pictures that will draw attention to the victim by showing positive happy moments of the victim lack of the resources tend to also indicate that the media will make people of a different race or color look to have a bad reputation and that are the foreface of crime. The amber alerts and the missing person’s cases going across the news media should be equally represented as each missing person’s cases effects the community in a harmful matter that effects many others, in terms of trust, confidence, compassion losing this family member may even cause others to turn into criminals as well as they lose trust in the ability to have society protect them or other loved ones which they may take these matters into their own hands. This focus of the media also will bias the way in which the public may see crime unless they are educated about the given issue and have pre knowledge. This can also lead into law enforcement agencies that pick up a bad reputation in the communities that are not represented within these news media outlets. Officers suffer due to the help from cooperation from forces to gain information about if a crime is occurring within a given area just outside the eyes of other law enforcement agents but from civilians on what different eye witnesses saw or even turning certain evidence to help obtain information to convict a lot of offenders who are ripping a good majority of these communities apart. Also by focusing on only certain cases where kidnaps occur for women this is missing out on the opportunities to save the boys, men, other females who do not fit into being part of this white girl syndrome. This is also critical to lives being saved this could be the difference between life or death for the people who are kidnapped as the offender may try to kill off their victims. Based on this reasoning news media needs to change the focus of how information is presented as this could save a life this can’t be replaced so overall the main goal shouldn’t be picking in choosing who to save but present the information equally as each life matters and is important in same way not ratings, or making sure the news station has the highest viewers. Eagle001 Eagle002
ReplyDeleteEagle good stuff. You highlighted needed facts. Like the nexus to community....NotMissingHereWithYou345
ReplyDeleteThis is something that should be more talked about. This was very interesting to read because I didn’t know that cops and reporters were so one way when it came to this. They stated in the article that young white girls get the most attention. Which makes since because there are movies of some white girls that were abducted. When this happened it was everywhere and everyone knew about it. Though you never hear or see movies about guy or young African American females. The one thing that they stated that really caught my eye was that the numbers of missing children has gone down. It’s just unfair that young African American girls and men don’t get the same treatment as the white girls. Some facts that were stated was that white girls are about fifty percent of the total cover of the missing people. The cases they choose are all biased and if they feel that the person put themselves in that situation then they will go to a different case. The media has a big role on who they feel like helping which they shouldn’t they should do it for everyone. They have come up with Amber alerts so if someone has been abducted then they will give clues on either what the person looks like or what car someone saw driving around suspiciously. Whatever it is they really get it out there so that everyone has their eyes open. As Mr. white stated about child abduction everyone should be treated the same way doesn’t matter if you are yellow, black, white, brown or whatever race you are. Everyone should be helped because if that was your kid and you weren’t being treated with the same resources as other parents who have kids missing then that’s just not right. As law enforcement we need to give better information to the people who do the news and amber alerts. This does also help them with the community and their trust. If they go about it right and do everything in their power to find that kid, then the community will be more eager to go to their local police. If they don’t then the community loses respect for them and will just stop communicating with them. CRC001,CRC002
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. The media needs to work more with police departments as well as make more of a conscious effort on putting out amber alerts not only when there are just little white girls that go missing or get abducted but with every gender race or ethnicity. The media is practically based completely around biased. What people need to realize is that the media only covers what they think the People want to hear.
DeleteHsP001
I agree with you, and it is interesting how abduction movies typically involve a white girl. The media is giving the public very bad misrepresentations of the people who do go missing. Everyone should be treated the same; that is how the criminal justice system should ideally work. No matter the race or gender of the abducted person, the same resources should be given. As the future of the criminal justice system, we can help reverse this huge issue. We need to recognize the race and gender issues and take the necessary steps to fix the problems that exist in the system today. This issue of “Missing White Woman Syndrome” can easily be solved if the media stops trying to cater to what they believe people want to hear and start reporting all of the facts. Scuba002
DeleteThis was a very interesting issue to read about and brought my attention to the fact that in all honesty I hadn’t really thought about how underreported male abductions as well as minority abductions go. In relation to law enforcement and the justice system the media does tend to portray more negatives then positives. As is stated in the article when talking about the difference in disparities of news coverage if it lacked a sense of intensity then it was almost certain to go unreported or underrepresented. The media is all about views and “what the people want to see”. They also stated in this article that gender and race disparities play a major role in the amount of news coverage the case will receive. I think a possible main reason for this is that when the media does cover something about a minority then it typically has something negative to do with it. This is wrong however it does happen. When looking at the gender side of it (boy versus girl gone missing) yes the media coverage might hit the public and they are going to have a reaction towards it but not even close to the same intense reaction the public might have when they hear little sally has been abducted. When they hear of a boy missing they might have thoughts like oh he’s out with friends or out somewhere doing something he probably shouldn’t be. When they hear a small little innocent white girl has been abducted they are more than likely going to start assuming the worst possible scenario.
ReplyDeleteHSP001
“Missing White Woman Syndrome” refers to our media focusing on the disappearance of white woman and not focusing on the disappearances of minorities. Usually the media likes to cover disappearances on wealthy, pretty, and young woman. This is parallel to how in 2015 the news covered the Paris bomb attack for weeks, but did not cover a very similar bombing in Lebanon the day before. The news most likely covered the Paris bomb attack because Paris is seen as a rich, pretty place and Lebanon typically isn’t. The media leaving out the disappearances of minority women gives the public a misrepresentation of the number of minority women who disappear. The article even mentions that women are overrepresented and males are usually excluded when it comes to their coverage over disappearances. A good example the article did not mention is the JonBenét Ramsey case. JonBenét Ramsey was a young, wealthy, white, beauty pageant queen and was mysteriously murdered in her home in 1996. The media crazily covered the story. They came out with a new documentary on the case just last summer, which was 20 years after the murder. Her brother was also re-interviewed on the case last summer too. The media needs to start being real, because they give the public misrepresentations of what really happens. The article also states that previous studies found that minorities are often negatively shown in news stories on crime. The media needs to stop sharing their opinions and start being more factual. The media’s job should be to inform the public, not to please them. It is interesting that the article, a piece of media, calls out other media. It is hard to fix problems in the media because the media does all of the reporting, so it is cool that this article exposes issues when it comes to the media. Scuba002
ReplyDeleteThe media does only cover these individuals when focusing on the disappearance of these individuals. The missing white girl syndrome only represents a small portion of the population as a whole males and others are majorly represented when it comes to these white young rich girls as a whole which is a sad reality. Issues definitely do arise within the media ratings should always be the less important factor when the media is involved this has no proportional into how effective law enforcement is doing their jobs or into how to catch these preps that are involved with the kidnappings of all these individuals. Eagle001 Eagle002
DeleteI think that the JonBenet Ramsey case was a good example for the point you're trying to make. Her case was given so much coverage because of her wealth and popularity. It's not necessarily a bad thing that Ramsey's case is still trying to be 100% solved, but if you reflect on the issues today, there are many more cases that can be solved to save someone's life now. I also like how you said the media needs to share the case with the media, inform them of what they can do and how to help, but leave their opinions to themselves. behappy001
DeleteI think that not only the race aspect of this case is important, but also the gender aspect as well. When that little boy in Pekin went missing he received very little news coverage, and has yet to be found. He deserved just as much news coverage as anybody else, and that goes for all missing persons.-OKC001
DeleteThe shocking statistic out of Washington D.C. that suggested that fourteen girls has gone missing in the span of twenty-four hours was proved to be exaggerated. According to Washington's Metropolitan Police Department, the number of cases of missing children actually has declined slightly so far in 2017. Although this is true, there are still factors on the coverage of these missing children. Observers have found that these children were lacking media attention due to being African American. The article mentions a critique called "Missing White Women Syndrome" or "Missing White Girl Syndrome," suggesting that missing white women and girls, particularly young, wealthy, and attractive white women and girls are given a disproportionate share of news coverage for the case. According to Zach Sommers, a law and science fellow at Northwestern University, he examined four major news sites and found that African American missing persons were significantly underrepresented in the news, whereas girls and women were significantly overrepresented. Gender and race are definitely factors in how missing persons cases are broadcasted and the amount of coverage they receive. It's proven that men and boys are much less covered in the news channels when it comes to missing reports, compared to missing women and girls. This affects not only the missing, the family of the missin, and the searchers but also local police departments where the missing are located. This is because the number of missing reports that are cold cases and left open, are then reflected back to the officers and law enforcement officials that had to close the case without any sign of the missing. This also impacts the officers personally because when they have to let a case go and focus on others that have greater chances. The article also suggested that the kind of pictures posted to the public can impact the amount of media coverage as well. This is unnerving considering all missing cases should be handled in the same way. "Going missing. after all, is a tragedy that affects all ethnic groups and genders. Media coverage should make that clear." behappy001
ReplyDeleteIts crazy to think of how unreported things are and how we don't seem to talk about some problems. Its crazy that males abductions and minority abductions can go unreported or even under reported. you think that more people or news crews would be trying to get on to these stories more. The news thinks that they need to focus on the search for one white women and wont even look over at the 3 or 4 missing minorities. with the news putting so much on the missing white women, it will not allow the others to be even be looked at because the news thinks the missing white women is better. its funny this crazy over exaggerated stat come out and wasnt even true. they didnt even mention that their was a slight decline in 2017. they call this the "missing white girl Syndrome". where the new exstasterbates the story to focus on the one white girl. evo001
ReplyDeleteThis article was very informative to me. I never really paid attention to the amount of media coverage on missing person cases that much(since there aren’t a whole lot around here anyways) and never really noticed the bias. I am however not really surprised in the slightest. News companies today are completely biased, and are not afraid to show it. However, I feel that this problem is rooted far deeper than that. I feel that no matter what color you are, no matter who you are, you should receive the same amount of help and coverage from the news media. Media coverage can be of great help in missing person cases, and in some cases it has actually helped solve them. The fact that if a black woman goes missing she receives less media coverage than a white woman who is missing, as stated by this article, is a sad but true fact me must live with today that we must change. I feel that it is everybody’s obligation to change this. We need to come to a point in our society that when somebody goes missing, and as I stated earlier it should not matter what color they are, should get the same amount of news coverage as anybody else. No matter who the person is who goes missing, they have a family that is missing them. They have a large amount of people around them that will be affected by this event that love them, and that deserve justice. The person who goes missing, deserves justice.-OKC001
ReplyDeleteI do think that it is solely the news that needs to change their ways. A lot of the time I think funding for missing persons depends on the family and organizations that involve themselves. If the community learns how to lean on each other for help and support I think more news outlets would be willing to report on the cause. Just because they get information from the police doesn't mean they have a lot to go on. As far as coverage of something like this the parents, the police, could reach out further ask for more in depth story aired or provide pictures and better description of leads and details. News outlets are always going to be bias, they are supported by those who invest in them and pay them. However any active community member who works for those news outlets should be seeing this lack of diversity or rather over representation of white females and correct their own behavior. Marras002
DeleteOne part of the article that I found very interesting was when they stated that they would be wasting precious time and resources if they addressed every case of immigration that they came across. The police force is not big enough to handle the every day to day calls and handle the cases of immigration. They state that they are not going to take time away from serving the city to question maids, workers, busboys, labors, mothers and fathers. I do like the fact that they said they will address the fact that they are an illegal immigrant and make the transfer to federal agencies if there is a warrant or if they are participating in illegal activities. If they are not going to be productive members of society, then they should not be allowed to enjoy the benefits of being in this country. Blachawks001
ReplyDeleteDisregard this one, I posted on the wrong blog. Blackhawks001
DeleteWhenever any child goes missing no matter the gender, race, social economic class, or where they live, the case should be taken and handled the same way. Sadly, this is not the case. From class we know that when a boy goes missing or doesn't come home we see a more relaxed state of mind and it is not as serous because we assume that "boys are just being boys". But when a girl goes missing, we deploy full force and take the case a lot more serious. Why is that? we hold gender to two completely different levels. Its the same for treating suspects of different genders in a crime. when police handle calls, if the suspect is a girl who lets say is out past curfew, we tend to see the officers take her home and let her off easy. But when a boy is caught past curfew, we tend to handle the call a little different and treat him differently. That is just how todays society works and views the two genders differently. Blackhawks001
ReplyDeleteIt's honestly confusing to me as why men and women are held at such different standards. Especially when someone goes missing. Why do we have to alert everyone when a woman goes missing, but when a man goes missing it's like it doesn't even matter. It's sad our society is this way. -dicaprio001
DeleteThis article was very interesting to me. Missing white woman syndrome is a phrase used by the media to describe the extensive coverage of missing persons cases involving young, white, upper middle class women and girls. It's honestly very sad to me that a missing-persons case will get more media coverage if your an attractive young white woman. This article made me think about many "famous" missing persons cases. One in particular was Natalie Holloway I remember seeing so many stories about her and it's still talked about on tv to date. It should not matter what your race, gender, social class anyone who goes missing should all get the same amount of attention. Honestly, that's just this country for you. It's really sad to say that. Minorities are not properly represented in this country. Like this article stated that most minorities are only represented in the media when it comes to something negative or fatal. This problem is deep at the route. It honestly makes me sad that it's 2017 and we are still talking about this. It's sad how alive racism still is in our country and sadly it always will be. -dicaprio001
ReplyDeleteI agree with you but at the same time don't you think most of those upper middle class women and girls family's probably went to the news station themselves, and got their story's televised. The probably put fourth more effort time, and money into it. That could have a lot to do with it to, because that's the main priority nowadays. MSSA002
DeleteBiased news coverage isn't new. It's something we discuss all the time even when it comes to political side of the spectrum, race and gender are huge parts of that. The missing white woman syndrome is just one main example of how women are viewed in the media. First of all more females than males are given more precedent news coverage. Always viewed as damsels in distress. When a female goes missing we sort of assume the worst and that its also for sexual reasons versus males who we hope or assume will just turn up soon. Race also or still is not fairly represented in the media, as we have learned in classes Minorities especially Black Males are presented in a gruesome or violent way no matter who they are and anyone who is white is portrayed as an angel or good kid influenced by horrible drugs etc. It's time the media has a wake up call and fairly represent all humans the same way. News being biased creates communities who are biased. A lot of what we learn about the world around us comes from what we learn from the media. The media just by changing how the represent race and gender can effectively help a society to care more about crimes and actively participate in things like helping locate missing children.Marras002
ReplyDeleteYou're very right on how we view women in general. We view women as less able to get themselves out of bad situations and more easily victims than the female population. We more so expect men to use that testosterone to aid themselves. When men go missing we assume they left of their own accord, unless some extremely incriminating evidence pops up that leads us to believe it was a hostage situation. I think that media does need to work on representing the country better. We are a very diverse population and in turn many diverse nationalities and races go missing. This needs to be fairly shown.
DeleteHootie002
This is something that should be more talked about. This was very interesting to read because I didn’t know that cops and reporters were so one way when it came to this. They stated in the article that young white girls get the most attention. Which makes since because there are movies of some white girls that were abducted. When this happened it was everywhere and everyone knew about it. Though you never hear or see movies about guy or young African American females. The one thing that they stated that really caught my eye was that the numbers of missing children has gone down. It’s just unfair that young African American girls and men don’t get the same treatment as the white girls. Some facts that were stated was that white girls are about fifty percent of the total cover of the missing people. The cases they choose are all biased and if they feel that the person put themselves in that situation then they will go to a different case. The media has a big role on who they feel like helping which they shouldn’t they should do it for everyone. They have come up with Amber alerts so if someone has been abducted then they will give clues on either what the person looks like or what car someone saw driving around suspiciously. Whatever it is they really get it out there so that everyone has their eyes open. As Mr. white stated about child abduction everyone should be treated the same way doesn’t matter if you are yellow, black, white, brown or whatever race you are. Everyone should be helped because if that was your kid and you weren’t being treated with the same resources as other parents who have kids missing then that’s just not right. As law enforcement we need to give better information to the people who do the news and amber alerts. This does also help them with the community and their trust. If they go about it right and do everything in their power to find that kid, then the community will be more eager to go to their local police. If they don’t then the community loses respect for them and will just stop communicating with them.Ciaccio001/002
ReplyDeleteOne of the Merriam-Webster definitions of the term "syndrome" is that it is a characteristic combination of opinions, emotions, or behaviors. In this case it is a negative combination of opinions leading to the idea that the number of missing white women trump this of missing minorities and men. The article stated that about 33 percent of the missing women found in four different news sites were white women but that those women comprised over fifty percent of the news coverage for missing persons. This means that minorities and men are vastly under-represented for their numbers. The media tends to put more coverage onto the pretty, young, wealthy white women than they do the minorities. And like the article said, even when minorities do make it into the news section they tend to be talked less highly on and not put onto the same pedestal that white women are. Many of viewers have seen this and probably haven't thought twice on it. Sometimes a minority women's description isn't as specific and they're aren't as many details about her life, while other times the young women might be talked about in a way that makes viewers see her poorly, almost as if the trouble she's in was of her own cause. Changes need to be made in the newsroom, like the article said. Most missing person coverage is done via newspapers, television news, or social media news. Not allowing missing minority women the same help and information as their white counterparts lowers their odds of being found, because it decreases the number of people looking for them. There has to be better pictures shown by the news, better descriptions, and more coverage.
ReplyDeleteHootie002
It is hard to believe that the color of your skin can effect how much effort is put into finding you, if you were abducted. This particular article contained interesting information pertaining to "white woman syndrome". This refers to the belief that more effort, resources, and people are involved in a case when it deals with a suspect that is typically a younger, white female as opposed to an African American woman.The article mentions observers being troubled by the fact of black women not gaining as much media attention than white women when dealing with a missing-persons case. On the other hand, not only does color matter when it comes to finding a missing person, but their gender too. When a young girl goes missing, more attention is given to that case by law enforcement officials and the media rather than a missing young boy the same age. Age, gender, or race should not matter when it comes to any sort of dispute or incident, especially in a missing person's case. The same amount of effort should be applied to each case depending on the circumstances of evidence. Nobody should be neglected of attention due to something that they have no control over. Bry001
ReplyDelete“Missing White Woman Syndrome” refers to our media focusing on the disappearance of white woman and not focusing on the disappearances of minorities. In relation to law enforcement and the justice system the media does tend to portray more negatives than positives. As is stated in the article when talking about the difference in disparities of news coverage if it lacked a sense of intensity then it was almost certain to go unreported or underrepresented. The media is only worried about if the story will sell. They unfortunately know that a story will sell better about a missing young white female over a missing child who is a black male. The numbers stated inside of this article had white girls in comparison to be about 50% of the total cover of the stories for this stories of missing children while the number of these children who make up the total percent of the missing reports are equal to about 33% of the individuals that go missing.The amber alerts and the missing persons cases going across the news media should be equally represented as each missing persons cases affects the community in a harmful matter that affects many others, in terms of trust, confidence, compassion losing this family member. I am all for having the amber alerts but I think it would be more useful to maybe only send them out if they are in the surrounding states. Here in IL. we are not as likely to see the suspect who kidnapped someone from CA. As Mr. white talked about in our class with child abduction everyone should be treated the same way doesn’t matter if you are yellow, black, white, brown or whatever race you are. These are still kids that are scared for their lives and just need help. Pie001,002
ReplyDeleteZach Sommers said that Washington D.C. static suggested 14 girls had gone missing in the span of 24 hours. Which was wrong because it showed that so far in 2017 their missing children were declining slowly. He said a large percent was female and African American. He also said the white girl syndrome is when white women receive more of the media attention when they go missing. He did some research and found that African American missing persons were significantly underrepresented in the news. He feels that they only way to change this could start with the news agencies. He believes they need to make an effort to demographically represent the population of missing persons. I think that its just that most of the time its probably the white people who will decide to go to the news and if they think it's a good story they may accept it. African Americans don't really want to be on television or even think to do such a thing. The news people don't know what's going on unless they want to and their not going to chase after a story that's not interesting or that they don't know about. MSSA002
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