Blog Post 3

The mean world syndrome is a result of cultivation theory. Cultivation theory is the belief that watching TV a lot leads us to think that it represents reality. When people watch TV they are only told about the negative sides of the world like murders, robberies, rape, etc. Because we are only shown these negative aspects on the news we believe that is how the whole world is, resulting in a mean world. As a result of the mean world syndrome racial minorities are the most affected. In Mean World Syndrome it demonstrates that in TV shows and movies racial minorities are almost always shown in a negative aspect. One example from Mean World Syndrome is Hispanic Americans are the most violent group on American TV shown as part of the drug cartel. Another example from the film is black people are shown smarter, richer, etc. in TV to show there is no race problem, while in the news black people are twice as likely to be shown committing a crime than white people. All of these depictions of racial minorities leads to people believing their stereotypes, like Hispanics are all drug dealer or Muslims are terrorists. Without positive representations to balance the bad the worst members of a minority group are chosen to represent the rest.