It is undisputable that the media as an industry has a very great influence in our society. It is part of our day to day life and its prime role is the dissemination of very important information to the people. In that sense, the media is extremely important both in our society and our self-lives too. It plays a very significant role in influencing and forming people’s behavior as well as their attitudes. Inthat sense, the media should equally represent everyone in the society regardless of their statuses in the society and also the situations that they are in. It is hence unfortunate since the media has not been able to portray and address equality adequately. Gender, race and physical challenges are major issues that the media have failed to address properly.

Man have dominated in the media for so long. The media has tried to address this issue of gender disparity in the various magazines and also in other forms too. This is a significant stride compared to the past when women were not properly addressed in the media. Women have taken over major roles that were only done by men in the past. Therefore, in the media they have to be represented and addressed with the respect they have in the roles they play in the society. On the positive aspect, this is a form of encouragement to the women who were at first underrepresented in the media. It gives a good impression and they feel they are being represented too. Nevertheless, this representation is not as it is supposed to be. In some of the stories in the magazines we see that men have dominated in the main stories. For instance in the political world, men dominates and the stories covered in the media are entirely about men. Women take simple roles in these magazines. Such roles include topics like beauty. This shows that it has not completely sunk to peoples mind that what men can do, women are also able to that. Men and women are not shown to do similar things in these magazines.

Racism is another issue of concern. The supreme roles and also topics on the media have from the past been run by the whites. The media have been focusing all its attention to the whites. This has made the whites to dominate.This has not been a good impression to the black race. The stories covered all show how the white race has dominated over the black race.

The media has not come to the understanding that disability is not inability. Physical disability may not be linked with mental disability. This may not make a person not able to do something simply because they have physical disabilities.(Lucy 2002) Disabled characters are always objectified and always they are distanced away from the audience. The disabled community have constantly raised concerns in regard to this issue but it has not been properly addressed. This shows how the society have neglected the disabled community. The media also is seen on the other hand to use disability stereotypes which only portrays the people with the disabilities in a negative and un-empowering manner. This is the contrary of what is expected, where the media is supposed to be on the fore front to show what these individuals can do despite of their situations.(Lucy 2002)

In conclusion, the various magazines have failed to address gender, racism and physical disability as they should be. This definitely lowers the self-esteem of the affected people since they feel bad about how they are viewed in the society. The media should be on the fore front to address such issues of concern in the society.

Reference:

Wood Lucy. “Media representation of disabled people.”(2002) Retrieved from http://www.disabilityplanet.co.uk/critical-analysis.html as at 20th February 2015.