Stereotypes

Bradley W. Gorham wrote an article entitled The Social Psychology of Stereotypes: Implications for Media Audiences in which he talks about stereotypes and how they are actually much more ingrained into our daily lives and viewpoints. Gorham starts off by talking about how stereotypes have two main factors about them. These being that they follow a schema and because of this encounter priming. Schema basically means that we can identify things according to general information. Priming occurs when we take the schema and assume/come to the conclusion of uses, concepts, or characteristics of said person, place, or thing. These two concepts are so included (intentionally, and non-intentionally) that they can cause a "natural tendency" to think unknowingly with stereotypes. Gorham also talks about how stereotypes cause a sense of ingroups and outgroups. Ingroups are basically the group of who you or whomever is accustomed to, while outgroups are people who belong to the opposition. Gorham then continues on to discuss how the mass media can have influence on how people perceive people in outgroups. Simply put the people in power control images on outgroups.

Weird Al's White and Nerdy music video

I thought of this video when reading Gorham's article mainly because it is a blatant image of the nerd culture. You can see at several points in which a white nerd is with a hip black guy and the first thought is that that is unnatural and usually does not happen. Also just the first few seconds displays a comical look at how from just one glance it is apparent that Weird Al (guy with glasses and black hair) is a nerd (and frightening.......if only). The last line of the song really displays this feeling of separation because of stereotypes. "I wanna bowl with the gangstas but so far they all just think I'm too white and nerdy."