Portrayals of different occupations throughout media might have an influence on how someone chooses their career.
When people think about some careers, a specific image often comes to mind. Usually, that image doesn’t involve things like male nurses, female firefighters, or African-American stock brokers.
One of the reasons this happens is that the types of careers and individuals within media often contain stereotypes which creates a lack of diversity.
Jobs portrayed in Hollywood productions are often based on a combination of personality traits. If you’re the most stable, intelligent, and sensitive, you must be an architect. If you’re idealistic and want to help everyone, you must be a teacher. If you’re a wreck of an individual, you must be an artist. And if you’re a hard-drinking risk taker who sucks at maintaining relationships, you must be a journalist. These sorts of stereotypes are used by screenwriters to quickly show what kind of person a certain character is.
For entertainment purposes, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing—it’s just what we’ve come to expect. But portrayals of these stereotypical roles can affect how a person feels about them.
Melinda Messineo, a Ball State University associate professor of sociology who does research on media and media effects, says media can tell us what careers are out there and which ones society considers desirable. Women and minorities are still portrayed in stereotypical roles, and working-class jobs are shown in a negative light—if they’re shown at all. This causes people to believe the only jobs worth having are the ones put in the spotlight, rather than ones like secretary or delivery guy because those jobs aren’t usually considered exciting enough for the big screen.
Robin Blom, an assistant professor of journalism at Ball State, says he didn’t really choose his career because of an entertainment-based media influence. He chose it because of coverage of certain major events, such as how he saw the Iraq war portrayed in the news while he was in college.
Blom says news coverage can have limitations, meaning not everything can always be covered. This leads to stereotypes being created or reinforced due to a lack of detail from the news. Blom gave the example that everyone says journalism is dying, but there are still thousands of newspapers across the country. In fact, the New York Times’ revenue actually increased last year.
But because these facts aren’t reported, people continue to believe journalism is dying, so Blom says fewer are willing to choose it as a profession. But recent movies such as Spotlight and The Post are putting it back in the limelight, beginning to make journalism more popular again.
There are so many ways an individual can be influenced by media, according to an article in Career World. From TV shows, to movies, to print, to music, and especially the internet, people are constantly shown different careers in stereotypical ways.
Gender stereotyping, in particular, starts as early as childhood, according to The International Journal of Applied Research. Children begin creating gender stereotypes based on the genders of characters in television shows. These TV role models then go on to influence how youth view certain careers.
Many jobs portrayed in the media are also associated with certain races. Gendered Lives is a 1994 book by Julia T. Wood that helps show the media environment younger generations grew up in. According to Wood, African Americans were found to rarely appear in television and were generally cast in either supporting roles in children’s programming or in stereotypical roles, with males as athletes and entertainers while acting lazy and unlawful, and women portrayed as domineering or as sex objects. Hispanics and Asians were even harder to find. When included, they were often portrayed as villains or criminals.
But media outlets don’t always follow these stereotypes, and their influence isn’t always negative. Take the “Scully Effect,” for example: an outbreak of girls around the country taking an interest in science and technology careers. One of the main characters in The X-Files, Dana Scully worked in a field women weren’t often portrayed in. According to research by 21st Century Fox and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, almost two-thirds of women in STEM careers considered Scully to be a role model.
Media portrayals can also lead people to overestimate how many professional jobs (like doctors and lawyers) there actually are, Messineo says, and underestimate how many service jobs there are. In fact, a study done by Rutgers students found that the three most common professions shown in popular television shows were law, medicine, and law enforcement.
Media can help expand our understanding of what jobs are out there, but we have to be active consumers, doing our own research and thinking for ourselves, Messineo says.
But ultimately, people choose their careers based on a variety of reasons. A study by Mike Warren of Proteus Consultancy Limited tried to determine the most important factors leading to how people choose their first careers. Twenty-four percent followed their own instincts, 19 percent said they took the advice of their parents, 3 percent took the advice of friends, 10 percent said their career choice followed naturally at the end of their education, and only 1 percent sought and took the advice of a professional.
Zach Webb, who’s currently studying telecommunications at Ball State, chose production after experiencing strong TV and radio programs at his high school.
Television specifically can play a major role in career decisions. There are so many shows out there, but not every career could possibly be shown. Not every career is built for Hollywood.
Zach also thought media could have a negative impact due to poor portrayal of certain jobs. If someone wasn’t able to experience a high school program like he did, television could be a person’s only source of information on careers. So, if someone is passionate about something but it’s shown poorly, that person might not want to pursue that career.
Shelby Brennan, a mechanic, says he used to see people in his career being portrayed more negatively and would hear about negative experiences people had with them rather than positive ones. He wasn’t dissuaded from becoming one, but that isn’t always the case.
Overall, although movies and TV shows are great entertainment, they might not be the best factor on which to base a career decision.
There’s really no clear-cut way to solve the issues that have caused such distorted portrayals of careers. Hollywood will continue to produce movies and TV shows how they want, and people will continue to choose the news and entertainment they like. Though progress has been made in making roles more diverse, there are still many roles that stick to stereotypes. Perhaps with the continual push for change, how careers are portrayed in the media will become more balanced.
