How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions  and  ethnic/social/collectivegroups of people in different ways?

Media is a very powerful source, and for most people it is where they get there information from. Media can form people opinions . So therefore media can represent nations, regions and ethnic/social/collective-groups of people in different ways. Gypsies is going to be my key focus throughout this essay. I will expand on how they are represented through the media and how the stereotypes are shown through the media.

There are many stereotypes shown in the media such as ‘My big fat Gypsy wedding’ this documentary follows the travelers and it shows the audience what they do and how there life is like.  In this documentary we see them with big fancy weddings; this shows that they do have money. Also in some episodes we see them traveling long distances this also shows they have money to be moving around.

In addition to how the stereotypes are weaken in ‘My big fat Gypsy wedding’ are that the gypsies in this documentary do not steal and this breaks the general stereotype towards gypsies. However watching this documentary on gypsy weddings what i noticed is that most of the girls want to get married in an early age. That is there main goal in life. Thus the women that are already married are mainly housewives and do the domestic role.

The programme is mainly for entertainment, so they have to make it entertaining; this could cause them to take the  editing scenes out and manipulating the audience; also since the viewing public know such little information about ‘Gypsies in general’ they will use that as an advantage.

There are other forms of media witch do stereotype gypsies such as ‘Shakira – Gypsy’ This is a song which has all forms of general stereotypes, One of the lyric says ‘I might steal your clothes And wear them if they fit me’ This song lyric is labeling gypsy women as thieves.

To conclude there are gypsies are represented in mostly negative ways; they are seen as thieves, and that they all get married at a young age (14+18). The stereotypes towards gypsies could go on. However Documentaries such as ‘My big fat gypsy wedding’ can sometimes influence the stereotype or weaken it. The stereotype that gypsies are thieves is broken in the documentary ‘My big fat Gypsy wedding’ however re-opened in the song ‘shakira- Gypsy’. Thus the stereotypes towards gypsies still go on to this day and age. An example is the Poster which was made for ‘My big fat gypsy wedding’ It was quite a known poster some may argue it is racist. It says ‘ Bigger, fatter, Gypsier’ It sounds like a good catchphrase  however to the gypsy traveling society it caused offense.