Since its onset, the campaign against racism has been no easy feat. Although progress has been made, many say the battle is far from over. Media have been identified as an influence for racism.

In a society where acts of blatant racism are often condemned, some may ask how racism finds its way into the media. In many newsrooms, with the majority being of one race, there is a lack of diversity.

Joel Geske, associate professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, teaches a course that devotes part of its time to studying this exact lack of diversity.

“Every semester we pick a week to watch all of the local news casts from that week,” Geske said. “Of all the reporters, there are one or maybe two non-white faces, and that’s [within] a whole week’s worth of news.”

That is not all that is noticed. Geske said he and his class observed that almost all interviewed experts are white and generally male.

“In general, we still have this power structure that is based on set characteristics — white, male, protestant, heterosexual, middle/upper class and able-bodied,” Geske said.

Facts from the Radio Television Digital News Association reaffirms this judgment. According to the association, only 20.5 percent of local television news workforce in 2011 were minorities.

Geske said limited diversity in the newsroom means limited points of view. Inevitably, these limited points of view will narrow the range of stories that are chosen to be reported through the news.

“We need to get a wider spectrum of people, images and voice on the news, rather than this little slice that currently exists,” Geske said.

The need for diverse voices in the newsroom is strong, but the newsroom is not the only outlet for racism in the media. The increasing importance and usage of social media creates a dangerous terrain for potential racism.

“Social media and Internet interaction has produced blatantly racist content on blogs, microblogs and other venues,” said Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.

Bugeja offered a solution to this sticky circumstance.

“Require identification for comments and monitor, monitor, monitor the trolls,” Bugeja said. “The blogosphere is full of trolls, and some write the most vicious things. Keep them out of mainstream media, and ignore them whenever you can.”

Kevin Blankenship, assistant professor of psychology, said he believes that, while stereotypes people have about certain races may not always lie at the fault of the media, oftentimes their convictions are verified by what they see in their media outlets.

“At the end of the day, the stereotypes we know and hold to be true about people/groups influence how we see the world and how we convey information to others,” Blankenship said.

Blankenship said, psychologically, these effects are often remembered because they validate the racism stereotype.

“There is work that suggests that exposure to new media that depicts these negative cross-race interactions might help validate the stereotypes that people have,” Blankenship said. “So, someone who knows — and even believes — the stereotype that say, blacks are aggressive, watches the 10 o’clock news. The top story is that a drug store near their home was robbed. Later in the story a description of the perpetrator is described as black.”

Many people, he said, would already be contemplating about what type of person would commit this certain crime, and it will activate their beliefs.

“People reading the news may be thinking about what kind of person would do this, and it may activate concepts associated with poverty, aggression, etc.,” Blankenship said.

“After learning the description, the person watching the story uses the description to validate their use of stereotypes. They may think, ‘Well surprise, it was a black person.’ That is, the world provides them with a way to justify their way of thinking about a stigmatized group. Now this isn’t the fault of the media, this kind of effect seems to happen.”