ETHICAL ISSUES IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY

Alternative subcultures and discrimination

towards these subcultures.

ALTERNATIVE SUBCULTURES

One of the ethical issues In the media industry is the way

someone looks or dresses is portrayed. Different subcultures such

as Goths, emos, punks etc, have been portrayed in the media as

being bad, rebellious people who dress like this to go against what

other people decide to do, and that they are all being made to do

this by the devil.

GOTHS

A lot of bad things have been said over the years in the media about Goths and this is

mostly because people are afraid or don’t understand what the gothic subculture is about.

Being part of the gothic subculture myself, people around you expect you too do certain

things, they think that you sit in your room all day in the dark being depressed, listening to

music and wear black everyday, but that isn’t what it is about, goths have different reasons

for being part of the subculture, my reason is I like the music and the clothing, this doesn’t

make me or any other Goth or anyone who is part of a subculture less of a person than you

are, we just dress differently and have other interested than you might do. The goth scene

first came about in the late 1970’s early 1980’s when punk was about and bands like, joy

division, Bauhaus, the cure, sisters of mercy, Christian death, and other bands came about

starting the gothic music scene. This is a link to a video on youtube explaining to people

what goth is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIrkXyIGFyw

SOPHIE LANCASTER

COLUMBINE SHOOTING

The columbine high school massacre happened on

April 20th 1999. Eric harris and dylan klebold killed

12 students and one teacher, the media portraid

them as bully victims and that they had a reason to

do this. The goth subculture were blamed for this ,

because the shooters were dressed in all black so the

media had blamed the music and the films they

listened to.

MARILYN MANSON

Shortly after the columbine shooting marilyn manson got a lot of blame

for the shooting because the media had blamed his controversial music

and because of the way he dresses so they pointed the blame to him. He

was then threatened daily by people calling him a devil worshipper and

saying they were going to kill him because those two boys killed there

fellow students, it was later discovered that the boys weren’t goths or fans

of his music, causing the media to stop harrasing him.

WEST MEMPHIS THREE

Another case that caused a lot of controversy is the

west memphis three case, on may 5 1993 three 8

years old boys went missing, Stevie branch, Michael

moore, and Christopher byers . The next day the

police found them dead in the woods. After

investigating for a month and not being able to find

leads, 3 teenage boys were arrested for the murders.

WEST MEMPHIS THREE

Damien echols, jessie misskelley and jason baldwin

were arrested in 1993 for the murders of three eight

year old boys, but after serving were released after

taking an Alford plea because they were wrongfully

convicted of the murders.