Site Title

When it comes to identity, it plays a very major role in how we interpret news events. This is because these news events shape our values, sense of belonging, and our lived experiences. When people obtain and consume the news, they don’t do it neutrally. Meaning that the kind of filter through their identities, like race, class, gender, etc. These different identities allow us to influence what we notice, our level of empathy, and whether or not we interpret the specific event as part of a systematic or isolated issue. The news story can allow us to allow our emotional and moral responses to be different in certain groups of people.

The Ferguson Rebellion followed the killing of Miceal Brown in 2014. This is a clear example of how identity can shape Americans’ reactions to news events. For a lot of African Americans, Ferguson was not seen as some kind of once-in-a-lifetime thing. It was more of a reminder of all of the others who were killed, and it was also a reminder of the patterns of police violence, racial profiling, and the fact that people in America don’t care about black lives. These lived experiences with discrimination and racism, especially with police officers, make it easier for certain communities to empathize with protestors and victims of this violence. It also allows them to understand why an uprising is a response to systematic injustice instead of simply being uncomfortable but not doing anything about it. As a whole, the Ferguson Rebellion showed that identity does not only affects how people respond to news events on an emotional standpoint, but it also shows how people define concepts like safety or justice, injustice thereof. Being able to understand these differences is very important when discussing dialogue and highlighting disagreements over different events like Ferguson. All of these events are embedded in social identities and experiences.