Emily Pike was a 14 year old Indigenous girl who disappeared from her group home in Arizona. Her body later found dismembered in a remote areas. This story has infiltrated my social media feed.
When I view this media report, I cringe. I don't like how chipper the news anchors sound or look while delivering the report. The only clip of family grieving is 4 seconds long. "These alerts are fantastic, but we leave out a segment of the population that go missing in the state of Arazona doesn't even know to look for them"
As an Indigenous woman, I hear, "Indigenous women and girls go missing all the time, and we don't look for them". I feel angry and stew in my bias. According to Laswell's model, I see things or take things in differently compared to others. I decided to do a bit of an experiment. I asked 3 other people to watch this 90 second clip and tell me what they took in.
A friend, born in Nebraska, now living in Colorado. She is Caucasian and when asked about her culture, replied American. After she saw the clip. She told me she had never heard of this story before, how upsetting! She also thought the amber alert system was a great idea.
Another friend, Canadian. Commented on how different Canadian and American media is displayed. Expressing a distaste for all the sensationalized or dramatic rhetoric. He felt sad that there wasn't much of a somber tone. No mention of the amber alert / Emily Pike.
A Canadian geriatric senior, just said. "This has been happening for a long time, and it seems like it will continue for time to come" referring to Indigenous women and girls going missing, or turning up deceased. I am not sure he even heard the story about the amber alert system.
This has been an eye opening experiment. Where echo chambers are very real with social media and customized algorithms. Conspiracy theories become reality, where people don't realise how far into the rabbit hole they have gone. The media systems in America can swing from far left to right at the flip of a channel. Now influencers are celebrities and the encoding of sponsorships within their messages prevalent.
This past week had me both better understanding how personal culture, beliefs and traditions apply a lens over the information coming in from the media. I thought it was just personal bias, but there is much more to it. Additionally to see that others have a very different lens or filter into how they see or hear media messages, intriguing.
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