Social Network

Based on the way the media reports on missing children stories you would think children only go missing every once in a while; but in reality, children go missing every day. In fact, while we have all been focused on Caylee Marie Anthony, many other little girls and boys have gone missing.  So how do the producers of news programs decide which missing children stories to report and which to ignore? Well, there has been a long-standing debate around this very question and a number of people believe that the media has no interest in a missing child unless that missing child is female, caucasian and cute.

“If a little girl is fat no one will care that she’s gone missing. If she’s black no one will care, unless maybe she’s Halle Berry’s daughter. If she’s ordinary looking no one will care, unless, again, she’s connected to someone famous,” said Monique E from Florida.

“The news media can’t report every case where a child goes missing any more than they can report every murder that takes place in the country. They report the cases that have a sensational aspect or that can be easily sensationalized.”

And what appears to be sensational are stories about little girls like Caylee Marie Anthony, big doe-eyed cuties who make you think thoughts like, “She’s so cute. How tragic that anyone could hurt her,” and make you want vengeance on her behalf.

Most of the discussions about the attention given to missing children stories involving cute little White girls are centered around the question of why other little girls, particularly little Black girls, don’t seem to matter to the media; but what is more glaring, or at least equally glaring, is the lack of attention that is given to stories involving the disappearance of little boys.

In all too many ways our society seems unconcerned with the welfare of boys. A good example of how little we tend to care what happens to boys in our socieities would be the recent revelations from the white house boys about unmarked graves at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna Florida. The incidents of abuse took place decades ago and the boys involved had been at the school because of disciplinary problems, but it is still a good representation of how differently we treat cases of abuse involving boys from the way we treat such cases involving girls. Boys can vanish off the face of the earth and we never react with outrage or concern. Somehow the mistreatment of boys does not seem as unjust and shocking and intolerable to us as the mistreatment of girls.

The news networks are in the business of exploiting the things that shock, outrage or otherwise incite us most. They know that we don’t have as strong a reaction to stories about missing boys so they don’t invest time and money reporting those stories. No one will stay tuned for weeks to find out the latest developments when a boy goes missing unless maybe there’s good reason to suspect a Martian or other alien being abducted him and even then we’ll be more interested in the Martian or other alien being than in the welfare of the boy. The same reasoning applies for girls who don’t necessarily have widespread appeal. If the masses won’t care then the media won’t report; and from all appearances the masses care more when cute little White girls go missing than they care when not so cute white girls or nonwhite girls go missing or when boys go missing.