Media has played a crucial role in informing the public about what is going on elsewhere since the Vietnam War. The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as the protests that followed, was also widely captured by all sorts of media.

Unlike the media of the Vietnam War, which mostly consisted of black and white television and radio, the media today consists of mobile devices, many social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as the news on television.

While so many different sources for information and information as easily obtained as being in Ferguson with a smartphone, people often rely on information from media too much.

Even if reporters of an event such as Ferguson try to remain as unbiased as possible, inevitable some bias will still leak into the information presented on all media outlets. That bias, even if unintended, greatly influences the perception that audiences of those media have on the situation because they rely on the media so much and often accept what the media says as the truth.

With the shooting of Michael Brown, initially, the media posted photos of Brown wearing casual street clothing and holding a peace or gang sign with his hands. Behind him is an old and simple house that makes Brown appear to be standing in a fairly poor neighborhood.

This image of Brown stuck with many viewers and users of different media sources, and caused them to perceive Brown as a typical African-American gang member living in a bad neighborhood. Because of their negative perception of Michael Brown, they would then most likely infer that Brown did something bad to force Darren Wilson to shoot Brown.

No matter what actually happened during the shooting, viewers of news and social media would have definitely had a better first impression of Brown if they first saw the image of Brown’s high school graduation photo.

The negative perceptions that the media initially placed on Brown even led to many people using the hashtag #iftheygunnedmedown. People on Twitter would post two photos of themselves side by side, with one making themselves seem honorable and intelligent, while the other making them seem like gang members.

All of the posts with #iftheygunnedmedown reveals how easily even as single photo can change the perception of an entire person and even an entire situation.