Mass Media Representations: Ethnicity

Mass Media Representations: Ethnicity

1. Evidence suggests that, despite some progress, ethnic minorities are generally under respected or are represented in stereotyped or negative ways across a range of media content. In particular, newspapers and television news have a tendency to present ethnic minorities as a problem or to associate Black people with physical rather than intellectual activities,and to neglect and even ignore racism and the inequalities that result from it.

   • Ethnic Minorities as Dependent
     • The GMG fund that stories about less developed countries tend to focus on 'coup-war-famine-starvation-syndrome'. The implication of such stories, both in newspapers and on TV, is that the problems of developing countries are the result of stupidity, tribal conflict, too many babies, laziness, corruption and unstable political regimes. Such countries are portrayed as 'depending' on the West for aid with Comic Relief and Live Aid being viewed as the only way they can survive calamities and disasters.
   • Ethnic Minorities as Invisible
     • Limited roles both on and off screen.
     • Cultural Irrelevance
     • Tokenism
     • Ghettoisation

2. Representation of Ethnic Minority Groups in the Media

   • Newspapers and television programmes often associate minority populations with physical rather than intellectual activities. Traditional media tend to ignore or downplay portraying the racism that is prevalent within society.
     • Ethnic Minorities as Unimportant
       • Van Dijk: Some sections of the media implies that white people are more important than the non-white. News about disasters in other countries where population is non-white will be kept to a few words. A story of one white British person dying will be prioritised over the suffering of 1000s. When a black person is a victim of crime the reporting is kept to a minimum.
   • Examples include: Usain Bolt and Mo Farah.
     • Changing Stereotypes of Ethnicity
       • Media stereotypes of black and other ethnic minority groups do seem to be changing. Appreciation and greater media policy commitment to ethnic minority populations, has led to an increase in more channels serving EMG communities as well as EMG portrays in mainstream media. Abercrombie stated that there are now more Black and Asian actors in popular dramas and soaps: they are portrayed as appearing as routine characters in normal everyday storylines.

3. Stereotypical Representations

   • Despite recent improvements in the number of Black and Asian people represented in the media, there still appears to be a long way to go before the UK's multicultural character is fully represented in the media.
     • Ethnic Minorities as Abnormal
       • Sections of the British media may be guilty of creating false cultural stereotypes around the value systems and norms of other cultures. A survey by the BBC in 2002 found that Asisan audiences were unhappy at the way that the media failed to differentiate between different Asian groups, which have very distinctive cultures. For example, arranged marriage was often confused with 'forced' marriage which was disapproved of in most Asian communities.
   • Akinti argues TV coverage of ethnic minorities focuses on crime, aids in Africa and Black underachievement. Whilst ignoring culture and interests of a huge Black audience and diverse interests. Any news si usually bad news and "seen through the eye of a white person", the same as the "male gaze".

4. Key Representations in the Media

   • Van Dijk conducted content analysis of the news from around the world and suggested that Black communities are often painted in a negative light. He notes that there are 7 stereotypically negative types of news.
     • Ethnic Minorities as Criminals
       • Black crime and violence is most frequent issue found in media coverage of ethnic minorities. Van Dijk believe that the tabloid press frequently associated Black people with crime and in recent years with membership of organised gangs that push drugs and violently defend urban territories.
     • Ethnic Minorities and Moral Panics
       • Watson notes that moral panics often result from media stereotyping of Black people as potentially criminal. A classic example of this was seen in the late 70s/early 80s when ' muggings' by black people were 'sensationalised' by the media.
         • The work of Dowling supports the findings of Van Dijk but argues that the shift has also been shifted onto Eastern European immigrants: from the year 2000 onwards. These stories were absurd, untrue or over exaggerated, but they did have a negative influence on some audiences: creating, confirming and reinforcing racial stereotypes by blaming minority ethnic groups for problems that were not created by them at all.
       • In recent years new stereotypes have emerged, that have been applied to white people from Eastern Europe and countries close to Russia, e.g populations from the following countries: Urania, Poland, Latvians, Bulgarian, Romanians, Lithuanians and Slovakians. These groups have been blamed for every recent problem that beset Britain and are blamed for things that are not true or are not their fault.
         • Hall - Policing the Crisis: Conducted a study in the 1970s surrounding the moral panic that surrounded black men as muggers. Hall argues that some sections of right wing papers and the media colluded with the state to create a panic around the offence of mugging. Led to labelling of all young Afro as criminals and a threat to the white serves ideological purpose of turning white people against Blacks and keeping Blacks WC - Divide and Rule. This led to an increase in demand for police in Black communities - led to repressive laws.
     • Effects of Moral Panics on Youth
       • Cultural Identity - Rappers came from deprived areas which makes they relatable to societies youth.
         • Reinforcing Capitalist Ideology - Cashmere argues that Black culture is promoted through things like rap to make money.
       • Negative Role Models - Males in rap become roles models because the people listening have come from single-parent families.
     • Ethnic Minorities as a Threat
       • Van Dijk's content analysis suggested that a common news stereotype was the idea that ethnic minorities are posing a threat to the majority White culture. The concept of 'threat' is central to both news values and moral panics. In recent years, three groups seem to constitute the greatest threat in the UK, according to newspapers and TV. Moral panics have, therefore, been constructed around: Immigrants, Refugees/Asylum Seekers and Muslims.
         • Since the Twin Towers terrorist attack, the London bombings and the participation of a tiny minority of Muslim youth who have participated in Islamic State terrorist activities, Muslims have been stereotyped in the British media as a threat to social values and public safety. Muslims have been stereotyped in the British media as a threat to social values and public safety.
       • Goffman argues that the very word 'Muslim' has become a 'stigmatised Identity'. An identity that is some way seen as abnormal, undesirable or demeaning and which excludes people from full acceptance in society. Hoffman argues that this has contributed to Islamophobia. This led Baroness Warsi, the first ever female Muslim Cabinet Minister in 2011 to coin the phrase 'Fashion Islamophobia'. She argued that anti-Muslim prejudice was even now accepted amongst the middle classes, whereby the Muslim population has now been talked about in a prejudiced, bigoted way.
       • Cottle argues that media representation of ethnicity encourages media audiences to construct a sense of their identity by defining who 'we' are in relation to 'who' we are not, in terms of 'us' and 'them'. This means that the white majority relate to who they ae in relation to the difference of others.