Sociology: Media Representations - Ethnicity

Evaluations:

-There is limited evidence for this explanation - Hollingsworth (1990) uncovered some anecdotal evidence that some tabloid owners, editors and journalists subscribed to racist views but this is probably only a very small proportion of media professionals.

-Some newspapers, notably 'The Guardian', are assiduously anti-racist - Cottle (2000) notes that between 1993 and 1998, there were 347 news reports in The Guardian focused on investigating the death of the Black teenager Stephen Lawrence and the institutional racism that undermined the investigation into his murder.

-As the media marketplace is very competitive and very diverse, it is unlikely that the media as a whole, or even particular sectors of the media, are pursuing the same ideological goals.

-The media is shaped by what media professionals believe the majority White audience wants.

-The media is dominated by a hegemony of White middle-aged men.

-Media representations can be seen to maintain and reinforce negative representations of ethnic minorities and undermine tolerance.

-Journalists are seen as watchdogs of the public interest - moreover, media content is also shaped by the market.

-If the media do not give the public what they want, they become unprofitable and go out of business.

-From this perspective, problematic representations of Black people as criminals or Muslims as a threat reflect real fears.

-They are supposed to be the fears of the predominantly White readers of certain tabloid newspapers such as 'The Sun' or 'The Daily Mail' about what they perceive as 'outsider' groups with very different cultures from their own.

-From their perspective, newspapers are simply acting in the interests of their readers by demanding that those in power take action to control ethnic minority groups, for example, by restricting immigration or recruiting more police officers.

-The editors of those newspapers would probably argue that if they did not run these stories, their readers would desert them for other newspapers - sociologists from this perspective also argue that people can choose not to buy these newspapers because there is a diversity of media products, some of which portray ethnic minorities in a neutral or positive way.

Evaluations:
-Many White people may not have come into contact with Black people or Muslims, and may not have formed opinions about them - their only source of information is the media. If this is the case, the media are not mirroring their anxieties about ethnic minorities: journalists are actually constructing and shaping racist ideologies on behalf of their readers.

The Hegemonic theory of the media coming from this perspective may be more useful - this makes several interrelated points that may explain why mass media representations of ethnic minorities tend to be negative:

-Most owners, editors and journalists are White and consequently subscribe to a particular consensual view about how society should be - they share this view with their predominantly White audience or readership.

-This is the product of economics rather than ideology or racism - White opinion and interests are reflected in the media because White people constitute the majority audience - large audiences attract advertising revenue and consequently profit.

-This consensus approach means that the media professionals do not want to risk alienating their White audience by focusing on minority cultures or interests - moreover, this consensus approach probably results in ethnic minority media professionals distancing themselves from acting as advocates for minority groups.

-Consequently, then, the interests of Black people and Muslims are marginalised or rendered invisible.

-This consensus approach means that White experts and sources are at the top of the hierarchy of credibility - this means that journalists tend to go to the police or government for information on crime, immigration and radicalisation - Cottle observes that this means that media professionals devote little energy or resources to non-institutional or ethnic minority sources.

-Cottle argues that the pursuit of large audiences has led to the tabloidisation or dumbing down of news - this means that complex issues, for example, the impact of multiculturalism or fundamentalist religions, are less likely to be explained to audiences.

-Rather, news is likely to be reduced to simplistic soundbites and dramatic statements that highlight conflict but still fail to capture or illuminate the complexity of race relations in the UK.

-This implies that such disturbances are irrational and criminal, and conjures up images of rampaging mobs that need to be controlled by justifiable use of police force.

-Journalists very rarely use the word 'uprising', because this suggests that members of minority ethnic groups may have a genuine grievance in terms of being the victims of racial attacks, discrimination by employers and police harassment.

-The idea that people are angry enough to take to the streets because they want to rebel against injustice very rarely forms part of the media coverage of such events.

-As criminal.

-As a threat to the majority White culture - Immigrants are described in terms of numbers such as a 'swarm', and 'flood' - particularly recent stereotyping of people from Eastern Europe. Refugees and asylum seekers are portrayed as abusing the benefits system, while Muslims have been presented as terrorists; with a focus on the hijab; and religious schools – but anything that 'threatens' so-called Britishness.

-Examples: July 2015 Daily Mail headline: 'THE 'SWARM' ON OUR STREETS', December 2003 The Sun headline: 'SWAN BAKE - Asylum seekers steal the Queen's birds for barbecues'.

-Link to moral panics - Stuart Hall's analysis of the 'Black mugger', and rap music and drill music linked to knife crime.

-This allows the White working-class to blame 'others' for structural inequalities; there are also economic reasons – the dominant White hegemony doesn't want to alienate the majority White consumers.

-At the same time, this can make ethnic minorities vulnerable to discrimination.

-Overall, these actions by the dominant hegemony divide Black and White workers by fuelling racism, diverting attention away from the structure of inequality in society, and in particular the inequalities and deprivation faced by many people from all ethnic groups.

The Glasgow Media Group (2000), in a study of British television coverage of developing countries, and audience reactions to it, found disasters and terrorism were the main categories of news story, but there was little explanation or context given in most news accounts:

-Audience studies found the developing world was perceived very negatively, with the respondents describing the developing world with words like 'poverty', 'famine', 'drought', 'wars' and 'disasters' - and this was accompanied by audience impressions of corrupt governments.

-Audiences were left with a view of the developing world as not much more than a series of catastrophes.

-Under-representation in management of the media – this causes the dominant hegemonic 'gaze' - Stuart Hall calls this "the white eye through which they are seen".

-Under-representation in roles.

-Marginalisation of interests and issues, negative stereotyping, unrealistic or simplistic portrayals.

1. Islam is dangerous, backward and irrational compared with Western thought and actions.

2. Multiculturalism with its stress on diversity and tolerance is allowing Muslim extremists to spread their message across Muslim communities in the UK.

3. There is a clash of civilisation between the West, which is presented as democratic, tolerant and focused on equality for all, and a Muslim world that is presented as oppressive, intolerant, misogynistic and all too willing to persecute minorities.

4. Islam is a major threat to the 'British way of life' - for example, stories often focused on the idea that Muslims wanted to replace British law with Sharia Law.

-In this sense, ethnic-minority actors are merely 'props'.

-Linked with this, in one week in 2007, 91% of news articles in national newspapers about Muslims were negative.

-His research on moral panics can be linked to how ethnicity is presented in the media - such as his study on the 'Black mugger' - media moral panics attempt to justify more official spending on the social control of ethnic minority communities and play on White working-class fears that processes like immigration and radicalisation of young Muslims are more problematic than extreme inequalities in income distribution or poverty.

-In 2003, he suggests Black and Asian people are frequently negatively stereotyped and used as scapegoats in the media - he suggests they are represented as cheating, cunning and capable of turning nasty, and as the source of social problems and of conflict that otherwise would not exist.

-2020 #BlackLivesMatter protests following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police Officer.

-Positive role models in the media - Alex Scott as a football pundit, the whole production of 'Black Panther' (mainly Black cast, including the main character, and production team), the rising prominence of Black ballerinas, etc.

-More diverse content on global streaming services.

-There are more media products that directly target Black and Asian audiences – TV channels, magazines, social media etc - for example: the Official Asian Music Chart.

-New media allows for self-representation and individualisation of media use away from traditional media and negative stereotypes.

-However, despite being the second-largest ethnic group in the UK, British Asians are notably absent from the advertising landscape.