3) media representations of ethnicity

Question 1

What three points does Van Dijk recognise that representations of ethnic minorities within the media can be catergorised as?

Answer 1

• criminals
• threat
• unimportant

Question 2

What does Law study state about ethnic minority groups being represented as criminals ?

Answer 2

from a content analysis found 50% of news stories involving young black people involved them committing crimes → and this view as criminals is endemic and this notion of ‘race’ tint the journalistic lens through criminality is reported

Question 3

What did Watson argue the media representations of ethnic minorities creates?

Answer 3

Watson - argues that moral panics often occur from the media stereotypes of black people as criminal this highlighted by research that 1970 moral panic about the concept of the ‘black mugger’ -london riots 2016

Question 4

What moral panics have been created due to the media

Answer 4

• Immigrants = seen as a threat due to ‘numbers’ and believe they are impacting services / facilities
• Refugee/asylum seekers = stated to abuse welfare state - media constructs them as a problem
• Muslims - Poole states they have long been demonised/ homogenised and seen as a threat to security in western media → unchanging (fundamentalists) - someone who take religion literally

Question 5

What ideological messages of representations of islam (4) did Moore largue?

Answer 5

1) Islam is dangerous and irrational compared to western ideology

2) Multiculturalism with stress on diversity is allowing muslim extremists

3) Clash of civilisation between the west (seen as ideal) and the muslim world that is promoted as oppressive

4) Islam is a threat to the traditional western way - and view that they want a (Sharia law - basic islamic legal system derived from religious precepts of islam

Question 6

What did the cardiff school of media find about ethnic minorities being represented as a threat?

Answer 6

analysed representation of British Muslims between 2000-2008 and found 2/3 focused on Muslims as a threat (linked to terrorism) or as a problem (a threat to our values and way of life). More coverage is focused on extremism than ‘normal’ Muslims.

Question 7

what did Nahadi argue about the coverage of ethnic groups being a threat?

Answer 7

argues that the hostile and narrow coverage destroys trust among muslim readerships - general decline of western media standards towards shorter form content (TIKTOK/X) has legitimised extremist islamic views and disguises any of the alternative perspectives rather creates a hegemonic view

Question 8

what does Ligali argue about the media representation?

Answer 8

Lingali - argues that the media is institutionally racist - as it spends more time on white victim reports than black victim reports - not given the same degree of attention.

Institutional bias
Often portrayed in stereotypical low status roles- Come fly with me jamaican coffee stand owner making excuses not to work

Question 9

What is tokenism ?

Answer 9

Appear in programme due to (tokenism - practice of only making an effort due to give appearance o racial equality)
Ethnicity often is central to storyline

Question 10

what does Bennett argue about the UK Tv media and interests of ethnic minority audiences?

Answer 10

notes that ethnic minority groups argue national UK media believes its content is in interests of white people and doesn’t offer any of their interest or identity.

Question 11

Evaluation - GAUNTLETT

Answer 11

*Gauntlett (2008) states that analysis of media representations needs to be cautious as the British media is so diverse.

Question 12

what is the pluralist view of represenations of ethnicity

Answer 12

as they see the media as a democratic mirror.
Argue it is reflecting the the audience fears due to the fact the tabloid readership are majority of a white background

Question 13

criticism of the pluralist view

Answer 13

White people mau ot have come into contact with ethnic minorities so their judgement is based solely on media stereotypes.

• so media is not reflecting readership viewpoints but actually constructing raist ideologies on behald of readers

Question 14

Marxist

Hall argument

Answer 14

suggests ethnic minorities are subject to moral panics that criminalise them and present them as folk devils as a threat to societal stability
* leads to the fears on processs such as immigratikon

Question 15

cottle evaluation of marxist perspective

Answer 15

Notes that the guardian anti-racist as between 93-98 there were 347 news stories focusing on death of young black individual (stephen lawrence case)
* diversity of media - likely to have multiple different outputs

Question 16

hegemonic marxist

Answer 16

• most media moguls / journalists are white and adheare to the consensual view to society - and as high status ^ hierrvhy of credibility often go to police and racist insitutions for data
• product of economics rather than ideology/racism –> show what the audience want (wC) as genertes more moeny

Question 17

cottle hegemonic marxist view

Answer 17

argues that persuit of larger audiences caused for a dumbing down of the news so it doesn’t include the complex issues such as impact of multiculturalism but rather highly dramatic headlines

Question 18

change overtime ?

Answer 18

Is to note that the media is constantly changing especially with the growth of digitalisation → a diversity of media products are created - with more diverse and positive representations.

Especially as more ethnic minorities are taking up higher positions within corporations - develop these institutions to target interests of ethnic minorities
BBC asian digital network

Some independent media agencies have been set ip - Sunrise radio and Asian Fx / newmedia websites such as brasian.co.uk