4.5 media representations - ethnicity

Question 1

In what three ways are minority ethnic groups represented in the media, according to Van Dijk?

Answer 1

1. minority ethnic groups as criminals
2. minority ethnic groups as a threat
3. minority ethnic groups as unimportant

Question 2

What did Van Dijk and Davies et al argue about minority ethnic groups as criminals?

Answer 2

• journalists have demonised Black young people, particularly African and Caribbeans as a threat to law-abiding white society for decades

Question 3

What methodology did Cushion et al use?

Answer 3

• monitored a range of daily and Sunday newspapers, nightly TV news and radio news programmes for a period of 16 weeks

Question 4

What did Cushion et al’s research find?

Answer 4

• Black young men and boys are regularly associated with -ve news values
• the news media often represent Black crime as irrational and senseless or as motivated by gang rivalries

Question 5

How many stories about young black men and boys were related in some form to crime?

Answer 5

• close to 7 in 10 stories

Question 6

What did Wayne et al find about minority ethnic groups as criminals?

Answer 6

• close to 50% of news stories concerning young black people dealt with them committing crime

Question 7

What did Sveinsson find about minority ethnic groups as criminals?

Answer 7

• violent crime is portrayed as endemic within ethnic communities and notions of race tint the journalistic lens through which criminality is viewed and reported by the media

Question 8

What methodology did Law(2002) use?

Answer 8

• a content analysis of news output from press, radio and television sources between Nov 1996-May 1997

Question 9

What did Law(2002) find regarding ethnic minority groups as criminals?

Answer 9

• he found that ‘the linkage of race, violence, dangerousness and crime remains a high profile theme’

Question 10

What did Watson(2008) argue about the representation of ethnic minority groups as criminals?

Answer 10

• moral panics often result from media stereotyping of Black people as potentially criminal

Question 11

Which three groups seem to constitute the greatest threat to the UK, according to newspapers and TV?

Answer 11

• immigrants
• refugees and asylum seekers
• Muslims

Question 12

How are immigrants represented as a threat?

Answer 12

• they are a threat in terms of their ‘numbers’ and because of the impact they supposedly have on the supply of jobs, housing and other facilities

Question 13

How are refugees and asylum seekers represented in the media as a threat?

Answer 13

• coming to Britain to abuse the welfare state
• Greenslade(2005) = the media have constructed an image of migrants as a problem/threat to British identity and cohesion

Question 14

How are Muslims represented as a threat?

Answer 14

• often portrayed as the enemy within

Question 15

What does Moore et al (2008) find about the representation of Muslims?

Answer 15

• concludes that there are four ideological messages in British media representations of Islam

Question 16

What are the four ideological messages in representations of Islam? (Moore et al)

Answer 16

1. Islam is dangerous, backward and irrational compared with Western thought
2. multiculturalism is allowing Muslim extremists to spread their messages
3. there is a clash of civilisation between the West and Muslims
4. Islam is a major threat to the British way of life

Question 17

What does Ameli(2007) argue about the representation of hijabis?

Answer 17

• journalists depict the wearing of the hijab and veil as patriarchal and oppressive and exemplifies the misogyny of Islam

Question 18

What does Van Dijk argue about the representation of minority ethnic groups as unimportant?

Answer 18

• some sections of the media imply that the lives of White people are somehow more important than the lives of non-White people

Question 19

What institutional problems do ethnic minority groups experience when they do appear on TV?

Answer 19

• often portrayed in stereotypical low status roles
• may appear because of tokenism

Question 20

What is meant by tokenism?

Answer 20

• making only a symbolic effort to do something

Question 21

What does Shah (2008) argue about tokenism?

Answer 21

• broadcasters overcompensate for the lack of executives, producers, directors and writers from minority ethnic groups by putting too many Black and Asian faces on screen

Question 22

Who are Ligali?

Answer 22

• a British African pressure group

Question 23

What did Ligali(2006) find?

Answer 23

• Black victims of crime aren’t paid the same degree of attention as White victims of crime

Question 24

What was the Met Police Commissioner’s response to Ligali’s findings?

Answer 24

• Sir Ian Blair = agreed with Ligali when he claimed that institutionalised racism characterised the British media’s reporting of violent crime because journalists paid a lot of attention to White victims while seriously neglecting Black victims

Question 25

What is the marxist perspective on the representation of minority ethnic groups?

Answer 25

- Hall = ethnic minorities may be subject to media **moral panics** - this is seen as the reasserting/reaffirming of ruling class values in society

Question 26

What are the reasons the hegemonic marxists give for the negative representation of ethnic minority groups?

Answer 26

- most owners/journalists are white and subscribe to a particular consensual view about how society should be - white opinions are reflected in the media because they constitute the **majority audience** which attracts profit

Question 27

What do pluralists argue about the representation of ethnic minority groups?

Answer 27

- problematic representations of Black people as criminal or Muslims as a threat **reflect real fears** - newspapers are simply **acting in the interests of their readers** by demanding that those in power take action to control ethnic minority groups