Ethnicity PARA 1: violent/crimminal Flashcards
Item point:
‘African Caribbeans are disgruntled with the news media because it disproportionately focuses on black boys as violent or as Gang members’
Sociological theory
VAN DIJK: argues that journalists have demonised black young people, particularly African Caribbeans, as a threat to law-abiding white society for decades.
MARXISTS would argue that this is in the fact to distract the working class from the inequality that they face. HALL for example, has suggested that ethnic minorities may be subject to media moral panic which aims to criminalise them and to present them as folk devils which threaten the stability of white society. 50% of news stories concerning young black people dealt with them committing crime
EXAMPLE: Beck argues that over the last 25 years disturbances involving Black young people are stereotyped as ‘riots’ –> Journalists very rarely use the word ‘uprising’ because this suggests that members of minority ethnic groups have genuine reason in terms of being oppressed and real victims of racial attacks.
Evaluation
PLURALISTS would argue that the ‘stereotypical’ representations created are in fact a reflection of society’s ideologies.
The media content is also shaped by the market, therefore if the media do not give the public what they want then they become unprofitable and out of media products, some which portray ethnic minorities in neural or positive way.
They argue that these problematic representations of Black people as criminals are reflective of the fears of the predominantly white readers of certain Tabloids.
However a criticism of this view, many white people may not have come into contact with black people and may not have an opinion of them, therefore their only source of information is the media. If this is the case, media are not mirroring their anxieties about ethnic minorities: journalists are actually constructing and shaping racist ideologies on behalf of their readers.
