Representing Race in the

Media

Presented by: Anne Lai, Ivan Ignjatovic &

Cynthia Taing

Name that Stereotype!

Objectives

• To examine the role of the media in shaping, and defining racial identity

• Two sides of the same coin: The media “promotes” individual freedom and color-blindness; while simultaneously promoting cultural stereotypes and reinforcing racist ideals

Video: Classified X

Questions:• Do you think that blaxploitation movies were

successful in the fight against racism? Why?• When thinking about American films today, do

you think racism still exists in Hollywood?

Do not stop until you see the whites of their eyes

• Media and Race: A relationship based on dominant ideology

• The meaning of “Freedom” in the media. (Individualism and free market)

• Talking about ideologies is a subconscious process.

• Same artifact has different meanings in different cultural settings.

• Media wants and tries to be open-minded and pro- equalitarian, but is just a child disciplined by the imperial Man

• Types of mediated racism: 1. “Overt”: promotion of racist policy through spokesperson, argument and info-streams2. “Inferential”: Unquestioned assumptions (There are no black swimmers in the Olympics.)

• The image of an action hero, comedian and the adventurer.

• Clown aids racial indifference, or does he?

• Who are we laughing with, or at?

Sapphires, Spitfires, Sluts and Superbitches (Freydberg)

• Stereotypes of Aframericans and Latinas

• “Stereotypes are the imitation or copy of something or someone, that is by means of the media machinery, held up as THE symbol or symbols to the exclusion of others; and then repeatedly channelled out to viewers so often that in time it becomes a “common” representation of something or someone in the minds of viewers”

• What do stereotypes do?

Depictions include:• Prostitutes• Concubines• Whores• Sexually promiscuous

women• Bitches

Changing Roles

• 1930s and 1940s • 1960s and 1970s

A Continued Struggle

• Some improvements in films today. Examples? • “White-controlled studios, distribution centres

and critics do not give a damn about the derogatory images of minorities if there is a profit to be made in those images”

• Stereotypes are “socially supported, continually revived and hammered in, by our media of mass communication – by novels, short stories, newspapers, movies, stage, radio and television”

Terse Conclusion

The American film industry, predominantly owned by White males, perpetuated derogatory stereotypes of Aframerican and Latina women so as to reinforce the status quo and to keep these groups of people marginalized and powerless.

Canadian Aid workers to the rescue!

• The Myth of “freedom” and “liberation” of the women's soul.

• Myth functions in the media: • 1. Distracting Western women from their own social

issues.• 2. Creating a sense for the problems that fall on

indigenous women “out there”.• Culturalization of violence and the rescue mission.• The everlasting battle for the “good” women and

abolishment of the “bad” women

• Computer logic of the Western mind:

• 0 – uncovered and liberated; 1 – veiled and suppressed.

• What is the “imperial feminism”?

• The example of the Afghan women and their problems based on anecdotal and one-sided evidence.

• The “good” women in need of saving from the Islamist men.

• Through the looking glass: Aboriginal women.

• The native foot is too small for a large Christian shoe to fit into.

• Aboriginal women, sex objects and drug addicts?

• The “all bad” women, unless they conform to the imperial culture and religion.

• Question of power and territorial control.

• Rescue mission? Or Mission for profit?

Terse ConclusionThe Man disciplines his cute child to become ambivalent when itcomes to racial issues. Yet, freedom and equality are notadvertised as being part of the same value group. To feel freedoes not mean that you should feel equal to another.

Aboriginal women are not the victims of the system, but victimsof a personal lifestyle. Afghan women have no choice in wearingveils as part of the system. Hence Afghan women have a priorityin rescue mission. Media have to support war somewhere elserather than war on local social problems. Aboriginal women gomissing, no voice is heard. Another day passes by. One Canadiansoldier dies in friendly fire, a five minute piece is broadcasted all overthe media. Proud feeling is on the house.

Culture, Media and the White Mind (Entman & Rojecki)

• White American hold an ambivalent attitude towards African Americans. Why?

• “Blacks occupy a liminal place in White-dominated media and society, neither fully accepted nor completely rejected”

Indianapolis Survey

• Black’s status and achievements?White American’s said:

Low motivationNo chance for educationDiscriminationLow ability

52%45%34%10%

Origins of White Ambivalence

• People get their social information from:– Personal Experience (Formal Education,

Socialization & Conversation)– Mediated Communication

• Your habits of thinking are formed by:– Schemas: Set of related concepts – Frames: Like schemas, but in media texts and

public discourse

• “We define mainstream culture as the set of schemas most widely stored in the public’s minds and the core thematic frames that pervade media messages”

• The media frames images of Blacks as inferior/liminal beings

• Whites depend heavily on cultural media to help them understand Blacks

Terse Conclusion

This article examines the White ambivalence towards the Black community. Racists schemas, frames and misrepresentation from the media can contribute to the negative images of Blacks in the mainstream.

What consequences do you see stemming from racial ambivalence?

Racism in Media

• Henry examines how media reinforces racist ideology while maintaining the image of being neutral and unbiased to the minorities in Canada.

Canadian Media Industries

• Marginalize people of color

• Reduce them to invisible status

• Devalue their images in the Canadian society

Canadian Media Tactics

Since Canada values multiculturalism, the Canadian media constructs a discursive patternin which the following elements are found:• Protesters are depicted as outsiders or others• The pain experienced by a minority

community is dismissed as irrelevant• The existence of systematic racism is denied

• The motives of the protesters are belittled• Individual leaders are personally attacked• The protesters are considered not to have

acquired “Canadian” social values or adopted “Canadian” norms

• Expressions of dissent and resistance are described as threatening the social order, harmony, and social equilibrium of Canadian society

Airport Taser Death

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/05/11/bc-rcmp-apology-taser.htmlhttp://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/613719

Vancouver Gang War

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2002/06/24/kandola020624.html

Meaning Makers

• “The mass media are a crucial source of beliefs and values from which they develop a picture of their social worlds. According to Hannerz, the media are machineries of meaning.”

What the Media do

• “The written and electronic media have an important role in guiding, shaping, and transforming the way we look at the world (“perceptions”), how we understand it (“conceptions”), and the manner in which we experience and relate to it (“reality”)”.

Terse Conclusion

Henry’s article examines how the Canadian media tries to remain unbiased and neutral in all aspects of media production. But when people of color create social problems and jeopardize the harmony and unity of Canadian society, they reinforce and reproduce racism in a number of ways, such as: negative stereotyping, the racialization of issues such as crime and immigration, and the marginalization of people of color.

The Office – “Diversity Day”

• Humorous approach at race

• Michael Scott, regional manager at Dunder-Mifflin Ignorant, and thinks of himself as office comedian

• Often says inappropriate and offensive things

Discussion Questions

• Do you think we live in a color-blind society? • How has the media affect your perspective on

other races?• How do you develop ideas about the races you

have never interacted with?• What racial changes have you seen within the

media in the last century?