A2 SOCIOLOGY
MEDIA REPRESENTATION AND ETHNICITY
Starter
Getting you thinking
task 
Answer the three
questions on the
handout.
A few facts
 Ethnic minority group represent 7.9% of the population (UK
Census -2001),
 Ethnic minority groups are at the forefront of media use
(Ofcom 2008),
 Ethnic minority groups more likely to download music, own
a mobile phone, , watch TV,
 65% -79% of ethnic minority groups download music online.
What do you think ?
How can we explain those facts
and figures ?
Representations of ethnic minorities
 Ethnic minorities are generally underrepresented,
 Represented in a stereotyped and negative ways across a wide
range of media by showing ethnic minorities as a problem
group,
 Representation in the media that associate black people with
physical activity rather than intellectual.
Stereotypical representations
 Atkinti (2003)
 Television coverage of ethnic minorities over focuses on crime,
Aids in Africa and black underachievement in schools.
 Van Dijk (1991)
 Content analysis of tens of thousands of news items across the
world over several decades.
Ethnic minorities as criminals
1. Ethnic minorities
and moral panics,
2. Moral panics and
rap music,
Ethnic minorities as criminal
 Agbetu (2006) suggest that a black person construed in the
media has three attributes:
 Involvement in crime,
 Involvement in sport,
 Involvement in entertainment.
1.
2.
Black people tend to be seen as perpetrators as opposed to
victims,
Assumptions that afro-carribean are only interested in the
carnival and dancing as well as all being “Yardies”.
Ethnic minorities and moral panics
1.
Watson (2008)


2.
Moral panics are a result of the negative stereotyping of black
people as criminals,
Hall (1978) study of 1970 moral panic that was constructed
around the folk devil of the “black mugger” – increased policing of
the black community
Back (2002)


Argues that the reporting of inner city race disturbances involving
menbers of ethnic minority groups tend to be strereotypoes as
riots.
This stereotyping renders the disturbance as criminal and
irrational as opposed to “the uprising” of a community who has
been treated unfairly.
Moral panics and rap music
 Zylinska (2003):
 Gansta rap which was believed to be accountable to the rise in
“black crime”,
 So Solid Crew and the glorification of gun violence,
 50 Cents “Get Rich or Die Trying” which depicted the rapper
holding a gun (ASA – Advertising Standards Authority),
 50 Cents credibility amongst young people meant that his
association gang culture and criminal behaviour was likely to be
seen glamorizing and condoning the possession of and use of
guns.
Moral panics and rap music
 David Cameron (2006) – criticised BBC Radio 1 for playing
gansta rap which encourages people to carry knives and guns,
 Ligali (2003) protested at the MOBO about the music
industry for supporting and awarding artist who promote the
use of firearms,
 Ligali (2003) misogynist attitudes of rap lyrics and videos
which devalue, disrespect and damage women by treating
them as inanimate object purely to be used for the purpose of
male sexual gratifications.
Relationship between gun crime and
rap/hip hop
 Form of cultural identity (Best and Keller, 1999)
 Rap articulates the experiences and conditions of young
blacks living on the margins in inner city areas and or
deprived council estates,
 Rap is an outlet for young black male to communicate their
anger and sense of injustice.
Ambivalent effects
 Ambivalent: Having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas
about something or someone,
 Rap and Hip/Hop highlight racism and oppression that black
male suffer by describing the hopelessness of the inner city
and deprived experience,
 Best and Kellner believe that at its worse rap and Hip/Hop
is racist, sexist and glorifies violence.
Individual Task
Read through the article on your handout
and answer the question.
Negative role models
 Sewell (2004) – media culture, street culture black family life
especially the absence of fathers are responsible in shaping
black subcultures on the street,
 Black pupils experiences in education, institutional racism
also contribute to the shaping of black subcultures.
Role of education and family life
 Sewell (2004) – education and black family life is to blame
alongside the media for young black male turning to negative
role models,
 Sewell (2004) – 3 major risk factors:
 Street culture (material things more important than education),
 Media culture ( status and respect can be achieved by adopting a
consumer street culture),
 Black family life (young black males lacking the role models and
their experiences of the white educational system).
What do you think ?
How might rap and
hip-hop reinforce the
capitalist ideology
that exist in society ?
Reinforcing capitalist ideology
 Cashmore (1996) – media representation not solely
responsible for black subcultures but rather the capitalist
ideology reinforces the need for material gain. Myth of
meritocracy.
 Mitchell (2007) – message sent to young black males
reinforces the need for material gain. He further argues that
rap essential reinforces rather than undermine our society’s
values “you are what you own”
Ethnic minorities as a threat
 Van Dijk (1991) – common news stereotype that ethnic
minorities are posing a threat to the majority white culture
(moral panics):
 Immigrants ( seen as a threat in terms of their numbers and
their impact on the job supply, housing, etc),
 Refugees and asylum seekers (seen as abuser of the welfare state
and taking,
 Muslims – islamophobic media coverage following the 9/11
Race, migration and media
 Philo and Beattie (1999) – moral panics tend to focus on
immigrants and asylum seekers,
 Stories by journalist usually presented in a negative and
alarmist way,
 News coverage on the rise of illegal immigrants coming into
Britain highly racist
 “the result was a news which was sometimes xenophobic in
tone which reinforced our identity and their exclusion and,
perhaps more importantly provided a rationale for the
apparent need for exclusion”
Media representation of Islam and
Muslims
 Poole (2000) – demonized and distorted by the media as a
threat to Western ideologies,
 Patel (1999) – Islam is purposely misrepresented as it
challenges Western cultural power,
 Richardson (2001) – empirical study of British Muslim in the
press found that they are mostly negatively represented,
 Whitaker (2002) – Muslims are represented as intolerant,
misogynist violent or cruel as well as strange and different.
Individual Task
Read through the
article on your
handout and
answer the
question.
Ethnic minorities as abnormal
 BBC (2002) - survey of Asian audiences and their feelings
about how they were portrayed in the mass media,
 Ethnic Focus (2004) – complaint with regards the
representations of the Asian community as divided n two
camps those forced into miserable loveless marriages and
those who have become millionaires.
 Ameli et al (2007) – media discussion over the wearing of
the Hijab and the veil is always problematic suggesting that it
is an inferior form of dress. The Hijab and the veil somehow
reinforce Western beliefs that Islam is misogynist and
patriarchal.
Ethnic minorities as invisible
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Limited roles,
Cultural irrelevance,
Invisibility,
Tokenism,
Realism,
Ghettoization,
Media personnel
Limited roles
 In popular drama the perceprtion of ethnic minority
audience is when ethnic minority actors appear usually taking
on the roles clearners (african) and shopkeeper (asians),
 This reflect their low status in Britain with regards to the
occupation they work in.
Cultural irrelevance
 Open University and British Film Institute (2006) found that
UK’s main ethnic minorities do not relate to much of the
television and do not identify with televison programmes
which have strong white, middle england associations.
Invisibility
 Invisibility of ehtnic minority in the beauty and adevrtising
industry.
 Gill (2007) feminine beauty in womens media tend to over-
emphasize whiteness.
Tokenism
 This wehre programmes depict characters from ethnic
minortities because they should,
 For example having an afro-caribbean character in
Emmerdale where it is very unlikely to occur.
Realism
 Ethnic minority audiences complain that very rarely is
someone from an ethnic minority depicted as an ordinary
citizen,
 More likely to be depicted in an ethnic role for example in
Eastenders young black males tend to be represented as
criminals, etc...
Ghettoization
 Television programmes dedicated to minority issues are
scheduled very early of very late in order to ensure small
audiences.
Media personnel
 Survey by Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (2006)
found that less than 7% of people in these fields were from
ethnic minority background.