Assess the view that the representation of ethnicity in the media accurately reflects a contemporary multicultural UK [20]
A multicultural society is a diverse society in which different ethnic groups live side-by-side and the cultural differences within these groups are celebrated. The concept can be controversial, as some members of society believe that cultural differences can cause conflict in society and therefore it is preferable to assimilate ethnic groups (encourage them to share the same norms and values). However, Britain is usually considered and multicultural society and there is considerable debate in Sociology regarding the extent to which this is reflected in the mass media. Historically, this has certainly not been the case and many studies have demonstrated that many ethnic minority groups are either un-represented or negatively-stereotyped. Moore et al found, for example, that black people are usually represented as one of five negative stereotypes: As criminals (e.g. ‘black’ often used as a prefix for criminals), as a threat (e.g. immigrants threatening British jobs and culture), as dependent (e.g. third-world countries dependent on aid), as unimportant (e.g. issues affecting black communities ignored by the media) or as abnormal (e.g. presenting cultural differences as being strange). Content analyses by Van Dijk supported this view, finding that the British news media was ‘unconsciously racist’, as it used negative language to describe ethnic minorities and usually reported on issues that affected minorities from a white-British perspective. A study by Malik suggested that this situation was improving; Malik found evidence of far more black and Asian people on British television in a much more diverse and non-stereotypical range of roles. However, Malik still argued that the media was not fully represented a multicultural society, as there were still many areas in which positive representations were limited (e.g. few strong Asian female characters; few Black presenters of factual television other than sports coverage) and there were still relatively few black people in high-level positions within the media industry. A study into the TV soap opera ‘Eastenders’ supports this; Eastenders is set in an area of East London that – in reality – has extremely high levels of ethnic diversity. Eastenders does have an increasingly diverse range of ethnic minority characters, but the overwhelming majority of the cast is still white and is therefore not representative of this multicultural area. Some Sociologists argue that these issues are being addressed by a wider range of television channels and networks aimed specifically at ethnic minority audiences (e.g. BET – the Black Entertainment Television network). The array of available channels/networks could be argued to represent a multicultural society. However, others argue that this can make the problem worse as it leads to ‘ghettoization’ (isolating mainstream audiences from minority cultures) and gives the mainstream media an excuse for not covering minority issues. In conclusion, there is evidence that representations in the media are becoming more diverse, but stereotyping and negative representations may still persist and therefore it is difficult to argue that the media is an accurate representations of multiculturalism. Finally – and to further complicate the debate - Postmodernists argue that increase in hybrid identities among ethnic minority groups have blurred the boundaries between groups and mean that representations of ‘traditional’ ethnic groups are outdated and largely meaningless.
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Media (AS)The role of the media in contemporary society Archives
May 2017
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