Minorities have achieved their overdue media presence. However, critical issues of their participation and portrayal remain unsolved.
The mass media has been recognized as the most important agents of social and political life. Democracy needs the support of media companies, editors, journalists, photographers, and professionals in this field to have access to publications and transparency. The mass media is recognized as the agent of change in social and political life. The impact that the media has on the public is long being debated as crucial. The media by setting agendas influences the issues which are important to the public and is put into the light of the governmental response. The media simultaneously also creates the frameworks through which the public sees the whole world. These impressions, when translated into the public, who do not have a primary experience or contact with the issue, become the sole source of information and perception. It is primarily important in the case of perception of minorities (Ruhrmann, Shooman, & Widmann, 2016).
Have the minorities received any better representation by the media in recent years?
The internet is the new source of media also offers communication and freedom to all sectors of the community. However, the opportunity presented by the Internet to the minority perspectives is also offered to the right-wing populist or extremists making counter-public spheres. It has been therefore critical in the spread of extremism, racism, and exclusionary ideologies. These types of movements which launch online provide a tremendous challenge for the mainstream media as well. These movements are dominated by the phenomenon of political correctness or hugely benevolent attitude regarding minorities. It promotes the view that the media is lying and thus cannot be trusted. It may lead to a point in the future, which can cause suspicion on the minority genuine views presented in the media as well.
Media professionals tend to believe their duty lies with the conveying of the picture and views and the needed change which is required is held the responsibility of the public and government. They ignore the fact that the selection of the photos, news, and film sequence is the selection of the perceptions as well. It is, in reality, a staging of reality, even if it is a fact. However, social integration can be supported if the coverage is more topical, and the media are careful enough to not indulge in stigmatization and stereotyping of the minorities. One such example is to look at the prerequisites of extension of the media agenda as majority agenda and the media frames as the majority frames.
The Mainstream media has been long accused of being a disservice to minorities and migrants. The media is blamed to underrepresent the minorities, immigrants, and asylum seekers in the areas of success and to overrepresent in the areas of failures. This misrepresentation can lead to a wide range of negative framing the minorities and immigrants as a problem, as stereotypical, as ornamental, as stereotypical, as “other” and as invisible. On the contract, the white stream media are framed as more positive.
The reason for this misrepresentation has been varying ranges from implicit biases, prejudicial attitudes, and discriminatory practices to institutional and workplace routines, and commercial imperatives linked to the advertising revenues and audience ratings (Kuhar, 2006).
The prospect of representing the differences and diversity in an objective, balanced and contextual manner has been seen to go against the basis of mediate logic. Research which was conducted to analyze the media reporting in the context of three minority groups, including the lesbians, the Muslims and the Roma covered during 2006 has shown evidence for media misrepresentation as well. The research conducted was aimed at finding out media presentation of the chosen minorities in the context of who speaks, how they speak, and what they speak. What if the views are reproduced and which practices have been given legitimacy. The report showed that the media has the undisputed power of shaping and defining the political realities in threatening, problematic and unprecedented situations.
The media often answer this situation with a more convenient answer and this interpretation of the event can be treated uncritically. The role of media in the legitimization of identities is shown in this report. This report showed that the perception and image reproduced and mediated time after time by media for minority group is often the one-dimensional image of the event or person which is very rarely contextualized and not commonly determined to have some factual basis. The reduction of the image of a Muslim to an anonymous bearded man and the gay to the secrecy of their unusual sexual life, and of Roma to the receiver of social aid and being uneducated do not provide much space for any other identities in the mind of the viewers. It is not the only a misrepresentation of the minorities, but also a through discrimination to their rights (Cort, 2010).
In the end, from the above-detailed discussion and analysis, it can be concluded that it is undoubtedly true that the mass media is not only responsible but is also liable for the misrepresentation of the identities of the minorities. In recent years, minorities have achieved their long overdue media presence. However, critical issues of their participation and portrayal remain to be solved.
References
Cort, C. (2010, October 19). A Long Way to Go: Minorities and the Media. Retrieved June 8, 2018, from http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/long-way-go-minorities-and-media
Kuhar, R. (2006). Media Representation Of Minorities. Retrieved from http://mediawatch.mirovni-institut.si/media4citizens/studije/kuhar_eng.pdf
Ruhrmann, G., Shooman, Y., & Widmann, P. (2016). Media and Minorities. Berlin: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
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