Media and Collective Identity: Useful quotes

“…media representations of ‘race’ and ethnicity are constructed in accordance
with dominant ideological positionings which serve to shape and control how
individuals understand others’, and their own, identities.”
Fatimah Awan, Young People, Identity and the Media, PhD Research
Project, 2008 http://www.artlab.org.uk/fatimah-awan-phd.htm

“ethnic minority groups are engaging with and using the media to create ‘new
ethnicities’.”

Stuart Hall proposes that the media, as a principal form of ideological
dissemination, produces representations of the social world via images and
portrayals. …Hall asserts that ideologies become ‘naturalised’ and
ideologically motivated representations mask themselves as ‘common sense’;
within an ideology, politically constructed representations – such as
representations of ‘race’ – are conveyed as being ‘given by nature’.

In agreement with Hall, a significant body of research suggests that the
media, as a
key transmitter of representations and as a major source of information within
society,
has the power to control and shape attitudes and beliefs held in the popular
imagination

Hall (1990) argues that the methods in which black people and their
experiences are represented and subjugated under white ideology is not only
a result of political and economic agendas, but also, in accordance with
Edward Said’s (1978) principle of Orientalism, functions to construct blacks as
‘Other’. Furthermore, Hall claims that the insidious and ‘invisible’ nature of this
ideology leads black people to understand themselves as ‘Other’

Hall demonstrates, representation not only affects the understanding of ethnic
minority groups within society as a whole, but also how ethnic minority groups
come to perceive their own identities. On this issue we must consider that
identity is constructed within a cultural framework, as Kathryn Woodward
(1997) says, ‘Identities are produced, consumed and regulated within culture
– creating meanings through symbolic systems of representation about the
identity positions which we might adopt’.

We must also consider Hall’s (1990) notion that identity is not necessarily
‘fixed’, but a fluid phenomena; ‘Perhaps instead of thinking of identity as an
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already accomplished historical fact … we should think, instead, of identity as
a “production”, which is never complete, always in process…

Establishing that the media have the power to dictate which representations of
ethnic minorities are chosen and circulated in the public arena, research into
minority representation has revealed two fundamental issues underlying the
area: underrepresentation and stereotypical representation. It is suggested
that through such representations, ethnic minorities continue to be
subordinated in accordance with white ideological hegemony

In the beginning there was the Empire and, then (post-1945), there was the
Empire no more. In a nostalgic bid to keep the idea of Empire alive, the British
establishment first created the Commonwealth and, in 1948, voted through
Parliament the Commonwealth Act whereby all citizens of the ex-Empire could
come to the mother country: the United Kingdom.
Susan Hayward, Jump Cut, no. 41, May 1997, pp. 49-58

Concern as to the number of "coloured" immigrants (as they were then
known) was being voiced in the mid- to late1950s by the Conservative party
(which had been in power since 1951), but race as an issue did not fully
become one until the watershed year of 1958. Two occurrences: the so-called
Nottingham "riots" and Nottinghill "riots" (the former in the north-eastern part
of England, the latter in a London borough) put race on the social and political
agenda. Thanks to these events, race would henceforth be perceived as a
problem.

The 1970s was characterized by a "siege" mentality… The rise in racist
attacks during that decade and the impact of the U.S. Black Power Movement
on Blacks in Britain led them to politicize their protest — a move which
"naturally" allowed first political discourses and then media discourses after
them to make race central to an understanding of the crisis. It should be noted
that segregation in pubs was a common practice in certain London boroughs.

However, it was the 1958 "riots" which brought race onto the TV agenda in a
strategically different way. Race was now presented as a problem in the UK
rather than as an end-of-Empire debate as it had been previously. TV
programs of the 1960s and 1970s now characterized Blacks as immigrants, all
the same, and the cause of overcrowding and unsanitary house conditions.
Two BBC I sitcoms, the already mentioned Till Death Do Us Part and It Ain't
Half Hot Mum (launched 1975), should be singled out as representative of this
common-sense racist discourse.

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Ross begins her work with the idea that individuals in economically developed
regions of the world are increasingly reliant on mass media for information,
education, and entertainment. In this context, the issue of representation is
becoming increasingly important as people in distant locations become more
reliant on mediated symbols to shape their perceptions of various social
issues
http://www.newinfluencer.com/mediapedia/black-and-white-media/

Mass media plays a significant role in the transmission and maintenance of
cultural identity, through a repetitive display of cultural norms and values
which eventually become seen as simple ‘truths’.

The repetitive framing of particular images in certain ways eventually leads to
those images being seen as the definitive statement on ‘those’ people and the
groups to which ‘they’ belong .

young black respondents stood out as a distinct subgroup. Most of them
rejected their British identity despite being British-born and bred, particularly
young black men. They felt quite strongly that society is hostile towards black
teenagers. They reported many instances where they have felt stereotyped,
marginalised and discriminated against – for example, when they have failed
to get a job interview, or an elderly woman has held on to her handbag more
tightly in their presence.
“I don’t really want nothing to do with this country. I don’t think blacks will ever
achieve here” Black African young man, 15-16 years
Channel 4, Race, Representation and the Media 2007, Research Report

The mixed race young people in our sample were mixed Black Caribbean and
white (which accounts for a third of the ‘mixed race’ category in the 2001
Census). Although they were happy to be referred to as ‘mixed race’, they had
all assumed a ‘black’ identity by virtue of their skin colour and/or upbringing.

Ethnic minority viewers commented that an ethnic individual alone (for
example, a solitary black character in a soap) cannot represent the richness of
an entire community.

Tokenism and stereotyping e.g. Dev, the Asian corner shop owner in
‘Coronation Street’, Denise in ‘Eastenders’ who was a black single mother
with two children by two different fathers when she first appeared on the
progamme

At the heart of their concerns lay the worry that extreme and inaccurate
portrayals of their culture might give white viewers the wrong impression
about black and Asian communities as a whole.

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Not only, in Said's 'Orientalist' sense, were we constructed as different and
other within the categories of knowledge of the West by those regimes. They
had the power to make us see and experience ourselves as 'Other'.
“Cultural Identity and Diaspora” In Theorizing Diaspora, edited by Jana
Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, Blackwell, 2006

... migration inaugurated the so-called Windrush era, characterised by
exponentially increasing numbers of immigrants coming to Britain from all
corners of the declining empire, but also by increasing hostility, social
harassment and racial tensions.
CENTRING MARGINALITY THROUGH BLACK BRITISH NARRATIVES:
SMALL ISLAND AND YOUNG SOUL REBELS, Francesca Giommi
http://journal.afroeuropa.eu/index.php/afroeuropa/article/viewFile/119/110

those "imperial Others" who once lived in remote marginal colonies, are now
demanding inclusion and belonging on British soil, "invading" public national
and private family spaces.

What is at issue here is the recognition of the extraordinary diversity of
subjective positions, social experiences, and cultural identities which compose
the category "black;" that is the recognition that "black" is essentially a
politically and culturally constructed category ...
"New Ethnicities." In H. A. Baker, jr, M. Diawara, R.H. Lindenborg (eds.).
Black British Cultural Studies, A Reader. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1996,163-172.

As Gilroy proposes going beyond essentialist modes of identity and nationalist
cultural representations, the new concept of syncretism is the only one able to
examine cultural resistance in the hybridized context of black Britain. The
same subversive force of this hybridizing tendency is once again emphasized
by Hall, according to whom identities are not an essence but a positioning,
and thus diaspora identities are constantly producing and reproducing
themselves anew.

black British artistic and cultural attacks on English ethnocentrism and as
alternative representations disrupting hegemonic ideas of racial hierarchy and
monolithic national belonging, in line with Gilroy's thesis that in a hybrid space
such as twenty-first century postcolonial and post-imperial Britain blackness
and Englishness permeate each other and ethnic absolutism is no longer
tenable.

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“how we are seen determines in part how we are treated; how we treat others
is based on how we see them; such seeing comes from representation.”
Dyer, Richard. (1993). The Matter of Images: Essays on Representations
(1 ed.). New York: Routledge

Various characters within “Kidulthood” are shown to be involved in criminal
activities such as drug dealing and gun making. It can be said that “black
people, particularly Afro-Caribbeans are portrayed in the media as criminals”1
as “the media are highly selective in the way in which they construct and
represent the world back to us”2 Due to how they are represented within
“Kidulthood”, it suggests that young black males may have been subjected to
receive negative treatment as a result of being represented with such
pessimism and in turn advocates that they will be treated as criminals if they
have been represented in that way. http://jaleesadenton-mest4.blogspot.com/

This relates to what was shown within a recent episode of “EastEnders”
(BBC). This soap-opera takes on the role of portraying black people whilst
reinforcing negative stereotypes among them as it recently depicted a gang of
teenagers being led by a young black male to steal money from a local pub
whilst brandishing a fake gun. http://jaleesadenton-mest4.blogspot.com/

Joseph Harker wrote that “when it comes to imagery surrounding black
people; I’m used to relentlessly negative - knife crime, underachievement
representations”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/05/london-black-children-
awards

“The hegemonic model acknowledges that much of the media is controlled by
a relatively small group of people (who are generally male, middle class and
white) and that the viewpoints associated with these groups inevitably become
embedded in the products themselves.”3 This suggests that these small
groups of people use their own views of ethnic minorities in order to represent
them, due to the fact that they may not know how to represent them if they are
not part of that social group themselves. This shows that audiences are being
provided with already established views on a social group thus reiterating the
hypodermic needle theory. http://jaleesadenton-mest4.blogspot.com/

It can be said that the media choose to represent ethnic minorities in ways
which reinforce stereotypes in order to maintain a hegemonic society relating
to how “a dominant class or group maintains power by making everyone
accept their ideology as normal or neutral, through cultural influence rather
than force.”4 http://jaleesadenton-mest4.blogspot.com/

1
http://www.helium.com/items/265124-how-are-ethnic-minorites-portrayed-in-the-media

2
Kruger, Stephen. Rayner, Philip. & Wall, Peter. (2004). Media Studies: The Essential
Resource. London: Routledge, London and New York.

3
Baker, James. Clark, Vivienne. & Lewis, Eileen. (2003). Key Concepts & Skills for Media
Studies:. London: Hodder Headline.

5

4
Williams, Kevin. (2003). Understanding Media Theory (Hodder Arnold Publication). London:
A Hodder Arnold Publication.

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