This document discusses the representation of ethnicity in media and its effects. It defines key terms like dominant group and hegemony. It outlines common stereotypes portrayed for different ethnic groups like Asians being quirky or Middle Eastern people being religious or terrorists. It discusses theories like cultivation theory that show how media representations can influence viewers' perceptions of race. It also discusses the potential implications of racial stereotypes in media like perpetuating social myths and prejudices, especially in children.

1. Representation of
Ethnicity

2. What is a dominant group?
A group that has more population than the subordinate group.
Albert Bandura’s belief that we are effected by
what we see is based on what famous study?
The Bo Bo Doll experiment (1961).
What is hegemony?
The socially accepted and agreed beliefs of those in the ruling class.
Recap

3.  Powerful:
physical/intellectual
 Often the hero
 Serial killer/Villain
 In charge (dominant
race)
 Lead role
• Intelligent
• Martial artist
• Obsessed with
electronics
• Quirky or weak
• Terrorists/violent
• Very religious
• Physically strong
• Strict/stern/not a push
over
• Serious
• Victims (female)
• Villains/rarely seen as
heroes
• Gangster
• “Token’’
character
• Poor
• Criminal
• Victim
• Hero
• Ugly
• Uneducated
• Silly/not taken
seriously
• Illegal aliens
• Partiers
• Involved in drugs
• Sex symbols

4. - Gangster
- “Token character’’
- Poor/Impoverished
- Criminal
- Victim
- Hero
African descent

5.  Intelligent
 Martial artist
 Obsessed with electronics
 Quirky or weak
 Lack emotion
 Women can be seen as ditzy
in some cases
Asian descent

6.  Ugly
 Uneducated
 Silly/not taken seriously
 Illegal immigrants
 Partiers
 Involved in drugs
(dealing/taking)
 Sex symbols (Antonio Banderez,
Penelope Cruz, Salma Hayek, Selena
Gomez).
Latino descent

7.  Terrorists/violent
 Very religious
 Physically strong
 Strict/stern/not a push over
 Serious
 Victims (female)
 Villains/rarely seen as heroes
Middle Eastern (Arabic) descent

8.  Powerful: physical/intellectual
 Often the hero
 Serial killer/Villain
 In charge (dominant race)
 Lead role
White British/American

9.  Stereotyping of race is seen as more harmful than
stereotyping of gender, as media representation
may constitute the only experience of contact with
a particular ethnic group that an audience
(particularly an audience of children) may have.
Representation of Ethnicity

10. • Racial stereotypes are often based on social myth,
perpetuated down the ages. Thus, the media
depiction of, say, Native American Indians, might
provide a child with their only experience of Native
American Indian culture and characters, and may
provide that child with a set of narrow prejudices
which will not be challenged elsewhere within their
experience.
Why is it important?

11. However…
• Is it just white western people who adopt
potentially distorted ideas of race?
• Watch

16. What are the wider implications?
Moral panics!

17. Theorist - Stanley Cohen (1972)
• Studied youth groups in 1960s.
• A moral panic occurs when society sees itself
threatened by the values and activities of a group
who are stigmatised as deviant and seen as
threatening to mainstream society’s values,
ideologies and /or way of life.
• Mods & Rockers (1960s), football hooligans,
muggers, vandals, mobile-phone snatchers...

19. George Gerbner:
Cultivation theory (1986)
• States that the more time people spend
'living' in the media world, the more likely
they are to believe the representations they
are exposed to.
• The repetitive pattern of mass-produced
media messages and images influences
people’s understanding of the world.
• Mean World syndrome – people believe the
world is harsher and more violent than it
actually is.
• ‘Normalised’ violence - desensitisation

20. The representations aren’t all
bad…

23. Alvarado Theory (1987)
Four Key Themes in Racial Representations:
•Dangerous
•Humorous
•Pitied
•Exotic

24. The Exotic
• Ethnic groups are seen as
exotic or being ‘the other’
and are represented as being
strange or unusual. It is
assumed that the dominant
reading of the audience will
be from the point of view of
white people, referred to as
the ‘white eye’ (Hall 1990).

25. The Dangerous
• Minorities are sometimes
represented as a threat to
society. The news and other
media may present these
groups as taking advantage
of a society and exposes, in
some cases, an underlying
institutional racism.

26. The Humorous
• In the 1970s, race was a major vehicle for comedy.
Programs removed the threat of different races by
making them the butt of the jokes. There is evidence
of a more positive change.

27. The Pitied
• Representation of ethnic groups may
be as deprived groups or victims of
natural disasters like, famine, floods,
and sometimes conflicts. Images of
children are often used by charities
to gain sympathy.

28. Tokenism
Tokenism is a practice of limited inclusion or artistic
and/or political representation of members of a
traditionally marginalised group. This usually creates a
false appearance of inclusive practices rather than
discrimination.
These characters are often represented as blue collar
(lower class) workers.
E.G – Purposely including a member of a minority race
such as a black character in an all white cast

32. List as many famous black
countertypes as you can
List as many ‘stereotypical’ ethnic
representations as you can