10


The Media, Stereotypes, Minorities, Foreigners and the Rest of Us

Jan Jirák


The media, and especially the mass media, are an important social institution – some authors rank
them alongside school and family, while others believe their importance to be even greater
(Thompson 1995). Our knowledge of social reality in which we live and to which we relate draws and
increasingly relies on the media. In fields of human activities in which we have not been
professionally trained (such as space research), we have no experience of our own whatsoever –
everything we know has been mediated to us. Although it is difficult to trace the causality of the
relationship between media content and attitudes of the public, it is very likely that media
content corresponds to these attitudes. (The question of whether the content inspires the attitudes
or vice versa belongs to the same category as the question of what came first: the chicken or the
egg? However, many authors note that media environment has its own gravity to which beginning
professionals such as journalists adapt, as they consider it a form of their socialization;
Campbell 1995).

People rarely realize that that the media are not a reflection of social reality, but rather the
result of peculiar and highly interpretative processing of this reality. There are two reasons for
this. First of all, the media must – in spite of the diversity of their content – offer messages
that resonate with the ideas, values and attitudes of media consumers. At the same time, the media
produce and organize messages according to their intrinsic rules, which are intellectually and
economically shaped by the so called ‘media logic’.1 Both of these factors are inter-related.

As a part of the media logic, the media draw on unquestioned and sweeping simplifying judgments
presented as acquired experience which society relates to phenomena and groups it is trying to cope
with. The fact that media messages contain sweeping judgments and represent – in the given time and
society – an unquestioned value has led to a situation in which study of mediated content is an
increasingly important and irreplaceable source of information about the society itself – sweeping
judgments (stereotypes) present in the media correlate with sweeping judgments (stereotypes) in
society. In the case of media with a truly mass appeal, it is safe to assume that such stereotypes
will be considered as a matter of course or at least as acceptable by a vast majority of society.

This concept is behind a great number of research projects that employ analysis of media messages
as a means of uncovering the stereotypes valid in a society, be it gender stereotypes, stereotypes
in interpreting the relationship between majority and minority, stereotypes in perception of
representatives of different nations or cultures, etc. Such research projects also function as a
feedback for the media, although their utilization in communication activities of the media is
rather limited and subordinated to economic pressures (with the exception of public television and
radio broadcasters who are – to a varying extent and using various methods country from country –
entrusted with the task of balancing the potentially harmful consequences of the prevailing
stereotypical views presented by other media outlets).

Research of stereotypes in various kinds of mass media outlets (tabloids as well as ‘serious’ media
outlets) and in various social and cultural contexts leads surprisingly often to very similar
conclusions. These conclusions could be summed up as follows: all phenomena and groups which appear
problematic and marked when viewed through the optics of mainstream society and which are difficult
to cope with for mainstream society are often marginalized or clearly simplified after being
processed by the media. Such marginalization runs from a simple failure to notice to ostensible
treatment involving a degree of superiority a charitable condescension (without any true knowledge
of and interest in the issues discussed). Media studies have advanced to examine and interpret
issues such as ‘invisible minorities’ (e.g. Gist 1990) or ‘everyday racism’ (Campbell 1995). The
first term refers to the fact that mainstream media have a tendency of focusing on representatives
of the majority and overlooking the life of certain minorities or presenting their life only when
it deviates from the majority’s idea of the ‘correct’ way of life. The second term refers to the
fact that although the media condemn racially motivated crimes, they take part in common
discrimination and stereotyping of members of ethnic minorities.

An important motive for monitoring media content is the presumed and anticipated influence of the
media on the society as a whole as well as on the attitudes and behavior of its members. One of the
most influential theories about influence of media concerns the ‘naturalization’ of presented
values. By presenting certain content (and certain values), the media produce the impression that
this content, phenomena judgments and values are obvious and perhaps even natural.

Sweeping judgments about minorities, foreigners and also policemen, businessmen or all of us
therefore gain significance and may hinder or impair real analysis of any given phenomena as well
as search for solutions of possible problems. The media, as an important social institution, may
become an obstacle to resolution of issues that are crucial for the entire society.


Bibliography

Altheide, D. L.: An Ecology of Communication. Aldine de Gruyter, New York 1995

Campbell, Ch. P.: Race, Myth and the News. Thousand Oaks, London: Sage 1995.

Gist, M. E.: Minorities in Media Imagery. Newspaper Research Journal, 11 (3), 1990, s. 52-63.

Jirák, J., Köpplová, B.: The Media and Society Portál, Prague 2003.

Thompson J. B.: The Media and Modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge 1995.


In: Hard to Make Out Foreigners. How Foreigners Are (Not) Written at about in the Czech Press.
Praha: Multikulturní centrum Praha, o.s., 2003. pp. 47-48.
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1 We use the term ‘media logic’ in a way that is similar to Altheide (1995), i.e. to denote the
fact that everything that becomes media content is processed and organized based on principles of
production intrinsic to media and not on the content being processed. This is reflected in efforts
to influence the content of media products (for example by actions in the area of public
relations). In today’s political communication, for example, only the political entity which is
able to make the best use of the media logic can be successful; to oppose this logic is practically
out of the question (see also Jirák 2003).