behave. One of the goals of the media should be to represent the prevailing differences of
culture, opinion and social conditions of the populations as a whole. Unfortunately this
isn’t the case in contemporary media, as the images of minority groups are depicted
negatively. Therefore, the media is important in regards to race and ethnicity because it is
the primary source of indirect or mediated experiences that reinforce racial attitudes and
beliefs. Many stories in the newspapers with regards to Aboriginal people have been of a
negative attitude, continually referring to acts of criminality and deviance. It is not very
often that a news story regarding the success of an Aboriginal person is portrayed. Thus,
mass media can be viewed as a place where reality is constructed and racism is produced.
It is no secret that the news media is market-driven, therefore they are not merely
a tool to inform the public; they are also mechanisms that construct social reality through
the placement of coded messages that reinforce an idea of what is good, acceptable, and
desirable. Those in control of the media output to a large extent, define society’s beliefs
and values, through which society then organizes life. Racialised messages in the media
include words, images and categorisations that reinforce an understanding of reality in
which people of colour and immigrants are recognized as having a lower social class
status than white people. For example, a recent issue in the media was the Tampa Crisis,
and the admission of illegal immigrants. These judgments are then used in turn to
construct rules that maintain white power in society, and degrade those of a different
race. The problem with this is that much of society would consider media portrayals of
events and issues as a reflection of the real which lead to unequal treatment of certain
races.
Although it is erroneous to identify all criticisms of minorities and immigrants as
perpetuated by the media, there is no doubt that they continue to promote and reinforce
most racism. One major issue is that the mass media use generalizations of racial
stereotypes. Stereotypes are an effective way to invoke consensus about the way society
thinks about a particular social group and imply that all members of society arrived at the
same definitions collectively. It is usually from these stereotypes that individuals get their
ideas about a social group. For example: since the September 11 attacks, the majority of
Islamic people have been discriminated against as having something to do with the act of
terrorism including children because of one certain minority group. Under the guise of
merely reporting the facts, news tends to create negative images of these groups since
S11. Media stereotypes aid in justifying racial preconceptions rather than dispel them.
Racism will continue to exist despite Australia’s official multiculturalism policy
as the media play an active role in perpetuating this racism through negative stereotypes
that continue to invade newspapers and television screens. The media are the primary
source of experiences through which society’s racial attitudes and beliefs are reinforced.
The societal and economic factors of racism have also become more than just bias in their
approach. The media industry is one profit, in which the elite will continue to suppress
the lower class minorities in order to maximize profits, they are agents of social control,
effectively reflecting and reinforcing a pre-existing racist ideology.
