http://www.aps.psychsociety.com.au/member/racism/sec3.html
3 LANGUAGE, SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS AND THE MEDIA
The ways in which racism and prejudice work at various levels of
society can be seen in our use of language, in everyday
understandings of the sources of social problems, and in the
media.
3.1 Racist
language and discourse
The insidiousness and resilience of modern subtle racism lies in
part in the fact that it is embedded in language and rhetoric that
is egalitarian and liberal in nature, as shown by qualitative
language-based research. Considerable such research has been
conducted in the Netherlands and Western Europe by van Dijk
(1987). Wetherell and Potter (1992) have conducted similar work in
New Zealand, a country comparable to Australia in its British
colonial past. They investigated the way in which Pakeha (white)
New Zealanders talk about Maori-Pakeha relations. They found that
the overwhelming majority of their middle- class respondents
talked in ways that legitimated the existing social order of
inequality and Maori disadvantage in New Zealand. Their
respondents strategically organised what they said in order to
avoid being evaluated and labelled as racist. Indeed, all of the
respondents were proficient at using a range of liberal and
egalitarian principles such as freedom, fairness and equal
opportunity to argue for outcomes which justified and sustained
the existing inequitable social relations in New Zealand society.
People used arguments such as "everybody should be treated
equally", "present generations cannot be blamed for the mistakes
of past generations", and "minority opinion should not carry more
weight than majority opinion". They used these arguments in
flexible and contradictory ways to do certain things, most notable
of which were to avoid a 'racist' identity at the same time as
justifying existing unequal Maori-Pakeha relations.
Research in Australia has identified similar common argumentative
and rhetorical resources that white majority respondents use when
talking about Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal relations (Augoustinos
& Sale, 1997). First year university students who, overall, scored
low in levels of old-fashioned and modern racism, acknowledged
that as a group, Australian Aborigines were socially and
economically disadvantaged. However, most respondents expressed
significant concerns about government spending on Aboriginal
programs. Many respondents believed that too much money was being
spent and moreover, that this money was not being spent
productively. Students also expressed firm objections to existing
affirmative action policies for Aboriginal candidates in
universities, arguing that these policies were unfair, inequitable
and actually advantaged Aboriginal students. Individual merit was
invoked as the only legitimate pathway to university education.
Objections to affirmative action were therefore premised on the
egalitarian principle of "treating everyone the same" regardless
of any background disadvantage and inequities (Augoustinos & Sale,
1997).
Such qualitative and language-based research supports the view
that contemporary racist attitudes are subtle, flexible,
ambivalent, and embedded in wider social values which, in effect,
support and legitimise existing racial inequalities. This is the
case even among populations that have been traditionally viewed as
non-racist or at least low in racism. Current political and
economic emphases on 'competition' and 'economic rationalism'
which assume a 'level playing field' help support such attitudes.
3.2 Political
correctness
Policies and initiatives to combat sexism, racism and other forms
of discrimination are characterised by some members of the
community as attacks on the rights and freedoms of individuals to
say, feel and behave as they please. Such objections have
typically been framed within the rhetoric of 'political
correctness'. While genuine political correctness can be a strong
force in encouraging more acceptable and reasonable behaviour, it
is represented by opponents as undermining free speech in the
service of minority group interests. Such attacks have been viewed
as a 'backlash' to the gains that some minority groups have made
over the last two decades in countries like Australia (Cameron,
1995; Wilson, 1996). Dismissals of genuine and effective
antiracism initiatives as 'merely' or 'cynically' politically
correct thus legitimates racial intolerance by appealing to
concerns about 'freedom of speech'. On the other hand, concerns
about political correctness can result in important but difficult
questions (such as 'race') being avoided and under-researched.
3.3 Lay
understandings and sense-making processes
Important considerations in any discussion of racism are the
popular or lay understandings, both of the nature of prejudice and
racism, and of the more immediate experience of difference (e.g.,
Semin & Gergen, 1990; Fletcher, 1995). Lay understandings are
important because they are really shared cultural understandings
(e.g., Shweder, 1991; Bruner, 1990) of, in this case, culture and
cultural difference. Lay understandings are also a particularly
salient current issue in view of such phenomena as the public
support for and identification with Pauline Hanson, who is
represented as speaking for the 'silent majority', the 'ordinary
battlers' who are looking for and understand 'a fair go' and equal
treatment (e.g., Rothwell, 1997).
At
the heart of lay understandings are individual and collective
attempts to 'make sense' of events. They are adopted in response
to questions such as "Why are there such high levels of
unemployment?" and "Why do things seem so unfair?". The more
disturbing the issue, the greater the need for explanation.
Prejudice finds its roots in particular kinds of sense- making
explanations (e.g., Antaki, 1994; Hewstone, 1989) that are
supported by reference to in-groups and out-groups (see
Section 4.2), racial and cultural difference, and perceived
injustice. For example, unemployment is 'explained' by tying
together immigration, visible ethnic groups that appear to be
getting jobs, and 'ingroup outgroup' demarcations.
Lerner (1980) argued that our need for a coherent and
'accountable' world leads us to the illusion of a 'just world'.
Perceived injustices and unfairness are thus particularly
disturbing phenomena that require explanation. Both an illusion of
justice and a satisfying causal account are provided by
'explanations' that blame groups that are different. It is easier
to blame a group which is less powerful and influential than one's
own, and it appears easier to seek solutions to injustices by
blaming victims than by tackling issues of power and privilege.
This is the essence of 'victim-blaming' and 'scape-goating'.
3.4 The media
Other examples of where prejudice and racism are found and how
they work relate to media images and debates. These are examples
of cultural or social representations of ingroup-outgroup
differences. The media are cultural products which are central to
the construction of social realities and to communication between
groups and across cultures. There are many reasons why differences
between groups of people are salient and newsworthy. Social
comparison with others, including other groups, is normal,
necessary and validating. However, media coverage of such group
differences, and often group conflicts, tend to highlight and
exaggerate, oversimplify and caricaturise such differences. A
classic and well-researched example of such a phenomenon is the
work on cross-national images of the 'enemy', which showed that
the images that the United States citizens had of Russia were
virtually identical, or the 'mirror image', of the views that
Russians had of the United States (Bronfenbrenner, 1961).
The power of the media, and in particular television, to both
create and reinforce attitudes has been extensively documented (Eagly
& Chaiken, 1993; Oskamp, 1988). Media representations of other
nations, cultures and minority groups are used to 'manage' public
opinion and public understandings of events. The media are also
used to construct and re- invent cultures and cultural identities,
e.g., what it is to be Aboriginal or Irish (e.g., Gillespie, 1995;
Muecke, 1992)
Media images are very powerful vehicles for prejudice and racism.
Television, film, and magazine images and lifestyles become the
touchstone for what is reasonable, desirable, normative, and
'good'. Noone questions that such media play a powerful role in
the social construction and representation of 'reality', in which
issues of group identity, membership and difference are central.
Prejudice and racism at the level of media images and coverage are
subtle and far-reaching in part because they are an integral part
of such constructed realities.
Language and the media constitute and reflect 'social
representations' (Augoustinos & Walker, 1995), which can be
thought of as collective, concretised ways of thinking about and
representing the world, or the shared content of everyday
thinking. These cultural products not only capture and express
culturally shared understandings, beliefs and values, but also
validate, legitimise and perpetuate value judgements and
understandings about how men and women, and different groups and
cultures differ from one another. These social representations
play a powerful role in mediating and transforming individual and
societal ways of understanding and valuing oneself and others.
