прагматика и медиа дискурс / Teun A van Dijk - Communicating Racism

162 Communicating Racism

decay and the foreigners. Sonja, in her TV talk show, invited CP voters to explain why they adhered to that party, and newspapers interviewed CP voters, sometimes with the well-meant assumption that the very reproduction of CP ideas would be sufficient to disqualify the party.

The following passages refer to this confused media debate and the appearance of racist propaganda on TV:

(45)II1-SV-2x (Woman, 37, low-con, P2) (Divorced from Moroccan) (The Centrum Party) W: I am against that. I have seen that program on what's its narre on Sonja Barend that was on TV. I don't know much about politics, but of course I am against it, that is uhh, no that is nothing for me. (...) (And in that talk show) (S) A Surinamese lady was explaining all that, she did that very well. And everybody was talking about that and some had voted for that party and a man from Rotterdam told that he thought that his children were put back because of the foreign children. "And he really showed that on TV, he says foreign chil- dren get more classes."

(46)I11-MS-1 (Woman, 48, low-con, P2)

(S) I saw that program on TV with the Centrum Party, in Sonja Barend's

show, and heard this juy telling about the old inner-city neighborhoods, and I can imagine that people who doubt might be persuaded by what he said. Especially younger people, because the older ones remember the war too well.

(47)III-RH-3a (Man, 50, typographer, low-con, P1)

(S)It makes me sick when I see on TV in Sonja Barend's show about

the Centrum Party that intentionally the bad situation in the country is

blamed on the foreigners and that they profit from the credulity or the stupidity of the people to mislead them .. .

(48)III-MI-2x (Man, 42, personnel chief, low-con, P2)

I don't know whether you read that story in Volkskrant [a liberal newspaper] about Almere, a very bad story, because it lets all those people speak without commentary, like he gets ten thousand guilders child allowance, and that kind of things, without putting various small comments that it was largely nonsense. And only, a week later, they wrote something against it. But you get such stereotypes, and so everybody thinks, gosh what a rubbish, next time I vote Centrum Party .. .

Some of the interviewees appear to understand that such programs or press articles may influence people actually to believe what the CP says about foreigners, such as blaming the economic crisis on them and, especially, resenting the assumed favorable treatment of ethnic groups such as in education. In example 47, we find an example of a person who resents interviewing CP members without giving critical comment.

On the whole, then, low-prejudiced people are aware of the crucial role of the media in the diffusion of racist beliefs. In our examples discussed aboye, we have seen that their misgivings may be well founded: People do use the media as a source for "legitimate" complaints against

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the presence of foreigners. Ironically, by thus focusing on the views of CP voters, such people also use the dominant strategy of identifying racism in society with a small extremist party.

For many of the other people we interviewed, there is another approach. If they recognize that some of their own opinions are close to those advocated by the CP, they explicitly state that the party is not racist but just wants to "redress the balance," as one man puts it, or to go against assumed favorable treatment of foreigners (which is not only resented by the majority, but as "positive action," is also unacceptable to many of those who appear to have less prejudice against ethnic groups). In the 1986 elections the CP lost its seat in parliament.

Conclusion

From these few typical examples drawn from a large body of references to the media as a source of information and discussion about issues regarding ethnic groups, we may first conclude that the media are credited or criticized for bringing up negative stories about such groups. "Ethnic crime" reporting in particular is sometimes resented, although other readers may use such stories as evidence for their fear of or prejudices against foreigners. Positive reports or programs are rarely mentioned, and, if so, it is done mostly critically by those who disagree with this kind of favorable treatment. Racist propaganda is normatively rejected by many of the people we interviewed but, at the same time, it may be mitigated by simply denying its racist nature or ignored by rejecting it as unacceptable. Even if some media users are conscious of the negative picture and impact of ethnic reporting in the media, it may be assumed that the more subtle forms of discrimination especially may be unwillingly adopted as an acceptable opinion by many people. Whether received positively or critically, media messages on many ethnic issues influence the topical agenda of everyday talk. This is especially the case for those people who have no daily contacts with ethnic groups and for those topics that cannot be based on personal observation or communication alone: crime and crime statistics, immigration, official policies, national politics and the role of racist parties, and discrimination.

It may also be assumed that whatever variance there may be in the reception of such messages by individual readers or viewers, the prevalece of the dominant views in the media will confirm an official "consensus view" by most of the public. At the same time, many other people pick up and selectively recall precisely those negative stories that are sometimes intentionally and mostly uncritically brought by the media as examples of officially unacceptable opinions. And because

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ethnic groups are also minorities in the media, as journalists, actors, or speakers, and the dominant view is not antiracist either, the public has no exemplary media models of the way to counter racism.

This also holds for the reproduction of media-based issues and topics in everyday talk. People know ethnic stereotypes very well and are able to tell many stories that portray ethnic groups negatively. In a rather general way, they also know about discrimination. Yet, there is neither widespread, media-based exercise in antiracist talk, nora critical potential and consciousness for the analysis of everyday and subtle forms of racism in society as a whole. Racism is isolated and attributed to a few extremists orto "stupid people," as several of our interviewees (from a low-contact neighborhood) put it. Indeed, racism tends to be associated with poor people and poor neighborhoods. It is seldom covered as a systemic phenomenon in society, let alone as something that also characterizes elite groups and institututions. This is, of course, in line with the dominant view of the political and academic elites. Indeed, if there is one overall influence of the media, it is not just that their dominant picture of ethnic groups tends to be subtly, and sometimes even blatantly, negative, but rather that they do not support antiracism. We return to this issue in Chapter 6.

6.Further facts about sources and topics of talk

Our qualitative analyses of a number of passages in which people indicate which personal or public sources are used for their information and beliefs about ethnic affairs should finally be complemented with a somewhat more systematic account of the topics that occur in such references. We have found that a few (stereo)typical topics are attributed to the media orto talk with other people. Yet, we should give the complete list of all topics, and indicate which people from which areas mention which topics from which type of source.

Topic Categories

To do this, we subjected all 198 passages in which people refer to other sources to further topical analysis and isolated the few (macro)propositions that summarize such passages. Next, we classified these propositions (totaling 228) according to categories such as overall negative or positive opinions or facts about ethnic groups, crime, cultural differences, socioeconomic resentment,

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and perceived competition (such as "they take ourjobs, houses, and live on welfare"), and topics such as discrimination and racism. Table 3.1 gives a list of such categories and their frequencies in the passages about communicative events.

The first obvious conclusion from the topic frequencies usted in Table 3.1 is that most topics are negative. According to the reports of people interviewed, based on what they recall or find most salient in talk or media reports about ethnic groups, most information consists of negative stereotypes.

This may mean that such sources are, in fact, mostly negative, or that people recall negative information more often. It may also be the case that talk about foreigners is itself stereotypically associated with negative topics. If that should be true, people recall that such conversations or media messages were (mostly) negative just because they know that people generally say negative things about ethnic groups. This would be possible for vague and general references to talk and the media, but hardly for specific communicative events or their contents. For all mentions of negative communication however, it is not likely that they would be the result of a prejudice against one's own in-group. Therefore, we may assume that such mentions may derive from generalizations based on experience. On the other hand, as "others" are very often attributed with negative opinions, some of the negative source evaluations may also be interpreted as a move of a positive self-presentation strategy.

Table 3.1 shows that the well-known prejudiced views about ethnic groups dominate. In fact, most topics are also featured on the list of stereotypical topics discussed in Chapter 2. In other words, there is convergence between overall topics of discourse and those attributed to other sources. Topics 4 to 6 (out of a total of 57) cover the resentment against assumed socioeconomic cheating and being favored in housing and employment, as well as the usual complaints about cultural differences and neighborly harassment. Together with crime and aggression, they constitute 102 (45 %) of the 228 topics mentioned. Because the mean prejudice score for people who mention these topics is approximately the same as the overall prejudice means, these topics are apparently mentioned by various kinds of people, both in highand in low-contact areas, including people who disagree with these stereotypes.

Most frequent as a single topic is that of the assumed crime, aggression, or threat attributed to foreigners. Many of the crime and aggression topics are attributed to the media, and we have commented on the role of the media in crime reporting in the previous section. Apparently, the crime topic is mentioned especially by people with a relatively high prejudice score. The same is true for people who mention various segre-

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TABLE 3.1: Topics of Talk and Media References and Their Frequencies (numbers between parentheses: mean prejudice score of people who mention this topic)

gation topics, such as "they should stay on their own," "they should leave the country," or "we don't want them as neighbors or in this ares," as well as for people who deny or belittle racism in the country. Also, some of the other topics are typically mentioned by people with higher prejudice scores, such as the topic that Dutch people do not dare to speak up against ethnic groups.

The frequent negative stereotypes are partially balanced by the more positive topic of discrimination and racism, that is, a topic that expresses criticism of people in the in-group. This topic comes up especially in references to the media, mostly in low-contact areas. As may be expected, the prejudice score for people who mention this topic is lower than the mean (2.9). This is also the case for the "blaming the victim" topic that foreigners are the cause of the economic recession, but that topic is predominantly mentioned in a critical context. There are only a few topics that are generally positive about ethnic groups, but the mean prejudice score for people who mention these topics suggests that they are often reacted to negatively. Overall, the more positive or critical topics attributed to other people or the media constitute only about 20 % of al! topics.

Although the majority of the topics referred to are negative, people sometimes react to them critically, but we have seen earlier that this happens only in 18 of 198 passages. In only 37 passages do people have opinions that are not in agreement with the negative facts as reported (a figure that might be compared with the 38 people who score 1 or 2 on the prejudice scale). The majority of the passages show agreement (58), a neutral reaction, or no reaction (114).

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Concluding this general analysis of topics mentioned in references to communicative events about ethnic minorities, we find that such attributed source topics are predominantly negative and stereotypical. Crime and perceived socioeconomic and cultural conflicts account for a large part of the topics, although the theme of discrimination is also mentioned often. We assumed that people either correctly generalize about such communications as being prejudiced and as portraying minorities negatively, or that they have a stereotypical picture (and, hence, selective memory) of such communications as being negative a priori. Positive and critical topics are mentioned much less, and it was assumed that they might be practically absent in everyday talk. Except for normative generalizations and the generally known occurrence of discrimination, there is no standard way of communicating more positively about ethnic groups or ethnic relations. Because many people either agree with the negative facts or opinions, or do not react to them critically, we may finally assume that in communications about ethnic groups, the negative points of view dominate, and this is also how most people represent and recall such communications.

Media or Personal Communication?

With a number of factors, it is interesting to investigate whether they correlate with topics mentioned in references to communication sources. A primary factor is, of course, the nature of the source itself: What topics tend to be reproduced from the media, and which ones are attributed to personal communication? Such an analysis may give us the necessary clues that might indicate the nature of the reproduction or persuasion process. Do some topics come up in media communications especially or rather in personal talk? We assumed earlier that conversations take many topics from the media, especially those that are not based on people's everyday experiences. This means that there is no unique source for topics. At most, we can hope to trace some tendencies, such as where certain topics come up first, where given topics dominate, or, even more importantly, where people themselves think certain topics and issues come from. In the analysis of our data, it is this last dimension of the reproduction process that is most relevant to us. For instance, if topics have been discussed specifically in everyday talk but people attribute them to the media, this must have a reason, which may notjust be bad or biased memory, but may have to do with the social relevance, credibility, and presentability of topics and their reproduction in talk.

Table 3.2 shows whether some topics are attributed to the media or to personal sources. Among the media source, we differentiate between

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general references to "the media," the newspaper, or TV. The "other" media sources are the radio, books, magazines, textbooks, and leaflets. For the personal sources, we distinguish between different types of personal communication, depending on the (closeness of) participants. PC! is "personal communication distance 1," which denotes talk with family members; PC2 refers to talk with friends; PC3 with acquaintances and colleagues; PC4 with neighbors; PC5 with unidentified people in the neighborhood and strangers; PC6 with just "other people" in general; and, PC7 with the authorities. In a few cases, people also mention ethnic minorities themselves as a source. We have grouped PC>4 together as "distant contacts," mostly represented by a vague reference to other people. As may be expected, there are few personal communication contacts with the authorities (as such, there are one or two references to talk with policemen), and in four cases people refer to communications with ethnic minority group members.

Although for many cells in Table 3.2, the absolute numbers are too small to make reliable conclusions, they nevertheless give us an impression about the sources of some major topics. The "general negative" topic apparently is attributed to the press, television, and to talk of unspecified others. Typical expressions are "you hear and read so many negative things about foreigners," or "they write terrible things about them in the paper." With this topic, apparently, the source indication is also general and vague. Crime and aggression are topics that are attributed mostly to the press (and much less to TV), and to talk in the family, the neighborhood, and with "others." It is thus both a general and distant topic of talk: It is attributed to the media but is also a topic that is discussed in everyday conversations with family members and neighbors. The mundane problems of everyday interethnic perception and contacts, represented by topics 4, 5, and 6, are apparently partially drawn from the press and television, but obviously are more often discussed in the family, with acquaintances, and in the neighborhood, as may be expected for such typical everyday conflicts, biased perceptions, and prejudices. Discrimination and racism, as we have argued before, are typical media topics. Indeed, in this case the notion of the media in general as a source indication is used relatively often. It is hardly a topic that comes up in everyday talk, that is, according to what people indicate. At most it is mentioned by people in general: "People (they) say that foreigners (they) are being discriminated against, (but)..."

A remarkable fact that might be concluded from Table 3.2 is that people hardly ever refer to friends as a source. This might be a terminological effect: The interviewed may simply refer to friends as "people they know," but, in general, we may assume that "ethnic affairs" is something talked about in the family or in the neighborhood, or what one hears from unspecified "others." This would also explain why several people

TABLE 3.2: Topic Sources

indicate that they do not actually discuss the topic explicitly with friends (who may well live outside the neighborhood), but rather with (nuclear) family members and other people in the neighborhood.

The prejudice levels associated with the passages that yield the media references in Table 3.2 center on a mean of 3.3, again with a strong area effect: In high-contact areas, prejudice levels of people referring to the media is rather high (4.2 for the press and 5.3 for TV). The same holds for topics mentioned. Yet, reference to the crime topic (especially as reported in the press) is made generally by people with higher prejudice scores (a mean of 4.0), whereas for people who refer to the discrimination topic, it is generally low (below 3.0), especially for references to the media in general and to the press (there are somewhat more, or more, prejudiced people who resent discussion of discrimination on TV). Similar prejudice differences hold for people mentioning topics from personal communication: The highest score (4.3) is for people who refer to personal communications about crime, and the lowest score (3.2) is for references to personal communications about discrimination. Here, too, there are substantial differences between personal communication references in high- (4.2) and low-contact (3.2) areas. In general, the prejudice level drops with increasing communication distance: Most prejudiced are people who refer to (any topic from) talk in the family. Talk about crime in the family is mentioned by interviewees who score a mean of 5.2. This suggests that source, topic selection, and recall may be associated with ethnic attitude: As may be expected, people with high prejudice levels tend to mention the most negative characteristics of ethnic groups.

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Clarification of the Different

Types of Figures Used

A brief clarification about the various figures used in the tables in this and other sections is in order. It may be recalled that data from 143 interviewed persons are given. From these interviews, 198 passages that contained references to communications about ethnic groups have been isolated. These passages together expressed 228 topics (the same topics several times, of course), which were classified in 20 categories, whereas in six cases, a source reference was just general and did not mention an identifiable topic. Associated with these topics, we now find 236 references to sources, which means that, in some cases, both personal sources and media are indicated for the same topic. Because the 100 references to the media were made in 78 passages, it may also be the case that people refer to several media at the same time, as we have seen in our examples of the previous section. In other words, our various counts pertain to (a) interviewed persons, (b) communication passages (often several for one person, sometimes none for one person), (c) topics mentioned in such passages, and (d) references to or indications of specific source types.

Prejudice scores are primarily associated with interviewees, of course, but in this section they also carry over to the passages in which communicative events are mentioned. That is, if one person refers to several communicative events, each of these passages is associated with the prejudice score of the speaker. It follows that higher prejudice averages may also be caused by the higher amounts of (negative) passages of highly prejudiced persons (and the converse for lower prejudice scores). In this way, we capture the general incidence of prejudice in communication: It may be based on the level of prejudice of the speakers and/or on the amount of prejudiced communications (reproductions) of those speakers.

Variations in Source References

Before we continue with the variations among people in their topic mentions, let us briefly analyze the overall differences between the various source types (media or personal communication) as they are related to some traditional demographic properties of the people interviewed (we return to these social backgrounds of prejudice in communication in Chapter 6). There might be age, gender, area, occupation, or educatíon differences in source uses. It was already suggested that the combination of area and occupation may explain more reliance on the media (or on the press), for instance. Similarly, young

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and old people, men and wornen, may have different communication patterns, and these might also account for differences in their (reference to or reliance on) different communication sources when information about ethnic groups is involved.

In Table 3.3, we have usted some of the relevant figures for the respective source types. Again, some of the cells feature low absolute numbers, so that merely some hypothetical tendencies may be observed. (Recall that the same "source passage" may feature several references to specific sources.)

If we take area first, we find that in the low-contact areas, much less reference is made to the media than in high-contact areas. Personal communication is more frequent as a source in both highand low-contact areas, but in high-contact areas, it forros 78 % of all source references and in low-contact areas, it is 55 % of all source references. This is, of course, hardly surprising because people in low-contact areas do not have many other sources than the media for their information about ethnic groups. Several interviews explicitly express this fact and indícate that people in the neighborhood do not talk about ethnic groups very much. For personal sources, there is a tendency in the high-contact areas toward sources such as family, acquaintances, neighbors, and others. In the low-contact areas, people tend to refer especially to information from friends.

There are not many striking differences in media uses between men and wornen. We had earlier found that wornen tend to talk about sources more often than roen (women who are 55 % of the interviewed provide 63 % of the passages that refer to communication sources). Comparatively, roen refer to TV sornewhat more often. The differences appear rather in personal communications: Wornen more often refer to family sources (typically their husband or children), and sornewhat more often to acquaintances, whereas roen rely more on friends as a source.

As far as age differences are concerned, we must first recall that we have many more passages from people 50 years old and over than by young people under 30. In comparison, the younger people generally refer to the media more often, but hardly mention TV as a source. For personal contacts, the older people mostly refer to family members, to neighbors, and people in general. The younger people tend to favor friends as a source. This pattern is sornewhat similar to the one observed aboye for roen and wornen.

For the few data we have about job (and, hence, education) differences, the tendency is again that high-skill job people refer less to their own family, friends, or neighbors as sources than the people with low-skill jobs. They refer more often to acquaintances or colleagues or to people in general. These figures, however, are, of course, partly dependent