Page - 121 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Souley Hassane | Mainstream Media vs. Ethnic Minority Media 121 3. Contradictory paradigms and functions A major problem related to the dominant media in France has to do not only with their method of producing information, but also with their culture of class and of complicity. These two aspects significantly attribute a fixed role in the media to each component of society. More precisely, there is a specific way of speaking of Arabs and blacks on the radio, on television and in the press. Any “normal” treatment is therefore practically impossible because of the petrified image of the “Other” and the underlying ideology. The leader of a Parisian group in an impoverished neighborhood stated in front of journalists and researchers: “Whenever I watch television, I look to see in which distorting light we will be shown this time, to see how they will treat the information on the poor areas, our neighborhoods and the people that live in them.” This statement demonstrates the discontent with how these populations and neighborhoods are treated as topics of information. Many people from these areas recall one or more broadcasts in which Arabs and blacks were shown in a negative light, confined to specific, predefined roles by the newsmaker journalists. Apparently, a class culture maintains in which the mainstream media produce information which is advantageous to the dominant group. Information disseminated in Le Figaro, l’Express or Le Point typically depicts Arabs as “suspicious, violent, terrorist and macho”, while blacks are often portrayed as “illegal aliens”, as dancers, or as being athletic and corrupted by economic misery. Such reductionism leads to the stigmatization of individuals. The prevailing atmosphere associated with these people reveals a sense of anxiety. The media speak of “youth”, of “the neighborhoods”, the “susceptible areas”, “the dwellers of troubled areas”, of “bands”, of “young Muslims” of “fanatics” and of “fundamentalists”. In other words, the context is one of problems for the dominant society. There is even more cause for concern, as these people are spoken of as bodies foreign to the society at large. Whenever the media relates negative news events, it is responsive to these paradigms of production and uses them for its aims. The wording and staging of news events is not only a technical procedure, but is also always ideologically and politically oriented. Composing information clearly consists in examining and disseminating locations, in attributing values and significance, and in sending messages. None of these operations is neutral; they are profoundly ideological and, indeed, prone to being ideologized. When Nicolas Sarkozy speaks of “scum” and of “karcher” (highly pressurized water pistols), such vocabulary promotes the sale of newspapers. The media’s perpetual quest for show and sensation zeroes in on the political spectacle of the candidate. Media communication has become an irreplaceable political tool in a country