Page - 149 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Augie Fleras | Ethnic and Aboriginal Media in Canada 149 target a specific ethnic minority. However intuitive such a divide, difficulties abound. Where exactly do mainstream media end and ethnic media begin? To the extent that aboriginal and ethnic media are more mainstream than many think, whereas mainstream media are more ‘ethnic’ than often thought, the distinction dissolves. Consider the seemingly counterintuitive possibility that mainstream media may be interpreted as ethnic media in servicing the interests of a white constituency: All mass media content could be analyzed from the experience of what is revealed about ethnicity. The New York Times, for example, could be read as an ethnic newspaper, although it is not explicitly or consciously so. (Riggins 1992:2) The consequences of this ‘inversion’ are revelatory. In reminding us that all newsmedia are ethnically located whether conscious of this placement or not, media institutions and texts are neither neutral nor value-free but encoded in a fundamentally racialized (or ethnicized) way. Inasmuch as mainstream media are owned and controlled by corporate interests, they are organized by, for, and around ‘white’ experiences, realities, and priorities (Jiwani 2006). However unintended or incidental, content is designed to promote and normalize Eurocentric norms, while alternative discourses are discredited as inferior or irrelevant. This Eurocentric whiteness not only serves as the normative standard by which others are judged, evaluated, and criticized. The Eurocentrism that is embedded within institutional structures, processes, and outcomes also generates a ‘palemale’ gaze that tends to project fantasies or fears upon racialized others. Admittedly, media decision-makers and gatekeepers may not be consciously biased toward non whites. Nevertheless, they unconsciously frame their narratives in a way that selects, highlights, and imposes a preferred way of seeing and thinking. The end result? Whites and non whites stand in a different relationship to mainstream media: Whites see themselves painted into the picture as normal or superior, whereas minorities find themselves racialized by Eurocentric discourses that demean, deny, and diminish. Under the circumstances who can be surprised by the success and popularity of ethnic and aboriginal media? Parallels between ethnic and mainstream newsmedia are unmistakable: Both serve the information needs of their primary consumers and advertising demographic (serve the people). Each is tribal in orientation, must target a specific audience, rely on advertising and subscription base for survival, and must adjust their content accordingly. But even if mainstream media can be conceptualized as ethnic media, the parallel breaks down because of a major difference - power. But unlike ethnic media which are relatively powerless