Page - 201 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Kenneth Starck | Perpetuating Prejudice 201 say that suicide bombing in the defense of Islam might be justifiable. While 78 percent of respondents said suicide bombings against civilian targets could never be justified, 13 percent disagreed – and the margin of error for this subgroup was plus or minus 10 percentage points. As the ombudsman pointed out, such decisions often come down to what is news and what is sensationa- lism (Parry 2007). Too often, sensationalism prevails. Assuming U.S. media could do better, the question is how? Both media and their audiences have roles to play. One of the basic roles of media, most especially in a society supportive of free speech, is to provide a means for individuals and groups in the community to carry on a dialogue. That is, media can serve as a conversational conduit for diverse communities. For example, a study of opinion discourse (editorials, letters to the editor, op-ed articles) in U.S. newspapers during the Iraq war suggested the “conversation” helped Arab Americans to “negotiate” their national identity during a time of crisis (Youssef 2005). She identified three main themes in the discourse. Though the author suggested findings should be considered preliminary, each theme throws a little light on the matter of ethnicity and media in the U.S. The first suggested what may be obvious, namely, that the term “American” stands for a multi-layered identity. The second theme was that in discussions of current issues references to past experiences (e.g., internment of Japanese Americans during World War II) were seen as relevant. Third, belief in “American” values defined what it was to be “American.” Lester (2000) pointed out that members of a multicultural society often become stigmatized because they are unable to understand and communicate in the symbols of the dominant culture. The effect is compounded when media professionals do not represent the diverse cultural groups. In the United States, according to Lester, only 5.8 percent of all media personnel identify themselves as members of another culture (e.g., Irish, German, Latino, etc.). No such data appear to exist for Arab media personnel in the U.S. Yet it is generally agreed that a communicator’s background, including cultural, cannot help but influence perceptions of events and affect interpretation of those events. Though Russell and Kelly (2003) were not studying culture in the sense we are using the concept here (they were studying homosexuality as a cultural phenomenon), their examination of what they call “subtle stereotyping” by media is instructive. Their research provides insights into media treatment of any group, cultural or otherwise. They studied the Boston Globe’s 2002 coverage of the priests caught up in a sexual abuse scandal and how the newspaper sometimes erroneously linked gay sexual orientation to child sexual abuse. In the interests of fairer and more accurate reporting, they offered a