by Charles Ungerleider
Canadian Ethnic Studies, Vol. XXIII, No. 3,1991
Republished with permission

Abstract

This paper focuses on the mechanisms which are used to create and sustain the images we have of minorities, explaining how and why the media represent minorities as they do. It addresses four assertions about Canadian news media: what Canadians think about minorities is influenced by the media to which Canadians are exposed; the relative importance attached to the needs and interests of minorities is affected by their inclusion and location in a broadcast, newspaper, or newsmagazine; in general, minorities are under-represented among the newsmakers, experts, and citizens presented by the news media; and when they receive attention by the media, minorities are more apt to be portrayed as villains and victims than as newsmakers, experts, or citizens reacting to contemporary events.

Introduction

During recent years, the literature devoted to the media portrayal of minorities has attempted to address the under-representation of minorities in mass media advertising and as principal players in dramatic programming; the distorted and often stereotypical representations of minorities when they do appear or are portrayed; and the under-representation of minorities as domestic newsmakers, as experts commenting about contemporary affairs, and as citizens reacting to contemporary events. This paper addresses four assertions about Canadian news media:

1. What Canadians think about minorities is influenced by the media to which Canadians are exposed.
2. The relative importance attached to the needs and interests of minorities is affected by their inclusion and location in a broadcast, newspaper, or newsmagazine.
3. In general, minorities are under-represented among the newsmakers, experts, and citizens presented by the news media.
4. When they receive attention by the media, minorities are more apt to be portrayed as villains and victims than as newsmakers, experts, or citizens reacting to contemporary events.

This paper focuses on the mechanisms which are used to create and sustain the images we have of minorities, explaining how and why the media represent minorities as they do.

News, to paraphrase Trina McQueen, the former executive producer of The National, is where you have a crew and equipment. What gets counted as news in our society is information and events which are accessible to the expensive apparatus of news gathering and dissemination. Most news media deploy their personnel to locations where they anticipate news will be made. Among the most prominent locations are the centres of political and economic power. These, too, are the places where minorities are most under-represented.

Governments are the main purveyors of news. That is, not only do governments figure prominently in the news, they are also the major manufacturers and distributors of information that gets codified as news. Because investigative techniques are costly and the possibilities for error and misjudgment increase in ambiguous situations - especially when the clock is ticking - most major news media rely heavily on the information made available by, and attributable to, government sources. Government provides a steady flow of safe information, at least safe in the sense that it can be attributed to sources which people typically find credible.

Two assumptions reinforce the media's dependence upon government and governmental sources for news. The first is the assumption that those who exercise authority in political, economic or social institutions may speak authoritatively about issues and events. The second is the related assumption that people who occupy the topmost positions in the institution are more authoritative than those below them. (Sigel, 1986)

To a slightly lesser, but still significant, extent, the centres of economic power prove to be easily accessible centres for information that also gets codified as news. Major corporations and financial institutions are both sources of news and major manufacturers and distributors of news.

Thus, the main sources of news in our society - the centres of political and economic power - are also the institutions in which minorities are significantly under-represented. Like the historians who confined their views of the past to the events in which nobility and monarchy were involved, the contemporary news media define as news those events in which a relatively small elite of white AngloCeltic males play prominent roles. In other words, what counts as news - elite politics and business - is primarily the province of this statistically declining segment of the population.

Two mechanisms contributing to the under-representation of minorities in the media are "pack" and "copy cat" journalism. In decisions about which issues will and will not be addressed by the media, the media themselves figure prominently. Most newsrooms monitor closely what issues are being addressed by other electronic and print media agencies. And, given the expense of news gathering on tight timelines, the media are often in the position of disseminating information gathered by other news media. To secure themselves from failing to report an important story covered by a media rival, those who gather the news travel in packs, following those whom they regard as major newsmakers. (Sigel, 1986)

Another mechanism contributing to the misperception of minorities by the media is the narrative structure of news content. In our society, information that counts as news is typically constructed into a narrative or story structure. The narrative structure of the news casts people as heroes, villains, and victims; issues are framed as conflicts between opposing forces with one of the forces often cast in the role of hero and the other of villain. Sometimes the story involves one or more victims. When the news item involves minorities, they more frequently fall into the categories of villain and victim than the category of hero. A narrative structure creates unity among events separated by time and space, implies intentionality to the actions of the participants involved in the events beyond that which they may have had, and creates the impression that the separate events share a common "meaning" - thus providing a single interpretation to the many events (Manoff, 1988). Interpretations which are repeated with frequency become accepted understandings among those to whom alternative interpretations are not evident. (Hallin, 1988)

The rise in housing prices in Vancouver is one of a number of issues that were combined in stories involving minorities that cast a minority group - immigrants from Hong Kong - in the role of villain. By linking emigration from Hong Kong and the rising housing prices in Vancouver in a narrative structure, the media provided a single, easily understood interpretation to the increase in housing prices. Rather than address the issue of the many factors affecting competition for scarce housing, the media chose to cast the story in a narrative framework that pit wealthy, Hong Kong immigrants against resident Canadians. (Bula, 1989)

As another example, in 1988 and 1989, the media in Vancouver gave attention to criminal activity among members of youth gangs. The coverage left readers and viewers with several erroneous impressions. The coverage implied that only Asians belonged to the youth gangs; that a large proportion of immigrant youth were involved in the gangs; and that the safety of the entire community was at stake. A more accurate picture was that, as a proportion of the youthful population - even the population of immigrant youth - gang members were a very tiny segment; that Asians were only one of several groups involved in gang activity; and that the victims of crime were most likely to have the same backgrounds as the perpetrators.

In summary, the three mechanisms that are frequently responsible for the way minorities are represented are: the reliance on government and corporations as sources of news, "pack" and "copy cat" journalism, and the presentation of news in narrative form with conflicts involving heroes, villains, and victims. How do the under and misrepresentation of minorities square with the underlying ideology of Canadian journalism? Journalistic ideology proclaims three principal tenets: independence, balance, and objectivity. Journalists believe that their work should be balanced in the sense of presenting information without favour to any particular position, party, or interest. The last tenet - objectivity - refers to the belief that journalists should simply present the facts without passing judgement on them.

To a great extent Canadian journalism realizes the standards of its own ideology. How, then, can one make the above claims about the presentation of minorities? How can journalists be independent, balanced, and objective, on the one hand, and under-represent and misrepresent minorities on the other? The answer is that "journalism, like any other storytelling activity is a form of fiction operating out of its own conventions and understandings and within its own set of sociological, ideological, and literary constraints" (Manoff & Schudson, 1988, p.6).

The ideology within which Canadian journalists operate exists within a broader, primarily unquestioned, ideology that is not neutral. This ideology celebrates the existing social order and the values it places on individualism, corporate and entrepreneurial capitalism, and politics not of the people but of elites.

Though neither fair nor accurate, the portrayal of minorities by the media is a faithful representation of the way the opinion leaders think about minorities and the way the opinion leaders would like us - including the minorities themselves - to think about minorities. The existence of minorities in Canadian society has always threatened and continues to threaten the "traditional" distribution of power, economic resources, and prestige. In other words, the presence of minorities with potentially competing needs and interests is threatening to established interests and the usual ways of doing things.

An article in The Globe and Mail presents a particularly clear example of the operation of this ideology. The article described some of the educational changes taking place in B.C. which focus on the Pacific Rim. According to the article, this emphasis on the Pacific Rim was prompted by the economic orientation of the Social Credit government and directed by the former Deputy Minister of Education A.L. (Sandy) Peel, an economist. The article read in part:

Mr. Peel said the flood of immigrants from Asia hastened the province's involvement in the Pacific. "We just simply had to recognize the reality of the Asia Pacific area and get on with it." With that wave of immigration came a new emphasis in education on the traditional values of Canada. "We have had to take a very strong position with respect to multiculturalism and racism," Mr. Peel said. Most immigrants "don't understand the system of fair play that we have that reflects a British/European background. "We deliberately wrote into the School Act requirements for regulations to deal with the history of our institutions and why we do things the way we do. We're having to take an extra focus on what was taken for granted two decades ago.
(French, 1989; p. A2)

One can see from Peel's remarks the extent to which established interests will go to secure themselves from the threat posed by new and different interests.

The threat to the existing distribution of political, social, and economic power posed by minorities is real. For example, over the past 100 years the relative and absolute differences in education and income between Protestant English Canadians and the members of most other groups have been slowly disappearing, though they are by no means completely gone.

In so far as Canada has maintained its connections with its British heritage, it has maintained traditions abhorrent of social and cultural diversity. In other words, intolerance of cultural and social diversity is built into the fabric of Canadian social life and to a great extent into the attitudes and behaviors of those who have been socialized by the dominant agencies of socialization - schools and the media.

There is a general reluctance to see and accept diversity. First, diversity threatens the existing distribution of political and economic power and prestige. Second, diversity often implies different needs, motives and desires; diversity is costly; diversity represents a segmented market to which different appeals and "products" - including cultural products - must be developed.

What roles do the media play in the denial of diversity? The principal purpose of the media is to deliver large, preferably homogeneous audiences to advertisers. Indeed, the media are themselves enormous and enormously profitable corporate entities with strong interests in maintaining "our way of life."

This is not to suggest that the media are part of a conscious conspiracy to deny diversity, nor even to suggest the existence of a conspiracy. None is needed. The media, like other corporate interests, are animated primarily by a concern for profits. They do not need to use coercion to ensure that their point of view, their social values, and their interests will be maintained. The denial of diversity is accomplished without overt control. It is achieved by employing people who subscribe to many of the same values as those who own the media. Advancement in media organizations is similar to advancement in other organizations, opportunities befall individuals who manifest values and behavior consonant with the values of the employer. Diversity is denied by self-censorship rather than overt social or economic pressure.

A factor which intensifies these processes I have described is the concentration of media ownership in Canada (Eamon, 1987). In fact, the concentration of media ownership in Canada is unsurpassed by any other democratic nation. The patterns include vertical integration, multiple media ownership in single markets, and media conglomerates. Concern has been repeatedly expressed about media concentration in Canadian society. The Davey (Canada, 1970), Bryce (Canada, 1978), and Kent (Canada, 1981) Commissions each expressed concern about the dangers posed to democracy and freedom of speech by the corporate concentration of media ownership. (cf. Bartley, 1988) The 1986 Report of the Task Force on Broadcasting echoed similar sentiments, saying:

...there is a growing number of large companies with holdings in several media at the national level, such as Southam and MacLean Hunter.... their strength and influence have resulted in public concern that a few media companies will exercise too pervasive and powerful an influence on media expression in Canada and on public opinion. (Canada, 1986; p.642)

In recent years, the impact of the monopoly of media ownership and the pressure to increase the profitability of the media have resulted in the increasingly blurred distinction between the editorial and circulation functions of newspapers. During much of this century, the editorial and circulation divisions of urban daily newspapers maintained relative independence. In recent years however, preoccupation with the demands for increased profitability has resulted in the establishment of committees, made up of editorial and circulation personnel, who are responsible for finding ways to improve circulation and profitability.

The pressure for profitability leads assignment editors and reporters to present "news that sells." News that sells involves the use of dramatic forms with intense conflicts and easy characterizations which celebrate the individual, critically extol corporate and entrepreneurial capitalism, and reinforce elite politics. In the reports of news media about these topics, minorities do not figure prominently, if at all.

Conclusion

The under-representation and mis-representation of minorities by news media are not accidental. They are the product of the convergence of the mechanics of news gathering and dissemination with the desire of those in positions of influence to maintain their privileged positions. The under and mis-representation of minorities is, thus, one mechanism for maintaining social, political and economic inequality. Social justice in a liberal, democratic society demands that people's access to, or representation by, the news media is not constrained by such factors as their sex, ethnicity, religion, ancestry or skin colour.  

References

Bantley, A. (1988) The regulation of cross-ownership: The life and short times of PCO. The Canadian Journal of Communication 13(2), 45-59.
Bula, F. (Spring, 1989) Asian money in BC racism and real estate: getting the real story. Bulletin, Number 38, 9-13.
Canada  (1970) Special Senate Committee on Mass Media: The uncertain mirror. Ottawa: Queens Printer.
Canada  (1978) Royal Commission on Corporate Concentration. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada.
Canada  (1986) Report of the Task Force on Broadcasting Policy Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, p. 642.
Eamon, R.A.  (1987) The Media Society: Basic issues and controversies. Toronto: Butterworths.
French, O. (October 10, 1989) BC teaching its students to think Pacific Rim. The Globe and Mail. A1-A2.
Hallin, D.C.  (1988) Cartography, community and the cold war. In Manoff, R.K. and M Schudson (Eds) Reading the News. New York: Pantheon Books
Manoff, R.K.  (1986) Writing the news. In Manoff, R.K. and M Schudson (Eds) Reading the News. New York: Pantheon Books, 197-229.
Sigel, L.V.  (1986) Sources make the news. In Manoff, R.K. and M Schudson (Eds) Reading the News. New York: Pantheon Books, 9-37.

Charles Ungerleider is Associate Dean (Teacher Education) at the University of British Columbia.