Media and Minorities

Georg Ruhrmann / Yasemin Shooman / Peter Widmann (eds.) 

Media and Minorities 

Questions on Representation 

from an International Perspective

© 2016, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen 

ISBN Print: 9783525300886 — ISBN E-Book: 9783666300882

Schriften des Jüdischen Museums Berlin 

Band 4 



Media and Minorities 

Questions on Representation from 

an International Perspective 

Edited by Georg Ruhrmann, 

Yasemin Shooman and Peter Widmann 

on behalf of the Jewish Museum Berlin 

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 



Mit 21 Abbildungen 

Aus dem Deutschen übertragen von: 

Adam Blauhut (Einleitung, Shion Kumai, Peter Widmann) 

Allison Brown (Yasemin Shooman, Georg Ruhrmann) 

Naomi Shulman (Daniel Wildmann) 

Kate Sturge (Christel Gärtner) 

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Inhalt 

Introduction 

Georg Ruhrmann, Yasemin Shooman, Peter Widmann 

Introduction. 

The Media as Agents and Objects of Social Change 

in Immigration Societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 


Einleitung. 

Medien als Moment und Objekt sozialen Wandels 

in Einwanderungsgesellschaften . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 

Chapter 1: Media Production and Institutional Structures 

Augie Fleras 

Theorizing Minority Misrepresentations. 

Reframing Mainstream Newsmedia as if White Ethnic Media . . . . . . 21 

Anamik Saha 

From the Politics of Representation to the Politics of Production . . . . . 39 

Sally Lehrman 

Creating an Inclusive Public Commons. 

Values and Structures in Journalism that Can Promote Change . . . . . . 50 

Christel Gärtner 

Religion and the Opinion Makers. 

Views of Religion among Elite Journalists in Germany . . . . . . . . . . . 68 

Chapter 2: Media Representation and Stereotyping of Minorities 

Daniel Wildmann 

German Television Crime Films and German Emotions. 

Jews in Tatort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 



6 Inhalt 

Evelyn Alsultany 

Arabs and Muslims in the U. S.-American Media Before and After 9/11 . . 104 

Charlton McIlwain 

Criminal Blackness. 

News Coverage of Black Male Victims from Rodney King to Michael Brown 118 

Yasemin Shooman 

Between Everyday Racism and Conspiracy Theories. 

Islamophobia on the German-Language Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 

Chapter 3: Media Content and Its Effect 

Peter Widmann 

Stereotypes, Sound Bites, and Campaign Strategies. 

The Interaction between Politicians and Journalists in 

the German Debate on Roma from Southeastern Europe . . . . . . . . . . 159 

Georg Ruhrmann 

Integration in the Media. 

Between Science, Policy Consulting, and Journalism . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 

Tyler Reny, Sylvia Manzano 

The Negative Effects of Mass Media Stereotypes of Latinos and Immigrants 195 

Chapter 4: Media Use and Strategies 

for a More Inclusive Media Landscape 

Shion Kumai 

Paths to Greater Diversity in the Media. 

Obstacles and Opportunities for Journalistic Practice 

in Reporting on Migration Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 

Shion Kumai 

Wege zu mehr Vielfalt in den Medien. 

Hindernisse und Möglichkeiten für die journalistische Praxis 

in der Berichterstattung über Migrationsthemen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 








Introduction 

The Media as Agents and Objects of Social Change 

in Immigration Societies 

The mass media have long been recognized as important agents in political 

and social life. Media companies and their professional journalists, editors, 

photographers, and camera people generate the publicness and transparency 

that is crucial for democracy. New roles are also emerging on the Internet: 

Gatekeeping, the journalistic filtering of publishable content, is evolving into 

gatewatching, the online monitoring of interesting material by all users. The 

goal of gate watchers and authors is to make this content (more) public, to 

share it with others, and to comment on and discuss it. 

By setting agendas, the media influence the issues that the public debates 

and to which parliaments and governments frequently respond with laws. At 

the same time, the media create the interpretive frameworks through which 

audiences understand the world. The secondary impressions that the media 

thereby convey are all the more important when viewers, readers, and users 

lack primary experience or direct contact with an issue. This applies, above 

all, to the perception of minorities. 

Since the first half of the twentieth century, media and communication research 

in the United States and in many other countries has provided a wealth 

of empirical studies and theoretical explanations of mass-media content and 

its impact. Central subjects of research include agenda setting, selected interpretive 

frameworks (“framing”), and the effects of reporting on election decisions, 

attitudes, and prejudices. Under the heading “mediatization,” scholars 

have also examined the extent to which media logic changes political institutions 

and processes. 

However, whether as private or public institutions, the media themselves are 

results of the political, social, and economic power relations in society. They 

are thus also subject to changing financial, economic, and labor markets; new 

technologies; the social upheaval caused by globalization and migration; and 

transformations of the political landscape. The press, the broadcasting industry, 

and the Internet are both agents and objects of change. 



10 


Conflicts 

Media representatives are involved in the social, political, and ideological 

conflicts that trigger change. This is particularly evident in societies shaped 

by immigration, whether it took place decades, or centuries, ago or is taking 

place now. In the countries of Europe and North America, which are the focus 

of the essays in this collection, media production is dominated by the 

perspectives and interests of their majority populations, or at least their journalistic 

elites. 

At the same time, criticism of this state of affairs is growing. A younger 

generation of journalists is drawing attention to issues that the mainstream 

media have marginalized. Critical online campaigns such as #AllWhiteFront- 

Pages, alternative online services like MiGAZIN, and alliances such as Neue 

deutsche Medienmacher [New German Media Makers] and Media Diversified 

are challenging the norms of the mainstream, which continues to determine 

the makeup of editorial staffs at established media companies as well as the 

images, reports, and commentaries they produce. 

For these innovators, the Internet is the most important playing field. It 

has made it easier for obscure and previously marginalized voices to be heard. 

However, the Internet has not revolutionized the media landscape. Even online, 

most people in Germany, for example, continue to get their news from 

sites such as Spiegel Online, tagesschau.de, and bild.de, in other words, from 

the digital content of established newspapers and television news programs, 

which are extending their reach through the online channel. The situation is 

no different in many other countries. The same private and public companies 

that dominated national media markets in the decades prior to the rise of the 

World Wide Web determine what is mainstream online today. This is why a 

more inclusive public sphere will emerge not only alongside but through the 

transformation of the large media companies. Nevertheless, as several essays 

in this book argue, alternative campaigns and websites can increase the pressure 

on large institutions to further diversify their editorial staffs and broaden 

their perspectives. 

But there are two sides to communication on the Internet and the freedom 

it provides. While the Internet offers the opportunity to present minority per 

spectives, it offers the same to right-wing extremist and right-wing populist 

groups by enabling them to create a kind of counter-public sphere. It is therefore 

instrumental in spreading racism, antisemitism, and other exclusionary 

ideologies. Such movements that mobilize support online, such as Germany’s 

PEGIDA [Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident], 

pose tremendous challenges for the mainstream media. For, according to 

the supporters of these movements, their coverage is dominated by political 



Introduction 11 

correctness and an excessively benevolent attitude toward minorities. Both 

on the Internet and on the street, these movements promote the view that the 

“lying press” cannot be trusted. The danger for the mass media is that such 

pressure may build to the point that they try to avoid the suspicion of giving 

too much weight to minority views. 

Changes and Obstacles to Change 

Some of the essays in this volume show the limits of simple formulas for 

change. More diverse editorial and production teams, for example, is an important 

step toward the goal of increasing representation and equality. The 

fact is that even in countries with a long tradition of immigration most editorial 

teams are not nearly as diverse as the populations for which they produce 

their content. In Germany, for example, around 20 percent of the population 

has an immigration background, but among journalists only an estimated 

2 to 4 percent do. In addition, these journalists are often automatically given 

responsibility for migration issues, or they are steered away from these issues 

because of their suspected bias. Even if one assumes that people who are 

potentially affected by stereotypes are more sensitive to them than others, the 

question arises whether media production processes are fundamentally influenced 

by journalists’ backgrounds, that is, whether the fact that a scriptwriter 

for a British television series has an Indian background or the news 

editor of a German magazine a Turkish one influences the production processes 

to which either contributes. After all, the sorts of reasoning characteristic 

of media organizations and their editorial teams influence people who 

work on them. 

Journalists, scriptwriters, editors, and directors learn the rules of their trade 

in training programs, from colleagues, and in the face of market pressures. 

They gain an instinctive understanding of what sells a product. They look for 

stories with clear confrontations. Drama and danger attract attention. Stereotypes 

are well suited to this purpose whether they are negative, such as the 

criminal Black, the freeloading Roma, the outcast Jew, the violent Muslim terrorist, 

or the lazy southern European, or seemingly positive, such as the Indian 

dancer in a Bollywood film. 



12 


The Critical Perspective 

The first step toward changing the production processes in large institutions 

is to analyze them. The willingness to engage in self-reflection varies 

among journalists and editors. Even today, many journalists, even senior editors, 

do not take much interest in the current state of media and communication 

research or in the criticism voiced by minority organizations. They claim 

that they just hold a mirror up to reality and leave it to the public to form its 

opinion. The belief that reporting is objective if journalists are free of political 

control and stick to the rules of their trade continues to be popular in the 

profession. 

Many media professionals ignore the fact that every text, image, and film 

sequence they produce is a result of a construction and selection process, that 

is to say, of a more or less conscious selection of a perspective. Indeed, according 

to communication theory, every newspaper article, news site text, press 

photo, and television news report is a staging of reality, even if the message is 

not made up and journalists do their best to keep their political views out of 

their presentation of the facts. Whatever our theoretical, empirical, or practical 

assessment of journalistic autonomy, journalists should at least be conscious 

of the inevitable steps in the production process and deal with them 

transparently. Social integration can be supported if media coverage is topical, 

presents multiple perspectives, and if the media are careful to avoid the 

stigmatizing and discriminatory stereotyping of minorities. A critical view is 

the prerequisite for a discussion of the extent to which media agendas become 

majority agendas and media “frames” become majority “frames.” 

The present volume is the result of an international conference organized 

by the Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin in cooperation with the Council 

on Migration. Special thanks go to Betul Yilmaz, who was instrumental 

in organizing the conference and liaising with its speakers. We would also 

like to thank Angelika Königseder, who coordinated the production of this 

publication and edited all of the German contributions; Greg Sax, the editor 

of the English texts; and the translators Adam Blauhut, Allison Brown, 

Naomi Shulman, and Kate Sturge. Finally, we owe a debt of gratitude to 

Christine Marth and Marie Naumann of the publications department of the 

Jewish Museum Berlin, who are in charge of the series in which this work is 

published. 

Jena, Berlin, and Marburg, November 2015 




Einleitung 

Medien als Moment und Objekt sozialen Wandels 

in Einwanderungsgesellschaften 

Massenmedien sind wichtige Akteure im politischen und gesellschaftlichen 

Leben – das ist eine alte Einsicht. Professionelle Journalist*innen und Redaktionsleiter*innen, 

Medienunternehmen, Fotograf*innen und Kameraleute 

stellen die Öffentlichkeit her, von der die Demokratie lebt. Und im social web 

haben sich neue Positionen herausgebildet: Das Gatekeeping, also die journalistische 

Kontrolle über zu veröffentlichende Inhalte, wandelt sich zum 

Gatewatching, der für alle User*innen offenen Beobachtung interessanter Materialien 

im Netz mit dem Ziel, sie öffentlich(er) zu machen, mit anderen zu 

teilen, zu diskutieren und zu kommentieren. 

Medien beeinflussen mit ihrem Agenda Setting die Themen, welche die 

Bevölkerung bewegen und auf die Parlamente und Regierungen häufig mit 

Gesetzen und Maßnahmen antworten. Sie schaffen zugleich die Interpretationsrahmen, 

mit denen Menschen die Welt jeweils spezifisch verstehen. Besonders 

wenn es Rezipient*innen und User*innen an unmittelbaren Kontakten 

und damit an Primärerfahrungen fehlt, erhalten medial vermittelte Sekundärerfahrungen 

großes Gewicht. Dies betrifft in hohem Maße auch die Wahrnehmung 

von Minderheiten. 

Seit der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts hat die Medien- und Kommunikationsforschung, 

vor allem in den Vereinigten Staaten und im Anschluss 

daran in vielen anderen Ländern, eine Fülle theoretischer Erklärungen und 

empirischer Studien zu Inhalten und Wirkung der Massenmedien hervorgebracht: 

etwa zu Agenda Setting und gewählten Interpretationsrahmen 

(Framing), zum Einfluss der Berichterstattung auf Wahlentscheidungen, auf 

Einstellungen und Vorurteile oder unter dem Stichwort der Mediatisierung 

zur Frage, inwieweit Medienlogiken die politischen Institutionen und Prozesse 

eines Landes verändern. 

Medien als private oder öffentlich-rechtliche Institutionen sind jedoch auch 

ihrerseits Resultat der herrschenden politischen, sozialen und ökonomischen 

Machtverhältnisse in der Gesellschaft. Damit unterliegen sie auch den Veränderungen 

auf den Finanz-, Wirtschafts- und Arbeitsmärkten, von Technologien 

und sozialen Transformationen durch Globalisierung und Migration 



14 


sowie dem Wandel der politischen Landschaft. Presse, Rundfunk und Netz 

sind dabei gleichzeitig Moment und Objekt. 

Konflikte 

Medienschaffende sind in die sozialen, politischen und ideologischen Konflikte 

verwickelt, welche die Wandlungsprozesse auslösen. In besonderer 

Weise wird das in Gesellschaften sichtbar, die durch Einwanderung geprägt 

sind – durch Jahrzehnte oder Jahrhunderte zurückliegende wie gegenwärtige. 

In den Ländern Europas und Nordamerikas, auf die sich die in diesem Band 

versammelten Beiträge beziehen, dominieren in den großen Medienhäusern 

vielfach Perspektiven und Interessen der Bevölkerungsmehrheiten, zumindest 

die ihrer journalistischen Eliten. 

Gleichzeitig wächst die Kritik an diesem Zustand. Eine junge Generation 

von Publizist*innen macht in verschiedenen Ländern Themen sichtbar, die 

die Medien des Mainstream marginalisieren. Kritische Online-Kampagnen 

wie #AllWhiteFrontPages, alternative Online-Dienste wie MiGAZIN und Zusammenschlüsse 

wie die Neuen deutschen Medienmacher oder Media Diversified 

fordern die Mehrheitsnorm heraus. Diese prägt nach wie vor die Zusammensetzung 

der Redaktionen etablierter Medienhäuser ebenso wie die 

Bilder, Berichte und Kommentare, die sie produzieren. 

Das Internet ist für die Neuerer das Hauptaktionsfeld. Marginalisierte, bisher 

nicht wahrgenommene Stimmen finden darin leichter Gehör. Das Netz 

hat aber die Medienlandschaften nicht revolutioniert. Die meisten Menschen 

informieren sich etwa in Deutschland auch online auf Seiten wie Spiegel 

Online, Tagesschau.de oder Bild.de, also mithilfe digitaler journalistischer 

Angebote etablierter Zeitungsverlage und Fernsehsender, die ihre Reichweite 

in Deutschland online noch erhöhen. Gleiches gilt für die Vereinigten Staaten 

und viele andere Länder. Den medialen Mainstream be stimmen auch im 

Netz dieselben privaten Unternehmen und öffentlich-rechtlichen Anstalten, 

die in den Jahrzehnten vor der Verbreitung des World Wide Web die nationalen 

Medienmärkte beherrschten. Inklusivere politische Öffentlichkeiten werden 

daher nicht allein neben den großen Medienhäusern entstehen, sondern 

zu einem wesentlichen Grad auch durch deren Wandel. Alternative Inhalte 

und Kampagnen im Netz können aber, das zeigen mehrere Beiträge in diesem 

Band, den Druck auf die großen Institutionen erhöhen, sich in der Zusammensetzung 

ihrer Redaktionen und im Spektrum ihrer Perspektiven weiter 

zu öffnen. 

Die Freiheit und Kommunikation im Internet birgt jedoch nicht nur Chan- 



Einleitung 15 

rechtspopulistische Gruppierungen, indem ihnen ermöglicht wird, eine Art 

»Gegenöffentlichkeit« herauszubilden. Dem World Wide Web kommt daher bei 

der Verbreitung von Rassismus und Antisemitismus sowie anderen ausgrenzenden 

Ideologien eine zentrale Bedeutung zu. Die etablierten Medien werden 

vor große Herausforderungen gestellt durch solche, über das Internet mobilisierende 

Bewegungen, wie zuletzt in Deutschland die »PEGIDA-Bewegung« 

(»Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes«). Ihren Anhängern 

ist die Berichterstattung der Mainstream-Medien zu stark von einer 

vermeintlichen Political Correctness und einer zu wohlwollenden Haltung gegenüber 

Minderheiten gekennzeichnet. Im Internet ebenso wie auf der Straße 

propagieren sie daher die Ansicht, dass der »Lügenpresse« nicht zu trauen sei. 

Für die Massenmedien kann sich daraus ein Druck aufbauen, den Verdacht von 

sich abwenden zu müssen, Minderheiten nach dem Mund zu reden. 

Veränderungen und ihre Hindernisse 

Einige Beiträge dieses Bandes zeigen die Grenzen einfacher Rezepte. Eine 

vielfältigere Zusammensetzung der Redaktionen und Produktionsteams etwa 

ist aus Gründen der Repräsentation und Gleichstellung ein wichtiges Ziel. 

Tatsächlich sind die meisten Redaktionen selbst in Ländern mit langer Einwanderungstradition 

weit davon entfernt, die Zusammensetzung der Bevölkerung 

widerzuspiegeln, für die sie Texte, Bilder und Programme produzieren. 

In Deutschland haben beispielsweise mittlerweile ca. 20 Prozent der 

Einwohner*innen einen sogenannten Migrationshintergrund, bei den Journalist*innen 

sind es hingegen Schätzungen zufolge nur zwei bis vier Prozent. 

Häufig sind sie zudem entweder automatisch für Migrationsthemen zuständig 

oder aber man überlässt ihnen diese Bereiche gerade nicht, weil ihnen 

Voreingenommenheit unterstellt wird. Auch wenn man davon ausgeht, dass 

sich Menschen, die potenziell selbst von kulturalisierenden Zuschreibungen 

betroffen sind, für Stereotypisierungen sensibler zeigen, so stellt sich die 

Frage, ob sich Produktionsprozesse und Produkte schon allein dadurch fundamental 

ändern, dass die Drehbuchautorin einer britischen Fernsehserie 

einen indischen Hintergrund hat oder der Nachrichtenredakteur eines deutschen 

Magazins einen türkischen. Denn Redaktionen bzw. Organisationen 

beeinflussen die Menschen, die in ihnen arbeiten, in hohem Maß mit ihrer 

Logik und Rationalität: Die Apparate sozialisieren ihre Mitglieder. 

Journalist*innen wie Drehbuchautor*innen, Redakteur*innen wie Regisseur*innen 

lernen in ihrer Ausbildung, im Nachahmen von Kolleg*innen 

Schnell wissen sie instinktiv, wie ein gut zu verkaufendes Produkt auszusehen 



16 


hat. Journalist*innen suchen nach Geschichten, die von klaren Konfrontationen 

erzählen; das Dramatische und Bedrohliche verspricht Aufmerksamkeit. 

Stereotype bieten sich dabei schnell an, um sie zu gewinnen – seien es negative, 

wie das des kriminellen Schwarzen, der parasitär lebenden Roma, des 

außerhalb der Gesellschaft stehenden Juden, des zur Gewalt und Terror neigenden 

Muslims oder des faulen Südeuropäers, seien es auf den ersten Blick 

positive, wie das der tanzenden Inderin aus dem Bollywood-Film. 

Die kritische Perspektive 

Ein erster Schritt zur Veränderung der Prozesse in großen Institutionen ist 

deren Analyse. Unter Journalist*innen und Redaktionsleiter*innen ist die 

Bereitschaft zur Selbstreflexion unterschiedlich stark ausgeprägt. Bis heute 

zeigen sich manche Journalist*innen, selbst leitende Redakteur*innen, unmedien- 

und kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Forschungsstand als auch 

von der durch Minderheitenorganisationen vorgebrachten Kritik. Sie behaupten, 

sie spiegelten lediglich die Wirklichkeit und überließen es dem Publikum, 

sich eine Meinung zu bilden. Die Vorstellung, Berichterstattung sei »objektiv«, 

wenn Journalist*innen frei von politischer Kontrolle arbeiten können 

und sich an die handwerklichen Regeln halten, ist in Teilen der Berufsgruppe 

noch immer eine populäre Überzeugung. 

Manche Medienmacher*innen blenden aus, dass jeder Text, jedes Bild und 

jede Filmsequenz Ergebnis eines Konstruktions- und Selektionsprozesses 

ist, das heißt der mehr oder weniger bewussten Wahl einer Perspektive. Tatsächlich 

ist im kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Sinn jeder Zeitungsartikel, 

jede Meldung auf einer Nachrichten-Website, jedes Pressefoto und jeder 

Beitrag in den Fernsehnachrichten eine Inszenierung – auch dann, wenn die 

Nachricht nicht erfunden ist und sich Journalist*innen bemühen, eigene politische 

Positionen aus der Präsentation eines Sachverhalts fernzuhalten. Wie 

auch immer theoretisch, empirisch und praktisch die Autonomie von Journalist*innen 

beurteilt wird, sie können sich jedenfalls die unvermeidlichen Produktionsschritte 

bewusst machen und damit transparent umgehen. Soziale 

Integration lässt sich unterstützen, wenn Medien aktuell und multiperspektivisch 

berichten und darauf bedacht sind, stigmatisierende und diskriminierende 

Stereotypisierungen von Minderheiten zu vermeiden. Der kritische 

Blick ist die Voraussetzung der Diskussion darüber, inwieweit Medienagenden 

zu Mehrheitsagenden und Medienframes zu Mehrheitsframes werden. 

Der vorliegende Band ist aus einer internationalen Konferenz der Akademie 

des Jüdischen Museums Berlin in Kooperation mit dem Rat für Migration 



Einleitung 17 

hervorgegangen. Ein besonderer Dank geht an Betul Yilmaz, die maßgeblich 

an der Organisation dieser Konferenz und der Kommunikation mit den Referent*innen 

beteiligt war. Dank gilt auch Angelika Königseder, die die Entstehung 

dieser Publikation koordiniert und alle deutschsprachigen Beiträge 

lektoriert hat, ebenso wie Greg Sax, der für das Lektorat der englischsprachigen 

Texte verantwortlich war. Darüber hinaus danken wir den Übersetzer*innen 

Adam Blauhut, Allison Brown, Naomi Shulman und Kate Sturge 

sowie Christine Marth und Marie Naumann, die im Jüdischen Museum Berlin 

die Schriftenreihe betreuen, in der dieser Band erscheint. 

Jena, Berlin und Marburg im November 2015 





Media Production and 

Institutional Structures 





Augie Fleras 

Theorizing Minority Misrepresentations 

Reframing Mainstream Newsmedia as if 

White Ethnic Media 

Introduction: Contesting the Representational Frames 

Mainstream newsmedia have long been accused of doing a disservice to 

migrants, peoples and minorities.1 Representations2 of aboriginal peoples, racialized 

minorities, immigrants and asylum seekers are known to underrepresent 

in areas that count (“success”) but overrepresent in areas that don’t count 

(“failure”), with a range of misrepresentations (“flaws”) in between.3 Pressure 

to improve coverage notwithstanding, representations of migrants, minorities 

and peoples continue to negatively frame them4 as (a) invisible, (b) problem 

1 Rainer Geissler and Horst Pöttker, Media Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Germany 

(Bielefeld: transcript, 2005); Elfriede Fursich, Media and the Representation of Others 

(Malden, MA: UNESCO/Blackwell Publishing, 2010); Christine Larrazet and Isabelle 

Rigoni, “Media and Diversity: A Century-Long Perspective on an Enlarged and Internationalized 

Field of Research,” InMedia 5 (October 2014), http://inmedia.revues. 

org/747. 

2 For our purposes, representations can be defined as mediated images of particular groups 

of people from an ideological perspective. Representations (including visual images and 

verbal texts and narratives) do not reflect (or represent) reality per se; to the contrary, they 

re-present versions of reality that are cloaked in the language of normalcy in order to impart 

the gloss of the natural and universal. Stuart Hall, “Racist Ideologies and the Media,” 

in Media Studies. A Reader, eds. Sue Thornham and Paul Marris (New York: University 

Press, 1997), 271–282. 

3 Augie Fleras, The Media Gaze. The Representations of Diversity in Canada (Vancouver: 

UBC Press, 2011); Journalists for Human Rights, ‘Buried Voices’: Media Coverage of 

Aboriginal Issues in Ontario, Media Monitoring Report, 2010–2013 (August 2013). http:// 

www.jhr.ca/en/aboutjhr/downloads/publications/buried_voices.pdf. 

4 Framing can be defined as a process of organizing information into packages (‘frames’) 

that draw attention to some aspects of reality as desirable and acceptable and other aspects 

as undesirable or irrelevant in the hope of encouraging a preferred reading of an issue, 

event or person, i. e., one consistent with the interests of those doing the framing. Fleras, 

Media Gaze; Robert Entman, “Framing. Toward a Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,” 

Journal of Communication 43, no. 4 (December 1993): 51–58; Robert Entman, “Framing 

Bias: Media in the Distortion of Power,” Journal of Communication 57, no. 1 (March 2007): 

163–173, DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00336.x. 



22 

Augie Fleras 

people, (c) stereotypical, (d) whitewashed,5 (e) ornamental and (f) the other.6 

By contrast, ‘whitestream’ identities, experiences and interests are positively 

framed as a tacitly assumed universal benchmark that normalizes as it privileges.7 

Efforts to explain these misrepresentational tropes have varied: to one 

side are prejudicial attitudes, implicit biases and discriminatory practices; to 

the other side, institutional routines, workplace practices and commercial 

imperatives related to audience ratings and advertising revenues (“a race for 

eyeballs”8); to yet another side are those systemic biases9 whose one-sidedness 

perpetuates an exclusionary effect. Of particular value are those explanations 

that frame newsmedia as Eurocentric discourses in defence of dominant ideology, 

in effect exposing the representational biases of migrants/minorities/ 

peoples as racialized10 rather than racist, structural rather than attitudinal, 

institutional rather than individual, patterned rather than random and systemic 

(“normalized”) rather than deliberate (“systematic”). 

Most explanatory frameworks in this contested domain are valid to a 

point. Yet none is entirely capable of accounting for a key representational 

paradox: the continued misrepresentational bias in the mediated images of 

migrants, minorities and peoples despite growing awareness of costs and con- 

5 Whitewashed is employed in the sense of representing images of diversity and differences 

so as to ensure they fit into frames that reflect, reinforce and advance “whitestream” 

values, biases and realities. John Gabriel, Whitewash. Racialized Politics and the Media 

(New York: Routledge, 1998). 

6 Augie Fleras and Jean Lock Kunz, Media and Minorities in Canada (Toronto: Thompson 

Publishing, 2001). 

7 Sonya M. Alemán, “Locating Whiteness in Journalism Pedagogy,” Critical Studies in 

Media Communication 31, no. 1 (2014): 72–88. 

8 Phil Cook, “The Most Racist Part of the Zimmerman Trial Was the Media,” Huffington Post 

Media (14 July 2013), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-cooke-phd/the-most-racistpart-of-t_b_3595970.html. 

9 In this paper, bias is not used in the sense of blatantly distorting or falsifying reality (as 

in “distortion bias”) or of consciously producing biased content (as in “decision- making 

bias”). Rather, a system bias both unconsciously produces and inadvertently reflects the 

normal and seemingly neutral ways in which institutions are structured, workplaces 

are organized, rewards are allocated and products and services are designed and delivered. 

Vanmala Hiranandani, “Diversity Management in the Canadian Workplace. 

Towards an Antiracism Approach,” Urban Studies Research (2012): 1–13, http://dx.doi. 

org/10.1155/2012/385806. 

10 Racialized and racialization are inextricably connected. Racialization involves a socially 

constructed process by which those in positions of power impose negative racebased 

significance on targeted groups (or their activities) and subject them to differential 

treatment because of their placement as a race. With racialization, individuals and 

groups are racially coded, i. e., racialized, that is, identified, named and categorized, 

resulting in the imposition of race-based meanings that imply danger or inferiority 

(Augie Fleras, Racisms in a Multicultural Canada (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 

2014)). If racialization refers to a process, racialized represents the institutionalization of 



Theorizing Minority Misrepresentations 23 

sequences. This representational impasse should come as no surprise; after 

all, it’s been over 45 years since the Kerner Commission11 declared, “the media 

report and write from the standpoint of a White man’s world.” But the 

prospect of representing diversity and differences in a balanced, objective and 

contextual manner appears to go against the grain of a mediated logic.12 This 

representational gridlock suggests it’s time to shift the burden of blame from 

newsmedia “acting badly” to representations “acting logically” because of 

what they are intrinsically inclined to do. I propose a theoretical framework 

that scuttles the conventional wisdom taken to explain newsmedia misrepresentations 

of migrants, peoples and minorities. However counterintuitive this 

assertion may appear on the surface, I will argue that mainstream newsmedia 

may be interpreted as if they constituted white ethnic media whose ‘systemic 

whiteness’13 informs the mediated bias of media-minority representations. 

Reference to the concept of “systemic whiteness” is consequential. It not only 

demonstrates how diversity discourses and minority frames are so structured 

in a white Eurocentricity that even seemingly inclusive coverage is “couched 

in compromise.”14 It also magnifies the magnitude of the challenge in fostering 

more representative representations. 

In this paper, I contend that any theorizing of minority misrepresentations 

gains explanatory traction by reframing mainstream newsmedia as if 

they were white ethnic media whose mediated images of peoples, migrants 

and minorities superimpose a pro-white preference over an anti-minority 

bias. The Eurocentric discourses that “filter” minority realities, experiences 

and aspirations through the mediated prism of a white media lens are shown 

to be systemic and consequential rather than systematic and contrived. The 

ensuing argument points to a paradox: “Whitestream” media may be conscious 

of the criticism directed at them; however, more positive and inclusive 

11 Kerner Commission, Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders 

(Washington DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 366. 

12 Myria Georgiou, “Media Representations of Diversity: The Power of the Mediated 

Image,” in Race and Ethnicity in the 21st Century, eds. Alice Bloch and John Solomos 

(Hampshire: Palgrave McMillan, 2009): 166–181; Alemán, “Locating Whiteness.” 

13 In contrast to those who see white privilege or entitlement as a state of mind (‘mindset’), 

systemic whiteness refers to its status and role as an unwritten organizing principle 

of society and its institutions and policies. (See Alemán, “Locating Whiteness.”) More 

specifically, systemic whiteness can be viewed as an ideology imbued with the power 

to normalize white power and privilege; a universal standard against which others are 

judged and criticized; a lens through which whites see themselves and others, without 

awareness that they are doing so and an implicit Eurocentrism with a corresponding tendency 

to see, think and evaluate reality from the perspective of white interests and experiences 

taken as universal and superior. (See Gabriel, Whitewash.) See also the previous 

footnote entries for racialized and framing. 

14 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of 

Racial Inequality in the United States (Lanham, MD 



24 

Augie Fleras 

representations of migrants/minorities/peoples continue to elude them, given 

the white-framing of diversity and difference along Eurocentric lines.15 I begin 

by reviewing the current status in Canadian scholarship of media representations 

of migrants, minorities and peoples. Continued newsmedia resistance 

to addressing the misrepresentational bias puts additional pressure on 

reformulating the problem analysis by moving positively beyond conventional 

explanations. The reframing of “whitestream” newsmedia as if they were white 

ethnic media is central to this argument. Just as whites are known to constitute 

an ethnicity, regardless of whether they approve or are aware, so too may 

mainstream newsmedia be interpreted as ethnicized media whose diversity 

representations endorse a systemic white-frame bias rather than a systematic 

anti-minority bigotry.16 To make this case, I show that a distinction between 

mediated images of “good” (model) minorities vs. “bad” migrants embodies a 

“systemic whiteness.” This distinction inspires my argument. 

Surveying the Representational Bias in Canada’s 

Newsmedia-Minority Relations: An Overview 

It is commonly accepted within progressive circles that Canada’s newsmedia 

have “bungled” the task of representing migrants, minorities and peoples.17 

According to media critics, those diversities outside a preferred consumer 

15 Frances Henry and Carol Tator, eds., Discourses of Domination. Racial Bias in the Canadian 

English-Language Press (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); Race Forward, 

Moving the Race Conversation Forward. How the Media Covers Racism and Other 

Barriers to Productive Racial Discourse, Part 1 (January 2014). 

16 Jon E. Fox, Laura Morosanu, and Eszter Szilassy, “The Racialization of the New European 

Migration to the UK,” Sociology 46, no. 4 (2012): 680–695. 

17 Minelle Mahtani, “Representing Minorities: Canadian Media and Minority Identities,” 

Canadian Ethnic Studies 33, no. 3 (2002): 99–131; Yasmin Jiwani, Discourses of Denial. 

Mediations on Race, Gender, and Violence (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006); Catherine 

Murray, Not Another Solitude: Third Language Media Matter. Address to the Panel 

on Heritage Languages, Integration, and Globalization (Ottawa: Library and Archives 

Canada, 2009); Henry and Tator, Discourses of Domination; Jenna Hennebry and Bessma 

Momani, “Introduction: Arab Canadians as Targeted Transnationals,” in Targeted Transnationals: 

The State, the Media, and Arab Canadians, eds. Jenna Hennebry and Bessma 

Momani (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013), 1–14; Izumi Sakamoto et al., “An Overview of 

Discourses of Skilled Immigrants and ‘Canadian Experience’: An English-Language 

Print Media Analysis,” CERIS Working Paper No. 98 (Toronto: Ontario Metropolis Centre, 

2013); Wendy Chan, “News Media Representations of Immigrants in the Canadian 

Criminal Justice System,” Working Paper Series (Vancouver: Metropolis British 

Columbia, 2014); Brad Clark, “‘Walking Up a Down-Escalator’: The Interplay Between 

Newsroom Norms and Media Coverage of Minority Groups,” InMedia 5 (September 




demographic were (a) ignored as irrelevant, (b) stigmatized as inferior or 

(c) pilloried as dangerous. Alternatively, they were portrayed as “troublesome 

constituents” — problem people — who possessed problems or created problems 

involving cost or inconvenience.18 A media fixation with the sordid and sensational 

glossed over the normal and routine by exaggerating the importance 

of the exception or the extreme.19 Representations of migrants/ minorities/ 

peoples were openly racist and demeaning, resulting in defamatory images 

and derogatory representations at odds with the principles of Canada’s inclusive 

multiculturalism.20 Then, as now, migrants/minorities/peoples endured 

dismissive representations in which they were (a) pigeon-holed into sports/ 

festival/crime/entertainment slots, (b) demonized as menaces to society (as 

victims or victimizers), (c) scapegoated as the root of all of Canada’s social 

problems, (d) “otherized” for being too different or not different enough, (e) refracted 

through the prism of Eurocentric fears and fantasies and (f) caricaturized 

by double standards that lampooned them regardless of what they did 

or didn’t do. The end result was the slotting of migrants/minorities/ peoples 

into recurrent frames that resonate with the language of threat, problem or 

conflict.21 

To be sure, changes are discernible.22 An exclusive diet of monocultural 

representation frames is gradually giving way to mediated images more reflective 

of, respectful of, and responsive to diversity and differences.23 More 

polite and nuanced discourses are increasingly rejecting the one-dimensional 

18 News stories about minorities continue to be negatively framed. For one year (from 

12 February 2009 to 11 February 2010), I collected headline/header/footer data from 

Canada’s two national dailies (the Globe and Mail and the National Post) from articles 

related to diversity and diversities as well as peoples, migrants, and minorities. Of 

the 839 headlines over the one-year period, I deemed 71 percent to be negative, 8 percent 

positive, and the rest neutral. (See Fleras, Media Gaze; Henry and Tator, Discourses 

of Domination.) A recent update, albeit on a much smaller scale (1–24 November 2014), 

repeats the pattern (70 negative headers, 4 positive, and 16 neutral). The implications of 

this negativity in fostering a ‘mean world syndrome’ pertaining to minorities should not 

be underestimated. A more fearful population is more easily controlled and manipulated 

into endorsing harsh policies of containment. 

19 Eda Gemi, Iryna Ulasiuk, and Anna Triandafyllidou, “Migrants and Media Newsmaking 

Practices,” Journalism Practices 7, no. 3 (2013): 266–281. 

20 Fleras, Media Gaze. 

21 Yasmin Jiwani, “Racism and the Media,” Stop Racism and Hate Collective (2012), 

http://www.stopracism.ca; Sonya Cicci, “Normalizing Cultural Ideals to a White Society: 

Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Media,” Thinking and (Rethinking) Race (April 2014): 

1–12, https://medium.com/thinking-and-rethinking-race/normalizing-cultural-ideals-toa-white-society-racial-and-ethnic-minorities-in-the-media-3cf5a698afee. 

22 Sally Lehrman, “Creating an Inclusive Public Commons: Values and Structures in Journalism 

that can Promote Change” (see pp. 50–67 of this volume). 

23 Fleras, Media Gaze. 



26 

Augie Fleras 

caricatures of the past,24 partly because of a collective media cringe at being 

branded racist or reactionary.25 Mainstream media in Canada are loathe 

to criticize migrants or government minority policy openly for fear of disturbing 

a national consensus or inciting a frosty consumer reaction. They 

also take pains to avoid explicitly vilifying immigrants by stripping stories 

of unnecessary references to race or religion (“race-tagging”) or, alternatively, 

emphasizing the loyalty and law-abidingness of most new Canadians.26 Yet 

negativity persists, albeit in a more oblique manner. For example, minorities, 

peoples and migrants are rarely criticized on the basis of physical inferiority. 

A categorical dislike is replaced by a situational antipathy predicated on the 

premise that migrants/minorities/peoples are culturally incompatible or socially 

deviant.27 Migrants, peoples and minorities are demeaned by association 

with negative news contexts, including moral panics related to (a) crime, 

public disorder and deviance; (b) so-called “reverse discrimination” against 

whites; (c) religious fundamentalism; (d) home country troubles and (e) security 

or medical risks.28 This tainted-by-association frame tends to essentialize 

(“homogenize”) members of a race or ethnicity despite the complexity of 

their lived realities.29 

Scholarly efforts to explain persistent media misrepresentation of minorities, 

migrants and peoples span the spectrum from micro to macro. Explanations 

include hard-boiled business decisions that reflect market forces 

and revenue streams; media personnel who unconsciously frame representations 

from a mainstream (Eurocentrically white) perspective; traditional 

news production protocols, including the 24/7 agenda-driven news cycle and 

an exclusionary reliance on familiar sources and voices of authority;30 deeply 

24 Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation After 9/11 

(New York: New York University Press, 2012). 

25 William McGowan, Coloring the News. How Political Correctness has Corrupted American 

Journalism (New York: Encounter Books, 2001). 

26 Mark Silk, “Islam and the American News Media Post September 11,” in Mediating Religion. 

Studies in Media, Religion, and Culture, eds. Jolyon Mitchell and Sophia Marriage 

(New York: T. and T. Clark, a Continuum Imprint, 2008): 73–88. 

27 Yolande Pottie-Sherman and Rima Wilkes, “Good Code Bad Code: Exploring the Immigration-Nation 

Dialectic Through Media Coverage of the Herouxville ‘Code of Life’ 

Document,” Migration Studies 2, no. 2 (2014): 189–211. 

28 Jessika ter Wal, Leen d’Haenans, and Joyce Koeman, “(Re)presentation of Ethnicity in EU 

and Dutch Domestic News: A Quantitative Analysis,” Media, Culture, and Society 27, no. 

Ethnic Minorities and the Media: Changing Cultural 

Boundaries (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2005); Charles T. Adeyanju and Temitope 

Oriola, “‘Not in Canada’: The Non-Ebola Panic and Media Representation of the Black 

Community,” African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies 4, no. 1 (2010): 32–49. 

29 Arlene Davila, Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race (New York: New 

York University Press, 2008); Fleras, Racisms in a Multicultural Canada. 

30 Clark, “‘Walking Up a Down-Escalator.’” 




ingrained prejudice among media personnel; structural barriers such as news 

values and news gathering routines that impede inclusion and systemic biases 

wired into the founding assumptions and foundational principles of the 

industry’s unwritten constitutional order.31 Unlike a systematic bias, which 

deliberately omits or distorts, a systemic bias entails a white framing that 

inadvertently yet overwhelmingly prioritizes the negative over the positive, 

conflict over cooperation, the sensational over substance, deviance over the 

typical, one-sidedness over multifacetedness and the episodic over the thematic 

and contextual. Even a commitment to diversity as content does not 

necessarily exclude those discourses of domination that normalize whiteness 

by racializing diversity as a departure from the norm.32 

Widespread criticism and advocacy notwithstanding, newsmedia appear 

incapable of improving the quality of minority representations — either they 

don’t know how, or they don’t care.33 Newsmedia continue to process information 

by way of a white-frame that whitewashes race, ethnicity and aboriginality 

without openly denigrating diversity and difference.34 Consider 

how a racialized white-frame frames whiteness as culturally superior in 

achievement compared to racialized non-whites; embraces white controlled 

institutions and white privilege as unremarkable; perpetuates stereotypes by 

essentializing the lived realities of minorities and endorses diversity as long as 

it doesn’t cost or inconvenience and, in the process, confirms a mainstream 

right to define what counts as differences and what differences count.35 Not 

surprisingly, media decision-makers and gatekeepers may not be consciously 

biased toward the other because of “systemic whiteness”. Seemingly race-neutral 

representations that on the surface appear to treat everyone the same may 

be deeply racialized when whites and non-whites alike are shoehorned into 

Eurocentric language and imagery.36 White-frame representations assume 

white Eurocentricity as a universal norm with the result that migrants/minorities/peoples 

are framed as beings both novel and foreign (“fish-out-ofwater 

stories”) rather than normal and naturalized. Minority representations 

continue to be framed in ways that superimpose a preferred way of organizing 

social reality consistent with mainstream ideals and normative expectations. 

Who, then, can be surprised when whites and non-whites are known to 

relate differently to mainstream media? Whites see themselves painted into 

31 Fleras, The Media Gaze. 

32 Henry and Tator, Discourses of Domination; Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists. 

33 Clark, “‘Walking Up a Down-Escalator’”; Journalists for Human Rights, ‘Buried Voices.’ 

34 Race Forward, Moving the Race Conversation Forward. 

Joe Feagin, The White Racial Frame. Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing 


36 Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, Gendered News. Media Coverage and Electoral Politics in 

Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013). 



28 

Augie Fleras 

the media picture as normal or unexceptional whereas visible minorities find 

themselves racialized and excluded by discursive frames that prejudge without 

the prejudice. 

Whitewashing Mainstream Media as White Ethnic Media 

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.37 

A truism in communication studies is the tacitly assumed distinction between 

mainstream newsmedia and ethnic newsmedia. Mainstream media 

consist of those private (commercial) or public-service outlets that cater to the 

widest affluent audience. They are relatively large scale in operation; reach, 

i. e., they produce content for a generalized other; position themselves near 

the middle in terms of bias and use a mainstream language as a medium of 

communication. By contrast, ethnic media are thought to target specific ethnic 

minorities by providing information that is community based and culturally 

sensitive as well as responsive to and situationally located within a 

trans national field of information.38 Ethnic media are thought to differ from 

mainstream media because of content that is about, and produced, distributed 

and consumed by migrants, minorities and peoples in a language or cultural 

idiom that resonates with their experiences and interests. Yet this divide 

is problematic. How, for example, ought one categorize global media giants 

such as Al Jazeera with its 50 million viewers worldwide: ethnic or mainstream? 

Where exactly do mainstream media end and ethnic media begin, 

given that ethnic media are becoming more mainstream in their operations, 

whereas mainstream media are tapping into ethnic media niches to engage 

with new audiences? 

Both ethnic and mainstream newsmedia share commonalities at one level. 

They both include process (involving the targeting of a preferred demographic), 

imperatives (relying on advertising and subscriptions for survival), 

37 Stephen Riggins, ed., Ethnic Minority Media. An International Perspective (Newbury 

Park: Sage, 1992), 2. 

38 Karim H. Karim, The Media of Diaspora (New York: Routledge, 2003); Georgiou, “Media 

Representations of Diversity”; Murray, Not Another Solitude; Matthew D. Matsaganis, 

Vikki S. Katz, and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach, Understanding Ethnic Media. Producers, Consumers, 

and Societies (California: Sage, 2010); Larrazet and Rigoni, “Media and Diversity”; 

Clare Johansson and Simone Battiston, “Ethnic Print Media in Australia,” Media 

History 20, no. 4 (2014): 416–430. 




assumptions (reflecting the realities and advancing the interests of the intended 

demographic) and outcomes (informing by communicating with core 

audiences (“bonding”) while connecting with the world (“bridging”). Just as 

ethnic newsmedia constitute spaces where migrants, minorities and peoples 

communicate interests, make claims and mobilize identities,39 so too do 

mainstream newsmedia steer a difficult course between balancing universalist 

appeals and market imperatives with particularistic aims and social obligations.40 

Newsmedia in both domains are known to follow a time-proven 

revenue trajectory, namely, track what is profitable and repackage content accordingly 

to make it newsworthy. They may even share a commitment to provide 

readers/viewers with “news they can use.” For newcomers, this facilitates 

their integration into Canada; for mainstream whites, it is a meaning-making 

machine that secures a positive collective identity while allaying fears and 

confusions over rapid change and spiralling hyperdiversity. Yet an important 

caveat disrupts the comparison. Unlike ethnic newsmedia, mainstream newsmedia 

possess the power and resources for setting agendas, framing national 

debates, defining public discourses and advancing vested interests. And with 

that power comes a responsibility to report on what the public needs to know 

instead of what it wants to hear.41 

Taking a cue from Stephen Riggins’ (1992) prescient throwaway line cited 

above, I advance the seemingly counterintuitive claim that mainstream media 

may be interpreted as ethnic media that service the Eurocentric interests 

of predominantly white constituencies — neither explicitly nor assertively 

white but just inherently (“systemically”) so.42 Or, as Charles Husband writes 

of the “culture blindness” at play, “For the majority media specialists, their 

own ethnicity is capable of being routinely rendered invisible and unknowable, 

and consequently remains implicit and potentially dangerous…”43 But 

this myopia toward white privilege is not necessarily shared by migrants, minorities 

and peoples who perceive “whitestream” newsmedia as white spaces 

indifferent to minority success stories; hostile to any criticism of the status 

quo or oblivious to their identities, experiences and aspirations beyond celebration 

and crime.44 Even a newsmedia commitment to address diversity 

39 Myria Georgiou, “Diaspora in the Digital Era: Minorities and Media Representation,” 

Journal of Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe 12, no. 4 (2013): 80–99. 

40 Cottle, Ethnic Minorities. 

41 Journalists for Human Rights, ‘Buried Voices.’ 

42 See also John Herrman, “The New Ethnic Media,” The Awl 

www.theawl.com/2014/09/the-new-white-ethnic-media. 

43 Charles Husband, “Minority Ethnic Media As Communities of Practice: Professionalism 

and Identity Politics in Interaction,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31, no. 3 

(2005): 467. 

44 Cottle, Ethnic Minorities. 



30 

Augie Fleras 

perpetuates a pro-white attitude that tacitly assumes whiteness as the norm. 

After all, framing race, ethnicity and aboriginality in the language45 of the 

“white stream,” even with the best intentions, tends to whitewash diversity. The 

following discursive frames bolster a white-frame description of social reality 

whose “systemic whiteness” distorts or denies the experiences and realities of 

those on the wrong side of the racialized divide. 

Blaming the victim: the assumption that every individual in a meritocratic 

society can make it if they work hard, play by the rules, take advantage of 

opportunities and assume personal responsibility. This frame invisiblizes the 

structural barriers confronting racialized minorities who must achieve success 

in a system designed neither to reflect their realities nor advance their 

interests.46 

Individualizing racism: the assumption that racism is a personal prejudice 

or randomly expressed rather than routinized as power systemically embedded 

in social structures and institutions. 

An ahistorical perspective: the dismissal of cumulative inequalities or the 

persistence of colonialism on the grounds that the past is passed and it’s time 

to move on.47 

Decontextualizing reality: the episodic and sensationalistic, rather than 

thematic and situational in the framing of newsworthiness. This frame reinforces 

victim blaming while ignoring root causes.48 

45 Seemingly neutral language and images serve as proxies to disguise a dislike, not in the 

blatant sense of open vilification but through the accumulation of snide asides (“jumping 

the queue”), mocking references (“Allah of the people”), politely coded subtexts 

(“those people”) and “fish-out-of-water” stories that ironically provide a reminder of 

how bad things really are. The potency of language for social control is not understood by 

the general public in whose perception language is little more than a postal system, that is, 

a relatively neutral system of conveyance for the transmission of messages between 

sender and receiver independently created through a process called “thinking”. Nothing 

could be further from the truth. Language (or speech) is intimately bound up with 

peoples’ experiences of the world and their efforts to convey that experience to others. 

It’s neither neutral nor value free nor a passive or mechanical transmitter of information. 

Language is a socially constructed convention loaded with values and preferences 

that encourage preferred readings of reality while dismissing other interpretations as 

incompatible or inconsequential. Clearly, there is much value in acknowledging that 

language is a powerful force for defining what is desirable and acceptable, normal 

and important. More importantly, as Pierre Bourdieu (Language and Symbolic Power, 

Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) could have put it, the micro-aggressions implicit in the 

context of language are not about words that hurt but about the hidden patterns of power 

relations that are reflected, reinforced and advanced through the use of language in 

everyday discourses and practices. That alone makes it doubly important to be aware of 

language as a regime of power and control in defense of dominant ideologies. 

46 Gemi, Ulasiuk, and Triandafyllidou, “Migrants and Media Newsmaking Practices.” 

47 Race Forward, Moving the Race Conversation Forward. 

48 Ibid. 




Problematizing deep diversity: the primacy of a liberal universalism (“our 

commonalities as freewheeling individuals supersede differences between 

groups”) as the basis for entitlement and recognition.49 This inability to frame 

diversity and differences except as superficial or abnormal, or as conflict or 

carnival, is consequential. It undermines the interests of those migrants/minorities/peoples 

who want their differences (from religion to socioeconomic 

status) to be taken seriously. 

Invoking a post-racial Canada: the criticism of those who insist on playing 

the “race card” in a supposedly race-blind society where neither race nor racism 

matter in determining who gets what.50 

Taking white normativity as the universal standard: this frame pounces on 

any minority belief or practice at odds with core values related to freedom, 

democracy, reason and tolerance. Minorities are judged on the basis of their 

commitment and conformity to the “whitestream” or, alternatively, if their 

creativity and achievement are aligned along dominant lines.51 

There are consequences to locating whiteness in diversity representations, 

even if these discursive frames say more about white fantasies and fears than 

about minority realities. An emphasis on the personal (rather than the structural), 

the overt (rather than the covert and systemic) and the prejudicial 

(rather than the institutional) in framing mediated images of minorities reflects 

and reinforces the perceptions and realities of those whose privileged 

status permits the luxury of living in a different reality.52 

The bifurcation of immigrants and asylum seekers into opposing frames 

exemplifies the “systemic whiteness” behind newsmedia representations.53 

Mediated images approve of “good” (i. e., model) immigrants who fit whites’ 

ideal image of immigrants, are thought to embrace capitalist and liberal values 

and establish productive families that contribute to growing the economy. 

Dedicated to their new home and successful within it by “acting white” 

and downplaying “unwhitelike” attributes,54 model minorities legitimize the 

myths and virtues of meritocracy, in effect privileging the virtues of white 

49 Augie Fleras, Unequal Relations. An Introduction to Race, Ethnic, and Aboriginal Dynamics 

in Canada, 7th edition (Toronto: Pearson, 2012). 

50 Race Forward, Moving the Race Conversation Forward; Bonilla-Silva, Racism without 

Racists. 

51 Paul Spoonley and Andrew Butcher, “Reporting Superdiversity: The Mass Media and 

Immigration in New Zealand,” Journal of Intercultural Studies 30, no. 4 (2009): 355–372. 

52 Fleras, Racisms in a Multicultural Canada. 

53 Harald Bauder, “Immigration Debate in Canada: How Newspapers Reported, 1996–2004,” 

Journal of International Migration and Integration 9, no. 3 (2008): 289–310; Sakamoto et 

al., An Overview of Discourses; Alemán, “Locating Whiteness.” 

54 See also Kenji Yoshino, Covering. The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, Reprint Edition 

(New York: Random House, 2007). 



32 

Augie Fleras 

tolerance and universal Eurocentricity.55 Yet stereotyping Asian-Canadians 

as uncomplaining, docile and obedient (i. e., as model minorities) may perversely 

if inadvertently generate an infantilizing discourse that frames them 

as dependent, lacking agency and undifferentiated.56 Muslim-Canadians, too, 

are dichotomized into bipolar camps.57 “Good” Muslims are positively framed 

as modern, secular and Westernized in addition to being hyperpatriotic and 

unflinchingly supportive of the War on Terror. “Bad” Muslims are negatively 

framed as anti-modern, violent, oppressive and untrustworthy and, thus, 

fundamentally different from and at odds with mainstream society and 

deeply deserving of Western condemnation and military intervention.58 The 

controlling effect of such coverage cannot be casually dismissed. All Muslim- 

Canadians are demonized with a backlash of suspicion and recrimination 

from the actions of a few. 

Asylum seekers are no less negatively framed, though not all of them. Those 

who flee repressive regimes whose interests clash with those of the global 

north are perceived as deserving, in part because they confirm Canada’s supposed 

moral superiority.59 Refugees who are plucked by the Canadian government 

or private sponsors from United Nations refugee camps are usually 

framed as deserving and rarely attract media attention. By contrast, “bad” 

asylum seekers are defined as those who self select for entry into Canada on 

the basis of their needs instead of Canadian priorities.60 Their unannounced 

arrival en masse amounts to an unforgiveable slight to Canada’s sovereign 

right in determining who and how many to admit. They also are stigmatized 

as “troublesome constituents” who pose security risks; steal jobs from “real” 

Canadians; destabilize the labour market; cheat the welfare system; strain resource-starved 

social, medical and municipal services; create congestion and 

55 Chauncey DeVega, “The ‘Niggerization’ of Michael Brown by the Ferguson Police Department 

and the Right Wing Media,” Daily Kos, 18 August 2014, http://m.dailykos.com. 

56 Darrell Hanamoto, Monitored Peril. Asian Americans and the Politics of Representation 

(St Paul: University of Minnesota Press, 1995); Dan Cui and Jennifer Kelly, “‘Too Asian?’ 

Or the Invisible Citizen on the Other Side of the Nation,” Journal of International Migration 

and Integration 14, no. 1 (2013): 157–174. 

57 Ross Perigoe, “Muslims and Media” (paper presented at the Congress of Social Sciences, 

York University, Toronto, 29–31 May 2006). 

58 Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims; Hennebry and Momani, “Introduction: Arab Canadians”; 

Dorota A. Gozdecka, Selen A. Ercan, and Magdalena Kmak, “From Multiculturalism to 

Post-Multiculturalism: Trends and Paradoxes,” Journal of Sociology 50, no. 1 (2014): 51–64. 

59 Ainsley Jenicek, Alan D. Wong, and Edward Ou Jin Lee, “Dangerous Shortcuts: Representations 

of Sexual Minority Refugees in the Post-9/11 Canadian Press,” - 

nal of Communication 34, no. 4 (2009): 635–658. 

60 Sean Hier and Joshua Greenberg, “News Discourse and the Problematization of Chinese 

Migration to Canada,” in Discourses of Domination: Racial Bias in the Canadian English- 

Language Press, eds. Frances Henry and Carol Tator (Toronto: University of Toronto 

Press, 2002), 138–162; Bauder, “Immigration Debate.” 




crowding; compromise Canada’s highly touted quality of life; take advantage 

of educational opportunities without making a corresponding commitment 

to Canada; engage in illegal activities, such as selling drugs and smuggling, 

and imperil Canada’s national unity by refusing to conform or participate.61 

Their being labelled as “problem people” is compounded by a fixation on illegal 

entries via queue jumping and human smuggling rings, anxieties over 

security and anger over the cost of processing and settlement.62 Exaggerated 

and negative coverage of those who transgress the norms of acceptable behaviour 

may not be intended to incite moral panic.63 But, in reinforcing the adage 

that what representational hype doesn’t say may prove to be as distorting as 

what it does say, it may stampede an already edgy public into supporting policies 

and programs that put migrants, minorities and peoples in their ‘proper 

place’ in a racialized society.64 Needless to say, any shared sense of humanity 

with the ‘stranger within’ is elusive when mediated images are embossed with 

the stamp of white paranoia and mainstream nightmares.65 

Conclusion: Mediated Images Matter 

In this paper, I have made the following abundantly clear. First, mainstream 

media tend to exclude migrants/minorities/peoples by virtue of the fact that 

they constitute white ethnic media that are pro-white rather than anti-minority 

in framing coverage of diversity and difference. Second, a commitment to 

more inclusive newsmedia representations of migrants/minorities/peoples 

may, ironically, perpetuate an exclusionary discourse when mediated images 

of race, ethnicity and aboriginality are coded (that is, “framed”) in the language 

of the preferred norm of white Eurocentricity. Newsmedia misrepresentations 

of diversity and difference are neither random nor accidental, according 

to the logic of a racialized media approach.66 Nor are they something out of the 

ordinary, that is, a departure from an otherwise inclusive institutional norm. 

Mainstream newsmedia are anything but neutral or value free as systems of 

61 Chan, News Media Representations. 

62 Alan Simmons, Immigration and Canada: Global and Transnational Perspectives (Toronto: 

Canadian Scholars, 2010); Rima Wilkes, Catherine Corrigall-Brown, and Danielle 

Ricard, “Nationalism and Media Coverage of Indigenous People’s Collective Action in 

Canada,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 34, no. 4 (2010): 41–59. 

63 Jiwani, “Racism and the Media.” 

64 Hier and Greenberg, “News Discourse”; Augie Fleras, Immigration Canada: Evolving Perspectives 

and Emergent Challenges (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014). 

65 DeVega, “The ‘Niggerization’ of Michael Brown.” 

66 See also Goodyear-Grant, Gendered News 



34 

Augie Fleras 

communication. Rather, their representations of peoples/migrants/minorities 

are layered with inherent values and intrinsic biases in defining (a) who we 

are as a society, (b) what our values and norms are, (c) what happens to those 

who transgress these values and (d) how we ought to see the world and the 

people in it,67 especially those who lack meaningful first-hand contact with 

migrants, minorities and peoples and look to newsmedia representations as 

their primary source of information. The result is a misrepresentation of 

diversity and difference that is institutional, systemic and institutionalized: 

institutional because of misrepresentations that are routine, repetitive and predictable 

rather than isolated, idiosyncratic and haphazard; systemic because 

of the seemingly unintended yet negative consequences of those representations 

that, though themselves free of any explicit bias, are implicitly biased 

and institutionalized because biases are inherent to the working assumptions 

and foundational principles of the media’s constitutional order. The resultant 

pro-white representations are normalized through an unconscious Eurocentric 

filter that white-frames “raw” facts into mediated images consistent with a 

white-centred worldview. 

To be sure, the similarity between ethnic and mainstream media has its limits 

(for example, differences in the power to set agendas and the responsibilities 

that accompany being an instrument of power). But more intellectual capital 

can be gleaned by painting the mainstream newsmedia into the ethnicity 

picture than by isolating them as constitutive of a universal norm or standard. 

After all, refusal to acknowledge white ethnicity may be more problematic 

than acknowledging it. Denying its existence may have the effect of privileging 

whiteness as the universal norm instead of another manifestation of the human 

experience. Refusal to ethnicize the dominant sector tends to privilege the 

mainstream as the unacknowledged standard of normalcy — but at the cost of 

masking the socially constructed and ideologically loaded nature of “systemic 

whiteness”. In other words, ignoring white ethnicity risks reinforcing its hegemony 

by naturalizing whiteness as normal and necessary.68 The fact that consciousness 

of one’s own ethnicity must precede an understanding of the ethnic 

other makes it doubly important to eliminate the invisibility of the white ethnic 

mainstream by interrogating its claim to normalcy.69 Truly inclusive representational 

media — in which no one is excluded or denied because of their 

race or ethnicity (“inclusion”) but everyone is included and embraced precisely 

because of their differences (“inclusivity”)70 — will begin to emerge only when 

67 Jiwani, “Racism and the Media.” 

68 Paul Spoonley, Racism and Ethnicity in New Zealand (Auckland: Oxford University 

Press, 1993). 

69 Steve Garner, Whiteness. An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2007). 

70 Fleras, Immigration Canada. 




whites include themselves as part of the ethnic kaleidoscope rather than take 

themselves to be the grout that consolidates, confines and controls the mosaic. 

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38 

Augie Fleras 

Abstract 

Ein Großteil der kanadischen Forschung über die Beziehung von Medien und 

Minderheiten macht das Augenfällige deutlich: die kontinuierliche Stereotypisierung 

von First Nations, Migrant*innen und Minderheiten als minderwertig, 

nicht dazugehörig oder bedrohlich. Viele sehen diese falschen Darstellungen 

in individuellen Vorurteilen oder institutioneller Diskriminierung 

begründet. Wie gültig diese Erklärungsversuche auch sein mögen, so ist es 

doch an der Zeit, diesen Ansatz, der von einer expliziten Feindschaft gegenüber 

Minderheiten ausgeht, hinter uns zu lassen. Dieser Aufsatz legt dar, dass 

eine Neukonzeptualisierung der Mainstream-Medien als Medien einer weißen 

ethnischen Gruppe zwar nicht ohne Weiteres nachvollziehbar erscheinen 

mag, sich aber als aufschlussreich erweist. Vorgeschlagen wird ein Erklärungsmodell 

für die Theoretisierung der medialen Repräsentation, das anerkennt, 

dass eine systemische pro-weiße Ausrichtung schwerer wiegt als die 

systematische Intoleranz gegenüber Minderheiten. Der Beitrag zeigt auch, 

dass Nachrichtenredaktionen, die sich für eine inklusivere Darstellung einsetzen, 

ironischerweise einen exkludierenden Diskurs reproduzieren, wenn 

sie erneut Bilder von Migranten/Minderheiten/First Nations zeigen, die von 

weißen eurozentristischen Mustern durchzogen sind. Mit Bezug auf das Konzept 

der »systemic whiteness« (»systemisches Weißsein«) wird eine innovative 

Perspektive angeboten, um neue Impulse in die Debatten um die falsche mediale 

Darstellung von Diversität und Differenzen zu bringen. 

Prof. Dr. Augie Fleras is a Professor (adjunct) of Sociology at the University of Waterloo, 

Canada. He received his doctorate at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, 

on the topic (broadly speaking) related to “The Politics of Indigeneity” — an interest he 

maintains into the present. As the author of some 30 books, in addition to numerous 

articles, his main areas of research focus on the politics of diversity, including multiculturalism, 

racisms, and immigration; the representational basis/bias of media- minority 

relations; and general issues related to social inequality and social problems in Canada. 

His most recent publications include Racisms in a Multicultural Canada (2014, 

Wilfrid Laurier University Press) and Immigration Canada (2014, University of British 

Columbia Press). 



Anamik Saha 

From the Politics of Representation to 

the Politics of Production 

Introduction 

In the UK, the topic of minority representation in the media is the theme 

of a recurring debate. Perhaps its most infamous incident occurred in 2001, 

when Greg Dyke, then the Director General of the BBC, described the institution 

as “hideously white.”1 In more recent times, the influential black British 

comedian Lenny Henry has began a campaign to convince broadcasters 

to ring-fence money “for BAME [black and minority ethnic] productions and 

programmes as they do for the nations and regions” with the campaign’s supporters 

threatening to boycott the television license fee unless broad casters 

proactively address the falling numbers of racial and ethnic minorities in 

the industry.2 These examples come from television, but we see a similar discourse, 

with its emphasis on recruitment and numbers, across all of the sectors 

of the cultural industries, particularly journalism, publishing and the 

arts, including theatre. It is my contention, however, that increasing the numbers 

of minorities working off-screen, while a welcome objective, will do very 

little to improve the representation of minorities on-screen. 

To be clear, I am not claiming that these initiatives should not be pursued! 

Issues of discrimination and prejudice in the workplace, and the experiences 

and working lives of minorities working in the media industries, 

are, of course, critical. But I do want to challenge the notion that a more diverse 

workforce will automatically lead to more enlightening or, at the very 

least, less damaging representations of minorities. The creation and wellbeing 

of a diverse media workforce is important, but, for me, the nature and quality 

of portrayals of racial, ethnic and religious minorities, and the potential of 

these images to contribute to a more progressive form of multiculture and a 

more inclusive version of national identity, is the key issue and must be our 

main focus. 

1 Amelia Hill, “Dyke: BBC Is Hideously White,” The Guardian, 7 January 2001, http:// 

www.theguardian.com/media/2001/jan/07/uknews.theobserver1. 

2 Tara Conlan, “Lenny Henry Campaign: Back TV Diversity or We’ll Boycott Licence Fee,” 

The Guardian, 23 April 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/apr/23/lennyhenry-campaign-tv-diversity-licence-fee. 



40 

Anamik Saha 

Part 1. Approaching Minority Cultural Production 

In some ways, people whom British policy-makers like to label BAME appear 

in the UK’s media, particularly in broadcasting, more than ever before. But, as 

the adage goes, it’s not quantity that matters but quality. Media scholars have 

shown how representations of minorities continue to slip into the same stereotypes 

that reduce the diversity of portrayals of minority experience, to a narrow 

range of racialist tropes. On the apparently positive side, we find superficial 

celebrations of multiculturalism, for instance, of ethnic food, carnival 

and melas, what Tariq Modood describes as a discourse of “steel bands, saris 

and somosas.”3 Post-9/11 representations of minorities have taken a darker 

turn expressed by narrow racialist tropes: “terrorism, violence, conflict,”4 or 

“‘asylum seekers,’ ‘black gun crime,’ ‘freedom of speech,’ the ‘clash of civilizations’ 

and most of all ‘the War on Terror.’”5 Specifically focusing on Islamophobia 

in the media, the journalist Abdul Rehman-Malik states, “The fact 

is we don’t see a diversity of real Muslim experience. The fact is, what we see 

is categorized into beards, scarves, halal meat, terrorists, forced marriage.”6 

My own research has focused on the representation in the media of British 

South Asians, which is nearly always configured within a binary opposition: 

desire or fear. Representations either take the form of exoticized, fetishized 

difference (colourful weddings, spirituality, spicy curries, Bollywood 

dancing) or primitive and threatening Otherness (terrorism, forced marriage, 

Sharia law). An even more disturbing dimension of this is that it is often Asian 

media practitioners themselves who are behind such representations. Subsequently, 

my research has looked into the production process of factual and 

fictional depictions of Asians in the media to discover how cultural industries 

work to reproduce neocolonial discourses of race and ethnicity. 

Research into race and the media can be characterized by two approaches. 

The first is policy-influenced and focuses on the experiences of minorities 

working in the media.7 This approach takes in issues of discriminative hiring 

Not Easy Being British: Colour, Culture and Citizenship (London: Runnymede 

Trust and Trentham Books, 1992). 

4 Mukti J. Campion, Look Who’s Talking: Cultural Diversity, Public Service Broadcasting 

and the National Conversation (Oxford: Nuffield College, 2005), 4. 

5 Sarita Malik, “‘Keeping It Real’: The Politics of Channel 4’s Multiculturalism, Mainstreaming 

and Mandates,” Screen 49, no. 3 (2008), 348. 

6 Anamik Saha, “‘Beards, Scarves, Halal Meat, Terrorists, Forced Marriage’: Television Industries 

and the Production of ‘Race,’” Media, Culture & Society 34, no. 4 (2012): 424–438. 

7 Campion, Look Who’s Talking; Ben O’Loughlin, “The Operationalization of the Concept 

‘Cultural Diversity’ in British Television Policy and Governance,” Centre for Research on 

Socio-Cultural Change, Working Paper no. 27 (November 2006), http://www.cresc.ac.uk/ 

medialibrary/workingpapers/wp27.pdf. 



From the Politics of Representation to the Politics of Production 41 

practices and nepotism, the politics/ethics of quotas, glass ceilings and retention. 

But while it rightly exposes the institutional racism of the media, it does 

not really focus on media texts and too easily assumes that increasing the 

numbers of minorities will fix the problem of representation. 

The second approach focuses on media texts and issues of representation 

and consists of two different methods. The first comes from a policy/social 

scientific perspective (particularly in journalism studies) and utilizes content 

and framing analysis to monitor the ways in which minorities feature in news 

stories. The second is a cultural studies approach, which is more generally interested 

in popular culture and uses a deconstructive form of textual analysis 

to explore the politics of representation in relation to issues of power, empire 

and neocolonialism. The latter method gives the best and most sophisticated 

critique of hegemonic representations of race but, as it is post-structuralist in 

its outlook, is less engaged with issues of praxis. The former is better at formulating 

counter-strategies, including petitioning and organising around single 

issues, and promoting advocacy/media literacy, but I question the extent to 

which these strategies can really challenge entrenched neocolonial representations 

of the Other. 

In order effectively to tackle racism in the media, what we need then is a 

novel, multi-faceted and holistic approach to studying media representations 

of minoritized groups that thinks through the experience of BAME practitioners 

and media representation together. Such an approach needs, firstly, 

to focus on the politics of representation and take seriously media texts 

(entertainment as well as factual). Secondly, there needs to be a focus on the 

labour that goes into the making of representations of minorities in order 

to see how the process of production shapes the way the text appears to the 

consumer. Thirdly, we need to pay attention to the political economy of the 

media which shapes the cultures of production that media workers need to negotiate 

and which both constrains and enables their work in different ways. 

By focusing on these three dimensions, we begin to get a more complex theoretical 

grasp of the relationships among structure, agency and text and of the 

epistemologies of race. But, more practically, we are able to see how representations 

of minorities are shaped by the political-economic and social contexts 

of the cultural industries. Put another way, in order to understand why media 

representations of racial/ethnic/religious groups take the (reductive) forms 

that they do and construct interventions that will disrupt this damaging process, 

we need to pay closer attention to the cultures of production within 

which such representations are formed. 



42 

Anamik Saha 

Part 2. Producing the British Asian Cultural Commodity 

In order to illustrate the production-led approach that I propose, I want to draw 

from my research into British South Asian cultural production and the experiences 

of Asians working in three media/cultural sectors: television, publishing 

and theatre. The research was conducted over the course of one year and 

included participant observation and interviews with over 50 mostly Asian 

“symbol creators” (filmmakers, authors, playwrights, screenwriters and actors), 

creative managers (producers, editors and marketing and sales personnel) 

and media executives. Each industry was chosen for its distinct political economy: 

publishing is market-based, theatre is heavily subsidized by the state 

and television in the UK is a hybrid of public-service and commercial models. 

But in each we see certain patterns of minority production recurring, as I 

shall describe. 

The most fundamental issue for British Asian cultural producers, specifically 

those looking to tell stories about marginalized experiences, is whether 

their narratives make it into the media, that is, whether a broadcaster commissions 

their idea for a series, a publisher buys their book manuscript or an 

arts body funds their theatre production. This basic issue is the focus of much 

policy discourse. (Indeed, an event hosted by the Diversity Unit of Channel 4, 

an independent broadcaster with a public service remit, that I attended centred 

around providing practical information that would help up-and-coming 

black and Asian filmmakers get commissions.8) An equally fundamental issue 

is what happens to the minority-produced text — w hich in this chapter I 

label the “Asian cultural commodity”9 — once it is commissioned or bought. 

It is in fact the stage between being selected for production and being distributed 

to audiences where minority producers encounter particular difficulties. 

My research found two things that happen to an Asian cultural commodity 

once it is commissioned: it is either ghettoized or sensationalized. In 

other words, it is marginalized to the periphery of the market, or it is placed 

8 Saha, “‘Beards, Scarves, Halal Meat, Terrorists, Forced Marriage.’” 

9 The expression “Asian cultural commodity” is adapted from Dwyer and Crang’s notion of 

“ethnicized cultural commodities”. Claire Dwyer and Philip Crang, “Fashioning Ethnicities: 

The Commercial Spaces of Multiculture,” Ethnicities 2, no. 3 (2002): 410–430. In this 

instance, it refers to cultural texts that foreground (South) Asian cultural identities in 

their narratives. I recognise the label is far from ideal and is in fact in danger of essentializing 

Asian identity further, but I use it in a way that draws from Stuart Hall’s invocation 

of the “new ethnicities” moment, which recognizes how ethnicity, for all its problems, 

gives British Asians a “location from which to speak”. Stuart Hall, “New Ethnicities,” in 

Stuart Hall, Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies 

Chen (London: Routledge, 1996). 




in the centre but presented in a way that over-determines its supposed ethnic 

identity. 

Examples of marginalisation of the Asian cultural commodity were found 

in each of the industries of study. For instance, in television many Asian producers 

and directors described how their programmes were broadcast outside 

of primetime (usually late at night) and received little promotion from 

the channel. Similarly in the theatre, Asian playwrights and producers complained 

that at best they get a limited run of shows at smaller theatres which, 

in turn, limits press exposure. And in publishing, books dealing with minority 

experiences were rarely featured in the main promotional displays of 

bookstores. Indeed, at the time of my research, the trade magazine The Book 

Seller was running a campaign called “Books For All” that encouraged book 

sellers to foreground a more diverse range of books in their stores in order to 

attract minority readers as well as promote minority authors. 

The epistemological consequences of being relegated to the periphery or 

positioned, at best, according to the logic of what Stuart Hall10 calls “segregated 

visibility” were clear to my respondents. As an Asian filmmaker told 

me, “You can make the best thing in the world, but if people don’t know about 

it they’re not going to watch it. So you’re kind of dead in the water.” Thus, marginalization 

of this kind limits the exposure of Asian cultural commodities 

and, on a symbolic level, represents the under-recognition of minority communities. 

In fact, for my respondents working in subsidized sectors like the 

performing arts or public-service broadcasting the commissioning of Asian 

cultural commodities which then receive little, if any, promotion illustrated 

how media executives working under a public remit that requires them to cater 

to minority audiences produce these commodities only to ensure that a diversity 

tick box is checked. According to one theatre producer, “That’s why 

[theatre venues] want you there, because the hope is you do ‘brown’ things 

and you’ll bring ‘brown’ people and therefore everything will look rosy in our 

venue.” According to this respondent, venues refuse to promote Asian cultural 

commodities to a wider audience because they do not deem them to have 

mainstream appeal and, in turn, commercial value. 

Those Asian cultural commodities that are deemed worthy of mainstream 

exposure, however, often have their Asianness amplified. That is, the way in 

which the commodity’s title, design/packaging or publicity material is aestheticized11 

often reinforces neocolonial discourses of South Asian identity. As I 

said above, the aestheticization of the Asian cultural commodity is based 

upon on Orientalist binary opposition: exoticized and fetishized or reviled 

10 Stuart Hall, “What Is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?,” in Hall, Critical Dialogues 

in Cultural Studies 

11 Lash and Urry, Economies of Signs and Space. 



44 

Anamik Saha 

and maligned. Book covers for Asian authors are notoriously exoticized. A 

widely circulated internet meme from 2014 vividly illustrates how novels set 

in South Asia are represented through just a handful of Indophilic12 and gendered 

tropes: “dupatta-wearing women, the Taj, close-ups of hennaed brown 

feet, brides with nose rings, mangoes.”13 Similarly, publicity for the few Asian 

cultural commodities that do make it onto primetime television is based upon 

the same aesthetic; as a respondent who works in programme development at 

the BBC explained, “If it’s got that colonial veneer it will get attention. It’s about 

showing these stories through that prism.” In theatre, there was a feeling that 

only Bollywood-style productions ever get attention from the (white) theatre 

establishment. At the time of the research, the play Rafta Rafta, written by the 

acclaimed British Pakistani playwright Ayub Khan-Din, was one of the few 

productions about Asian culture that enjoyed a long run at a major venue, in 

this case the Royal National Theatre. Yet, despite the positive response it received 

in the national press, many of my Asian respondents criticized it for reinforcing 

certain stereotypes about Asian families, complaining that it was 

yet another play about arranged marriages. As one Asian playwright put it, “It 

felt like a white guy being commissioned to research Indian people and come 

up with a play. It felt so inauthentic, hammy, stereo typical.” Each of my respondents 

alluded in some way to the Orientalist dimension of what this playwright 

perceived as an excessively populist, vernacular aesthetic, which reduces 

South Asian cultures to the same fetishized signifiers in order to appeal 

to the mainstream white audience and generate the biggest financial returns. 

In light of these findings, it would be easy to think that making the cultural 

industries more diverse would solve the problem of representation. Yet the 

reproduction of racialized tropes is much more entrenched and complex than 

can be fixed by making the industries more ethnically/racially mixed. For instance, 

if we return to book covers, the repetition of formulaic representations 

of South Asian cultures can be explained by the dominance of a commercial 

rationale that trumps the ethical or political or merely aesthetic motivations 

of the symbol creator. Consider the following quote from an executive editor 

working at a major publishing house: 

So you go to a sales meeting with your new titles […] And the salesperson takes one 

look at the cover and they say we can’t sell that […] that doesn’t stand out enough, 

doesn’t tell me what it is. I want to know it’s a book about a young Sri Lankan woman… 

(emphasis added). 

12 Vijay Prashad, The Karma of Brown Folk (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 

2000). 

13 Scroll Staff, “A Shy Woman by the Taj – or How Every South Asian Book Cover Looks the 

Same,” Quartz, 14 May 2014, http://qz.com/209415/a-shy-woman-by-the-taj-or-how-everysouth-asian-book-cover-looks-the-same/.


This seems fairly innocuous on first reading — a straightforward narrative on 

how a salesperson can veto the aesthetic choices of an editor. (Indeed, the increasing 

influence of sales and marketing personnel in editorial decisions was 

something on which respondents in my research repeatedly remarked.) But it 

also reveals how representations of Asianness are mediated through what Bill 

Ryan14 calls the “rationalization” of cultural production in its corporate form. 

In this example, the salesperson insists that the Asianness of the text be 

foregrounded in order to make it stand out in the marketplace. I found that it 

was precisely this sort of thinking that irritated Asian authors, who were aiming 

to tell universal stories but found that they were reduced to their own or, 

as in this case, their characters’ ethnicities. As one Asian writer said to me, 

“It’s about what you’re allowed to be.” Thus, I interpret the executive editor’s 

remark as referring to the increasingly commercialized and rationalized cultures 

of production in the cultural industries that during the aestheticization 

of the cultural commodity “format”15 it in a way that reproduces hegemonic 

representations of race designed to appeal to white fantasies of the Other in 

order to make a profit. 

For another example of how cultures of production shape representations of 

race, I want to draw from an interview with a Channel 4 executive — a Britishborn 

Pakistani Muslim with self-proclaimed working-class roots who had 

taken up a leading role in the organization as its commissioning editor for religious 

and multicultural programming. The purpose of my interview was to 

examine how he approaches the commissioning process with particular regard 

to television programmes that deal with multicultural issues. We see in 

his account a clear view of how narratives of the British Asian, and, in particular, 

the Muslim, experience come to be presented in very specific ways. The 

executive described his main aim as producing mainstream religious programming 

for broadcast during primetime. But, since these stories aren’t going to 

get high ratings, he has to focus on generating “noise,” that is, press coverage: 

From my point of view, basically we’re not going to get out and out huge ratings as 

much as we can try, so we do definitely want the programme to be noticed. We want 

it to get written about, we want it to win awards. We want it to have some noise, as 

they say. 

Thus, for this respondent, since programmes on religion do not generally attract 

the biggest audiences, the success of a programme depends on garnering 

positive reviews in the national press and, possibly, awards. And we can see 

how he attempts to do this through a quick scan of some of the programmes 

14 Bill Ryan, Making Capital from Culture: The Corporate Form of Capitalist Production 

(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991). 

15 Ibid., 164–184.

46 

Anamik Saha 

he has commissioned: Inside the Mind of a Suicide Bomber, The Cult of the 

Suicide Bomber, Women Only Jihad, The Fundamentalist, Putting the “Fun” in 

Fundamental. 

I admit that this list is selective, and the executive has commissioned several 

other programmes on Islam that do not mention terrorism or fundamentalism. 

In addition, I should stress that I am not suggesting that these 

programmes deal insensitively with their subjects or that they are no more 

complex and nuanced than their titles suggest. In fact, one could argue that it 

is important to tell these stories and promote a deeper understanding of what 

is clearly a key issue of our time. But what makes me ambivalent about this 

emphasis on “noise” is the invariable way that such programmes are aestheticized, 

a way that contributes to the sensationalized, Orientalist representation 

of Islam. Regardless of how sensitively these subjects are explored, respondents 

felt that such programmes — and, in particular, their titles — constitute a 

discourse that perpetuates a racist idea of Islam as abhorrent and absolutely, 

irreconcilably different from and incompatible with Western society. As one 

respondent put it: 

Channel 4 in particular seems to be stuck in this mode of representing British Muslims 

— so much emphasis on the terrorism question, on fanaticism — that is what they 

are interested in. And yes it is an important issue but it is by no means the most important 

issue in the whole […] I think if you were to look at Channel 4 […] a lot of the 

documentary output related to Asian people, a lot of it is related to terrorism. Which 

I think is very sad. 

The main point that I am making is that the reproduction of neocolonial 

discourses around race, ethnicity and religion does not merely spring from 

the values of individual gatekeepers but is embedded within the production 

process itself through what appears as a common-sense economic/commercial 

rationale. On a superficial level, there was nothing particularly controversial 

about the way that the Channel 4 executive described his strategy for 

generating “noise.” But I argue that it is in how such a strategy is presented 

as common-sense business practice that the richness, the diversity and the 

complexity of the lives of minorities get reduced to racialized and Orientalist 

tropes. 

Conclusion 

The common perception amongst cultural/media policy-makers, activists 

and campaigners is that the problem of the limited range of racialized ways in 

which minorities are represented in the media can be laid squarely at the feet 




of the privileged social class that dominates the upper echelons of the media 

industries. While I think the need to make senior management more diverse 

and inclusive is an urgent one, I have argued in this chapter that the urge to 

reproduce racialized tropes in the media is so entrenched that diversity initiatives 

will have little effect. How else is one to explain the above case in which a 

British Muslim media executive responsible for a range of programming on 

Islam has been heavily criticized for being reductive and sensationalist? Just to 

be clear, I do not claim that this individual should, as a Muslim, know better 

or that he is, to use the tired cliché, a sell out. Rather, I wanted to demonstrate 

how the channel’s emphasis on generating “noise” inevitably steered this executive’s 

work in a way that led him to produce what for many of my respondents 

were sensationalist representations of Islam, despite his efforts, perhaps, 

to do something more nuanced. 

But how can we combat these forces and engender meaningful change? 

This is where I believe a “politics of production,” that is, a focus on the production 

process itself, can represent an intervention. I suggest two strategies 

one designed to operate on the macro level and the other on the micro level of 

cultural production. 

The macro-level strategy consists in regulation that is more effective in two 

ways. Firstly, public-service broadcasters need to be fully protected from market 

forces. They should not feel pressure, as they do in the UK, to compete with 

commercial channels.16 Ratings should be a secondary concern that comes after 

a broadcaster has ensured its fulfilment of its public service remit to cater 

to the nation’s minorities. Moreover, the broadcaster should do this in a 

way that consists in more than tick-boxing exercises. As Nicholas Garnham17 

states, public service broadcasting is the “heartland of contemporary cultural 

practice,” and it needs to be protected as such. Secondly, regulation must dilute 

concentrations of power in corporate media through reducing barriers to 

entry. This would allow more voices to enter the market and, thus, ensure a 

healthy, independent commercial sector that could provide the autonomy and 

space that cultural producers need in order to take risks. A more robust public-service 

sector and more dynamic independent commercial sector would 

clearly benefit minorities by lessening the hold of the forms of rationalization 

in the corporate sector that restrict the creative and aesthetic, or even political, 

ambitions of producers from minority backgrounds. 

On the micro level, cultural producers from racialized backgrounds — 

whether filmmakers, journalists, authors, playwrights or screenwriters — need 

16 Georgina Born, Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC (London: 

Random House, 2011). 

17 Nicholas Garnham, Capitalism and Communication: Global Culture and the Economics 

of Information (London: SAGE Publications, 1990), 166. 



48 

Anamik Saha 

to focus as much on their industry practice as they do on their craft. Though 

media practitioners are constrained by the increasing commercialization of 

the industry, there are still spaces where they can make their practice more 

efficacious. After all, the media still produce some powerful critical insights 

into the experiences of minorities. But sharpening practices depends on cultural 

producers being aware of how industrial processes of standardization 

can undermine their political as well as artistic aims. So, for instance, they 

should be as active as possible in every part of the production process, from 

conception to marketing and distribution. Being prepared to challenge decisions 

or go against standard industry practice and choosing to work in environments 

that ensure relative autonomy are two aspects of this strategy. 

This illustrates what I mean by a “politics of production”: a critical understanding 

of how media texts get produced and, more specifically, of the forces 

that constrain the work of cultural producers and, so, their ability to tell the 

stories that they want to tell. If we want less reductive and more varied representations 

of minorities, then we need to realize that that is going to take 

much more than just diversifying the workforce. Producing more radical and 

enlightening media representations of minorities depends upon transforming 

media practices themselves. 

Bibliography 

Born, Georgina. Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC. London: Random 

House, 2011. 

Campion, Mukti J. Look Who’s Talking: Cultural Diversity, Public Service Broadcasting and the 

National Conversation. Oxford: Nuffield College, 2005. 

Conlan, Tara. “Lenny Henry Campaign: Back TV Diversity or We’ll Boycott Licence Fee.” The 

Guardian, 23 April 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/apr/23/lenny-henrycampaign-tv-diversity-licence-fee. 

Dwyer, Claire and Philip Crang. “Fashioning Ethnicities: The Commercial Spaces of Multiculture.” 

Ethnicities 2, no. 3 (2002): 410–430. 

Garnham, Nicholas. Capitalism and Communication: Global Culture and the Economics of Information. 

London: SAGE Publications, 1990. 

Hall, Stuart. “New Ethnicities.” In id. Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. Edited by David 

Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, 441–49. London: Routledge, 1996. 

Hall, Stuart. “What Is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” In id. Critical Dialogues in Cultural 

Studies. Edited by David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, 468–478. London: Routledge, 

1996. 

Hill, Amelia. “Dyke: BBC Is Hideously White.” The Guardian, 7 January 2001. http://www. 

theguardian.com/media/2001/jan/07/uknews.theobserver1. 

Lash, Scott M. and John Urry. Economies of Signs and Space. London: SAGE Publications, 1993. 

Malik, Sarita. “‘Keeping It Real’: The Politics of Channel 4’s Multiculturalism, Mainstreaming 

and Mandates.” Screen 49, no. 3 (2008): 343–353, http://screen.oxfordjournals.org/ 

content/49/3/343.full.pdf+html. 




Modood, Tariq. Not Easy Being British: Colour, Culture and Citizenship. London: Runnymede 

Trust and Trentham Books, 1992. http://www.opengrey.eu/item/display/10068/475135. 

O’Loughlin, Ben. “The Operationalization of the Concept ‘Cultural Diversity’ in British Television 

Policy and Governance.” Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, Working 

Paper no. 27 (November 2006). http://www.cresc.ac.uk/medialibrary/workingpapers/ 

wp27.pdf. 

Prashad, Vijay. The Karma of Brown Folk. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. 

Ryan, Bill. Making Capital from Culture: The Corporate Form of Capitalist Production. Berlin: 

Walter de Gruyter, 1991. 

Saha, Anamik. “‘Beards, Scarves, Halal Meat, Terrorists, Forced Marriage’: Television Industries 

and the Production of ‘Race’.” Media, Culture & Society 34, no. 4 (2012): 424–438. 

Staff, Scroll. “A Shy Woman by the Taj — or How Every South Asian Book Cover Looks 

the Same.” Quartz, 14 May 2014. http://qz.com/209415/a-shy-woman-by-the-taj-or-howevery-south-asian-book-cover-looks-the-same/. 

Abstract 

Mit diesem Beitrag möchte ich zeigen, wie mediale Repräsentationen von rassifizierten 

Minderheiten durch die Produktionsbedingungen in der Kulturwirtschaft 

geprägt sind. Medienwissenschaftler*innen haben sich eingehend 

mit dem Fortdauern von stereotypen Bildern verschiedener Ethnien in den 

Medien und der Populärkultur beschäftigt. Doch gibt es bislang sehr wenig 

empirische Forschung dazu, wie die Kulturwirtschaft arbeitet, die diese verkürzten 

Darstellungen produziert. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, auf der Grundlage 

einer ethnografischen Studie über die britisch-südasiatische Kulturproduktion 

im Fernsehen, im Verlagswesen und im Theater zu zeigen, wie selbst 

Minderheitenangehörige – entgegen ihren guten Absichten – dazu gebracht 

werden, problematische Selbstbilder zu produzieren. In diesem Beitrag werden 

zwei Thesen aufgestellt: 1) Die zunehmende Diversität des Personals 

in den Kultureinrichtungen wird nicht zwangsläufig die Darstellung von 

wirksam sind, hängt von einer »Politik der Produktion« ab, die den Fokus darauf 

legt, die Produktionsbedingungen zu verändern, innerhalb derer Darstellungen 

von Minderheiten entstehen. 

Dr. Anamik Saha is a lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at 

Goldsmiths, University of London. Prior to this he worked in the Institute of Communications 

Studies at the University of Leeds. He has also held visiting fellowships 

at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at Trinity College, Connecticut. 

Anamik’s work has been published in journals such as Media, Culture and Society, 

Ethnic and Racial Studies, Ethnicities, and the European Journal of Cultural Studies. He 

recently edited a special issue of Popular Communication with David Hesmondhalgh 

on “race,” ethnicity, and cultural production. He is currently working on a book on 

“race” and the cultural industries. 



Sally Lehrman 

Creating an Inclusive Public Commons 

Values and Structures in Journalism 

that Can Promote Change 

My great-grandfather immigrated to New York City from Russia in the early 

1900s. Soon after his arrival, he had to depart with his wife and children to 

Denver, Colorado, to seek admittance to a sanatorium. He had contracted tuberculosis, 

and, back then, high-altitude, fresh air and sunshine were thought 

to cure the deadly disease. People like my great-grandfather were tucked into 

open-air beds on long porches of hospitals, where they remained in sunshine 

or snow. And, as one doctor told me recently, the treatment might very well 

cure you — if it didn’t kill you. 

There was a debate going on in the United States at the time. Were Jews, 

like my great-grandfather, members of a separate race? And were they more 

susceptible to tuberculosis? Why did so many African Americans die from it? 

Scientists and doctors wrote about these matters. Both Jews and black people, 

they proposed, had “small chests” and “weak lungs.”1 But other experts, especially 

Jewish physicians and philosophers, argued that this vulnerability was 

not innate. Rather, it could be traced to the social conditions in which these 

two groups found themselves. Immigrant Jews often lived in tenement houses 

and worked in sweatshops, places where the disease spread easily. African 

Americans also suffered from poor housing, low wages, and poverty.2 The social 

vulnerability theory, of course, turned out to be right. 

My great-grandfather’s story offers an example of the assumptions and 

ideologies that shaped ways of seeing and thinking about the day’s issues at 

the turn of the 20th century. It illustrates our tendency, even today, to blame 

societal problems on group or individual characteristics instead of looking 

at society itself. Now, as then, it is difficult to recognize and respond to com- 

1 William Zebina Ripley, The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study (New York: D. Appleton 

and Co., 1899), 382; Seale Harris, “Tuberculosis in the Negro,” JAMA 41 (1903): 834–838. 

Harris argues that the high rate of TB in “Negroes” is due to both innate weaknesses and 

social conditions. Sanford B. Hunt, “The Negro as a Soldier,” Anthropological Review 7 

(1869): 40–54. 

2 John D. Hunter, “Tuberculosis in the Negro: Causes and Treatment,” Colorado Medical 

Journal 11 (1905): 250–257. 



Creating an Inclusive Public Commons 51 

monly held assumptions about which differences among people matter; why 

they matter; and, as a result, what should be done to address inequities in 

health, education, criminal justice, and other areas. Journalism, of course, 

plays an important role in providing a forum for exchange of ideas and debate 

about such critical concerns. Today, Jews are no longer the main focus of 

debates about health voiced either in medical circles or the news media. But 

immigrants still are. The headlines on American cable news and local television 

over the past year have included: 

“Ebola Fears Spark Backlash Against Latino Immigrants” — CNN;3 

“Undocumented Immigrants Bringing Diseases Across Border?” — ABC15 (Arizona);4 

“Immigration Crisis: Tuberculosis Spreading at (Immigrant) Camps” — Fox News; 

and 

“Border Patrol Union Claims Scabies ‘Outbreak’ Threatens Agents, Public” — Fox 

News.5 

These examples remind journalists, media scholars, and citizens alike that 

it is our challenge to alert ourselves to repetition of commonly held but unfounded 

assumptions. More importantly, we must recognize the ways in 

which these assumptions limit journalists’ own understanding of the areas 

they cover, and, in turn, that of the audiences they serve. 

This article considers belief systems and structures in the news that have 

created problems of accuracy and fair representation and some strategies to 

change them. I write from the perspective of a journalist who covers scientific 

and social issues, one who has long been involved in the effort to make news 

coverage more inclusive. 

3 Maria Santana, “Ebola Fears Spark Backlash Against Latino Immigrants,” CNN Politics, 

12 October 2014, http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/10/politics/ebola-fears-spark-backlashlatinos/. 

4 Navideh Forghani, “Undocumented Immigrants Bringing Diseases Across Border?” ABC15, 

9 June 2014, http://www.abc15.com/news/national/immigrants-bringing-diseases-acrossborder. 

5 Todd Starnes, “Immigration Crisis: Tuberculosis Spreading at Camps,” Fox News, 7 July 2014, 

at-camps.html; Judson Berger, “Border Patrol Union Claims Scabies ‘Outbreak’ Threatens 

Agents, Public,” Fox News, 7 July 2014, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/07/07/ 

border-patrol-union-claims-scabies-outbreak-threatens-agents-public/. 



52 

Sally Lehrman 

Media Production 

Since as far back as the 1940s, American journalism generally has recognized 

the need to cover all the various groups in American society.6 This important 

principle was articulated by the Commission on Freedom of the Press, a panel 

created at the instigation of Henry R. Luce, co-founder and editor-in-chief of 

Time magazine, who also helped fund it with a $200,000 grant from Time Inc. 

Luce wanted to protect the press’s independence by setting standards for its 

social responsibility. So he asked his former Yale classmate Robert Hutchins, 

chancellor of the University of Chicago, to form and lead a commission to investigate 

the issue. The commission, which included four foreign advisers, 

pondered the matter for four years, hearing testimony from 58 journalists and 

interviewing 225 members of industry, government, and agencies associated 

with the press. Its 13 members concluded that the news should be: 

– truthful, comprehensive, intelligent, and placed in a context which gives it 

meaning; 

– a forum for the exchange of comments and criticism; 

– representative of all of the groups that constitute society; 

– a forum for the presentation and clarification of society’s goals and values; 

and 

– widely distributed. 

In truth, unfortunately, these clear principles had only a modest influence on 

practice. The mid-1960s, a traumatic period in the racial history of the U. S., 

made this apparent. Across several summers, urban black communities in 

Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, and other cities arose in anger. Tension over 

police practices, inadequate housing, and the lack of meaningful employment 

burst into violence. In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed what is now 

known as the Kerner Commission to investigate the causes of the unrest. The 

commission studied incidents in 23 cities and in its report highlighted the 

segregation and discrimination permeating American society.7 In describing 

the forces and institutions responsible for the country’s deepening racial divisions, 

the commission pointed a finger directly at the news media. On the 

whole, the commission concluded, most of the coverage of the unrest had attempted 

to be fair and accurate. But overall, journalism had failed American 

society. More specifically, the news had: 

6 Commission on Freedom of the Press, A Free and Responsible Press: A General Report 

on Mass Communication: Newspapers, Radio, Motion Pictures, Magazines, and Books 

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947), 20–29. 

7 U. S. National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Report of the National Advisory 

Commission on Civil Disorders (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1968). 




– created an exaggerated sense of the scope and intensity of the unrest; 

– helped cause it by denying black Americans a voice in the news; and 

– failed to give two of the major groups in society — black people and white 

people — a clear picture of one another, each other’s life experiences, and 

each other’s needs. 

Disastrously, the commissioners said, “the media report and write from the 

standpoint of a white man’s world.” 

Last year, we saw uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland; 

and throughout the U. S. in protest of the police’s use of force — and what activists 

describe as the unaddressed historical degradation of the value of 

black lives. Reporters once again have to ask ourselves whether we are failing 

society. Have journalists recognized that #BlackLivesMatter? 

News organizations did take steps to change after the Kerner Report. One 

major effort was to create more diverse newsrooms. In 1978, for example, the 

American Society of Newspaper Editors developed a system of accountability 

by conducting an annual census of staffing by race. Later, it added gender. 

Members also shared best practices in hiring and retention. Over nearly 

50 years, newsrooms have changed. But they remain nowhere near representative 

of the population in the U. S., of which racial minorities constitute 

about 37 percent.8 The newsrooms that report to ASNE remain stuck at about 

13 percent non-white.9 

And, now, we find new barriers to such efforts. Shrinking newsrooms attempt 

to address a 24/7 news cycle. Traditional news organizations are struggling 

to survive in the online and mobile environment, in which advertisement 

commands much lower rates. Audiences less readily distinguish 

expensive, original news reporting from derivative work. Experimentation 

and innovation are rising, but most of these efforts do not give priority to diversity 

— or even recognize the need for it. Digital startups are quite white, 

quite male. 

Why? Despite evidence that diverse groups perform and make decisions 

better,10 news media in crisis rely on familiar faces. Newsroom staff in the 

U. S. declined in diversity in the most recent American Society of Newspaper 

8 United States Census Bureau, 2010 Census, accessed 6 August 2015, http://www.census. 

gov/2010census/. 

9 American Society of Newspaper Editors, 2015 Census, accessed 17 August 2015, asne. 

org/content.asp?pl=121&sl=415&contentid=415. 

10 Lu Hong and Scott E. Page, “Groups of Diverse Problem Solvers can Outperform Groups 

of High-Ability Problem Solvers,” PNAS 101, no. 46 (2004): 16,385–16,389; Karen A. Jehn, 

Gregory B. Northcraft, and Margaret A. Neale, “Why Differences Make a Difference: 

A Field Study of Diversity, Conflict and Performance in Workgroups,” Administrative 

Science Quarterly 44, no. 4 (1999): 741–763. 



54 

Sally Lehrman 

Editors Census. A full 90 percent of supervisors were white.11 Women lead 

only two of the 25 highest-circulating American newspapers.12 Most of those 

in charge of the top 25 digital news sites in the U. S. are white men.13 About 

one-half to two-thirds of the workers employed by the largest American digital 

media companies — Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In — are 

white, with Asians making up the bulk of the rest.14 So greatly outnumbered, 

non-white, non-male voices have little influence. 

Representation of Minorities: News Content 

As for news content, diversity advocates have pushed for more inclusive 

coverage and for newsroom training in cross-cultural reporting. For example, 

the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in Oakland, California, has 

offered such workshops for journalists since 1977. The Poynter Institute for 

Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Florida, provides diversity training for journalists 

and educators. Such education has had a limited effect and, sometimes, 

unintended consequences, e.g.: 

– the “zoo” story, covering colorful festivals, supposedly surprising cultural 

habits, and so on; and 

– the “plight” or “problem people” story, which emphasizes trauma and 

misfortune.15 

– Neither are wrong, but if they dominate cross-cultural reporting, they can 

worsen stereotypes. 

An effective way to understand the portrayal of ethnic groups and the impact 

of these portrayals is through recognizing the “frame” at work in the background. 

A frame is the organizing principle a journalist uses in constructing 

a news story to show what’s important, why it matters, who is responsible, 

and what should be done. Communication researchers have used the concept 

11 American Society of Newspaper Editors, 2015 Census, Tables A and C, accessed 27 August 

2015, http://www.asne.org/content.asp?pl=140&sl=129&contentid=129. 

12 Joe Strupp, “With Jill Abramson’s NY Times Ouster, none of the Ten Largest Papers are 

Led by Women,” Media Matters for America, 16 May 2014, http://mediamatters.org/ 

blog/2014/05/16/with-jill-abramsons-ny-times-ouster-none-of-the/199349. 

13 Assessed from Pew Research Center News Media Indicator Database, http://www. 

journalism.org/media-indicators/digital-top-50-online-news-entities list. 

14 Elizabeth Weise and Jessica Guynn, “White, Asian Men Rule the Roost at Twitter,” USA 

Today, 24 July 2014, http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/07/23/twitter-diversityhiring/13060901/. 

15 Clint C. Wilson II, Felix Gutierrez, and Lena M. Chao, 

Multicultural Issues into the New Communications (Los Angeles: Sage, 2013), 40, 187. 




to examine how news content is shaped, produces meaning, and influences 

audience perceptions. One study of two years of coverage of Native Americans 

in the Boston Globe16 found several recurring types of content frames that emphasized 

this group’s perceived status as: 

– generic outsider: described in counterpoint to the white American mainstream, 

and not as part of it; 

– degraded Indian: shown as having adopted bad Anglo-European habits but 

not positive Anglo-European values; and 

– historic relic: portrayed as a remnant of history and a people who are no 

longer relevant. 

This author’s informal survey of news and feature headlines in the New York 

Times that contain the terms “Native American” or “American Indian”17 supported 

the research findings from the Boston Globe study, e.g.: 

“Native Americans Struggle with High Rate of Rape” 

“The Sale of Manhattan, Retold from a Native American Viewpoint” 

“As American Indians Move to Cities, Old and New Challenges” 

“‘Nation to Nation,’ at Museum of the American Indian” 

“Appeals Court Rejects Claims by American Indian Payday Lenders” 

One of these was an opinion piece about an incident that occurred 150 years 

ago, in 1864! 

Other groups experience a similar disjunction between their lives and the 

news about them. As one recent study of news habits and attitudes in the U. S. 

found, African Americans and Hispanics (both native and immigrant) express 

dismay about the portrayal of their lives and communities.18 

So what are some solutions? Consider the “voiced participant” content 

frame, which the researchers studying the Boston Globe described as newly 

emerging and distinct from the “outsider,” “degraded,” and “historic” American 

Indian frames noted above.19 In this type of frame, members of minority 

16 Autumn Miller and Susan Dente Ross, “They Are Not Us: Framing of American Indians 

by the Boston Globe,” Howard Journal of Communications 15, no. 4 (2004): 245–259. 

17 Williams, Timothy, 22 May 2012; Barron, James, 18 November 2014; Eddy, Melissa, 

17 August 2014; Williams, Timothy, 13 April 2013; Rothstein, Edward, 21 October 2014; 

Silver-Greenberg, Jessica, 1 October 2014. 

18 Media Insight Project, “The Personal News Cycle: African American and Hispanic News 

Consumers,” 16 September 2014, accessed 27 July 2015, http://www.americanpressinstitute. 

org/publications/reports/survey-research/african-american-hispanic-news-consumers/. 

19 Miller and Ross, “They Are Not Us,” 251. 



56 

Sally Lehrman 

groups speak for themselves and maintain their own identities within the 

mainstream culture. Some practices that can help to increase the number of 

stories thusly framed are: 

1) fellowships aimed at creating more diverse news staffs;20 

2) user-generated content that brings in non-majority views;21 

3) exchange and collaboration with associations of minority journalists, such 

as the Native American Journalists Association and the National Association 

of Hispanic Journalists; 

4) collaboration with ethnic media;22 and 

5) source databases and better use of female and minority sources.23 

Media Perceptions: Addressing Social Structures 

In addition to the above approaches, a colleague at San Francisco State University, 

Venise Wagner, and I believe that deeper change is needed. We are developing 

ways to teach journalists to think in new ways that can be the basis 

for more effective reporting and writing. We call this effort the Opportunity 

Project. 

When one examines news frames, one can consider not just what matters 

in a story and why it does but also the choices a journalist makes in telling 

the story. Traditional journalistic practices in the U. S. tend to use one individual’s 

experience to stand in for a group or a single concrete instance to illustrate 

a societal trend. The Stanford University political scientist and communication 

scholar Shanto Iyengar calls this the “anecdotal” or “episodic” 

frame.24 But this practice can cause misunderstandings. It can inadvertently 

play to news consumers’ stereotypes and biases and lead the audience to 

20 Politico, for instance, began a training institute with the Maynard Institute for Journalism 

Education, which specializes in diversity, and hired a recent graduate in a one-year 

fellowship. The Center for Public Integrity began a fellowship for postgraduate journalists 

of color in 2014. 

21 The Washington Post’s “PostEverything” blog brings in multiple perspectives and viewpoints 

not regularly seen in the newspaper. 

22 In the U. S., such associations include the National Association of Black Journalists, the 

Asian American Journalists Association, the Native American Journalists Association, 

the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists 

Association, and New America Media, a consortium of ethnic media. 

23 For an example, see the Society of Professional Journalists’ Rainbow Sourcebook at 

http://www.spj.org/divsourcebook.asp. 

24 Iyengar sets forth this theory of episodic or “anecdotal” framing, as opposed to “thematic” 

framing, in Shanto Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues 

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 




overlook the very social conditions and outcomes that a journalist intends 

to highlight. 

Research in experimental psychology has found that journalism that relies 

on the anecdotal frame may increase the audience’s feeling that a non-majority 

individual is the “other.”25 The news story focuses one’s attention on an 

individual’s behavior and choices. This in turn may prompt an audience to 

blame the victim, if you will, or attribute inequities in health, for instance, to 

cultural practices or group behaviors of the less healthy instead of holding the 

society at large accountable. 

News stories on health inequities often feature individuals who have become 

health advocates. For example, an article in the Savannah Morning 

News described an African-American woman who having survived breast 

cancer had begun promoting mammograms for women in her community.26 

On the whole, the story was fine. But, by emphasizing this individual’s experience, 

the writer suggested that fear and financial worries prevent black women 

from getting tested and that, as a result, we see a higher death rate among African-American 

women with the disease. Like many other such articles, it also 

pointed to contested evidence that supposedly links certain types of African 

ancestry to an especially aggressive type of breast cancer. However, the article 

didn’t mention what may be an equally important, perhaps even more important, 

factor in the increased death rate that has nothing to do with an individual’s 

decision making or ancestry. There is convincing evidence that Afri 

can-American women receive lower quality health care over their lifetimes.27 

Another article, on a website called Healthy Hispanic Living, is like many 

that aim to empower Latinas to take steps to lower their risk of breast cancer. 

In the course of recommending screenings and self-exams, the site’s content 

speculates that there is something biologically distinct about this very diverse 

group, whose members come from Spain, Mexico, Central and South America, 

and the Caribbean, that leads to high susceptibility. In fact, there is no scientific 

agreement on this hypothesis.28 

Such reporting turns society’s attention to individual or supposed group 

characteristics that cannot be changed and, thus, away from solutions that can 

25 Mahzarin Banaji, personal communication, 2006. 

26 Dana Clark Felty, “Black Women & Breast Cancer: Lower Risk, Greater Danger,” Savannah 

Morning News, 30 March 2010, http://savannahnow.com/accent/2010-03-30/black-womenbreast-cancer-lower-risk-greater-danger. 

27 Jeffrey H. Silber et al., “Characteristics associated with differences in survival among 

black and white women with breast cancer,” JAMA 310, no. 4 (2013): 389–397, doi:10.1001/ 

jama.2013.8272. 

28 Laura Fejerman et al., “Genome-Wide Association Study of Breast Cancer in Latinas 

Identifies Novel Protective Variants on 6q25,” Nature Communications 5 (2014): 1–8, 

doi:10.1038/ncomms6260. 



58 

Sally Lehrman 

Economic & Social 

Opportunities and Ressources 

Living and Working 

Conditions 

Access 

Biology 

Personal 

and Cultural 

Behaviour 

Health, Education, Other Outcomes 

Fig. 1: [Adapted from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation] 

be enacted by a better allocation of resources and setting of priorities within 

the broader community. This is one reason Venise Wagner and I work to encourage 

journalists to rely less on and reach farther than the anecdotal frame. 

We have developed a reporting strategy, which is outlined below, that we are 

promoting to journalism educators and newsrooms through training sessions, 

talks, and a forthcoming textbook, Reporting Inequality, under contract 

with Routledge. 

Stories about individuals and specific events do capture an audience’s attention. 

We advise that reporters retain the anecdotal frame but extend their 

research and interviews so as to probe the social and institutional structures 

that shape an individual’s decision making and behavior. In effect, we believe 

that the anecdotal can be combined with the societal “thematic” frame. Certainly, 

individuals often do make bad decisions. We as a society, however, can 

learn more from the factors that influence these decisions. With the shift in 

reporting practices that we advocate, journalists can bring these to light. 

The framework that we use, which we have borrowed from the public health 

model of the social determinants of health,29 is shown above (Fig. 1). It moves 

from individual behavior and the biology of health outward to the working 

and living conditions that shape both. It also illustrates that social and economic 

opportunities and resources shape these working and living conditions. 

A journalist pursuing a story can consider how political and historical 

29 http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/socialdeterminants/index.html. 




Power Relations: 

Social Hierarchies & 

Privileges 

– Class 

– Gender 

– Immigration status 

– National origin 

– Sexual orientation 

– Disability 

– Age 

– Geography 

Institutional 

Power 

– Corporations 

– Other businesses 

– Government 

agencies 

– Schools 

Neighborhood & 

Social Conditions 

– Neighborhood 

conditions 

– Social 

– Physical 

– Residential 

segregation 

– Workplace 

conditions 

Fig. 2: [Adapted from the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, 2008] 

hierarchies of race and ethnicity are embedded in social and economic structures 

that, in turn, constrain working and living conditions, which in constrain 

behavior and biology. 

This graphic (Fig. 1) can be used as a tool for developing fresh ideas and 

new story frames for covering inequity. A reporter can use it to ask what factors 

other than behavior, biology, and access shape unequal outcomes (represented 

by the lowest bar) by ethnic group in any area of coverage: health, education, 

criminal justice, government services, and so on. Pursuing answers to 

the question “why?” takes a reporter up the hierarchy of influences, out of the 

area of the innermost circle to the bands that constrain it, namely “Living and 

Working Conditions” and “Economical and Social Opportunities.” Stories 

about high levels of diabetes in American Indians or African Americans, for 

instance, often emphasize the need for group members to exercise more often. 

Instead, a reporter can ask why exercise is lacking. Why do people avoid walking 

in their neighborhood, for instance? If it’s dangerous, why is it dangerous? 

This brings the news piece into the band “Living and Working Conditions.” 

What living and working conditions might make walking unpleasant, frightening, 

difficult, or dangerous? And what economic, business, or government 

policies shape these neighborhood or working conditions? The practice of organizing 

questions in such a way helps journalists construct news frames and 

provide information that society can act upon. 

The graphic above (Fig. 2) shows the same influences on social inequality in 

the form of a flow chart. It illustrates the way in which power relations shape 

institutional decision making, which in turn shapes neighborhood and broader 

social conditions. An individual article on Latina or African- American health, 

for example, might describe ways in which people within a particular neighborhood 

are attempting to change school or local government policies in order 



60 

Sally Lehrman 

to be provided with more opportunities for safer recreation or heal thier food. 

Or, a video might discuss workplace policies that influence an employee’s ability 

to stop work and eat a nutritious lunch each day or provide the scheduling 

consistency that allows for planning and cooking family meals. 

Implicit Bias 

In addition, we use social science research and its findings to help journalists 

understand another type of frame, namely, our own mental frames. Social 

scientists use “mental frame” to refer to the way one thinks about an idea 

or issue.30 Our life experiences, combined with our internalization of the beliefs, 

values, and stereotypes of the society we live in, create these mental 

frames. Like everyone, journalists apply these frames to their work. A journalist’s 

mental frames influence her editorial decisions about what event, action, 

or individual is important and why it matters. They underpin her everyday 

choices in reporting, writing, and producing news content, especially the 

snap judgments that she makes under pressure. 

Mental frames also underpin the social fabric into which news content 

is folded. Individuals’ mental frames interact with the myths, attitudes, behaviors, 

and history of the broader society, especially those of dominant 

groups.31 These widely shared societal mental frames shape the ways in which 

an audience interprets and understands the news.32 Research on implicit bias 

helps us better understand the effects of societal frames and what to do about 

them. Tony Greenwald (University of Washington), Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard 

University), and Brian Nosek (University of Virginia) conducted the original, 

groundbreaking work on implicit bias, which describes those understandings 

outside of our awareness that influence our perception and behavior.33 

30 For a good example, see Karmen Erjavec et al., “Journalistic Views on Post-Violent Peacebuilding 

in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” in Olivera Simic et al. (eds.), Peace Psychology 

in the Balkans: Dealing with a Violent Past While Building Peace (New York: Springer, 

2012), 1–14. 

31 Miller and Ross, “They Are Not Us,” 247. 

32 For example, see David J. Knight, “Don’t Tell Young Black Males that They Are ‘Endangered’,” 

The Washington Post, 10 October 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ 

opinions/young-black-males-trapped-by-rhetoric/2014/10/10/dcf95688-31e2-11e4-9e92- 

0899b306bbea_story.html. 

33 Brian A. Nosek et al., “Harvesting Implicit Group Attitudes and Beliefs from a Demonstration 

Website,” Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 

See also Brian A. Nosek et al., “Pervasiveness and Correlates of Implicit Attitudes and 

Stereotypes,” European Review of Social Psychology 18 (2007): 36–88. 




They developed the Implicit Association Test,34 a computer-based tool that 

assesses an individual’s reactions to words and images, to study this process. 

The test measures how quickly we associate faces, names, or other indicators 

of group membership with positive or negative attitudes or with particular 

characteristics. 

Do we more quickly connect women’s faces with words relevant to the humanities 

or to the social sciences? When we see a black-skinned man holding 

an object, do we more quickly assume that it is a soft drink, a phone, or a 

gun? Do the attitudes we think we have toward Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, 

and Christianity match our automatic reactions when we see symbols of these 

religions paired with positive or negative words? This research closely examines 

what we assume about others and the world around us: what we focus 

on, what we see, and what we imagine. Project Implicit35 is a multi- university 

collaboration that grew out of this work and draws researchers from around 

the world. In some of the tests conducted with German subjects, participants 

more quickly associated women with family and men with careers. They 

more easily connected positive words with heterosexuals and were more likely 

to show an automatic preference for thin people compared to heavier ones. 

These are similar to results with subjects in the U. S. 

Why does this work matter to journalists? These processes operate below 

the level of our awareness all the time. They shape our reporting. And they 

shape the way audiences receive our reporting.36 Researchers who study implicit 

bias have found that the mental frames that shape our world can influence 

visual perception. Journalists often pride themselves on relying on their 

own senses to report a story. As one reporter told me in a workshop, “I write 

what I see.” Venise Wagner and I are teaching journalists that their own implicit 

biases can render some things invisible to them, and perhaps even worse, 

they may see things that literally are not present. Furthermore, when we judge 

someone to be outside of one or another of our own social categories, we are 

less likely to remember her face, praise her acts, and anticipate positive behavior 

from her.37 Like the study subjects who found it easier to be sure that a 

white-skinned person was unarmed than that a black-skinned person was, 

we are more likely to perceive the world around us in accord with societal 

34 Project Implicit, accessed 6 August 2015, http://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit. 

35 Project Implicit, “Implicit Social Cognition: Investigating the Gap Between Intentions 

and Actions,” accessed 6 August 2015, http://www.projectimplicit.net/index.html. 

36 Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz and Michelle Ortiz, “Race, Ethnicity and the Media,” in The 

Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology, ed. Karen E. Dill (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2013). 

37 Sam Sommers, Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World 

(New York: Riverhead Books, 2011), 223–251. 



62 

Sally Lehrman 

stereotypes.38 Journalists, too, might miss the science book in a Muslim’s 

hand; we might think we see a weapon that isn’t present. As human beings, 

we categorize the world and make assumptions that follow. These categories 

guide our perception, thinking, and behavior without our awareness. 

Venise Wagner and I have turned again to social scientists to learn ways to 

respond. We tell journalists: 

– Become aware. Take a few of the Implicit Association tests yourself and 

consider the automatic preferences that may shape what you seem to see 

and how you interpret it. You can use this awareness to reshape your perceptions. 

The experimental psychologist Patricia Devine suggests some 

antidotes to the mental errors that implicit bias can cause. For instance, 

consider stereotypes about a particular group; then think of cases that 

don’t fit them. Practice taking on the perspective of a stigmatized group. 

Study a public figure in a community you know little about, or spend time 

in religious or community centers different from your own.39 

– Gaze into your identity bubble. Learn about the mental frames you bring to 

your work. One tool for doing this, called the “diversity wheel,” illustrates 

the various dimensions of identity that shape how we interpret the world 

around us and how others see us in turn. The more visible, usually permanent, 

aspects include gender, national origin, age, and mental or physical 

ability. Less obvious, more transient aspects of identity include education, 

family situation, work experience, and income. Trainers who work with organizations 

to enhance the diversity of their workplaces40 use the diversity 

wheel to help people recognize their differences and appreciate what they 

can learn from others. Which aspects of your own experience, upbringing, 

and culture shape the way you see the social world? 

– Intentionally challenge your mental frames. Try making explicit the assumptions 

that grow out of your culture and upbringing. What is your 

mental image of an entrepreneur, an engineer, or a basketball player? 

Does it match the data on people who fill these roles successfully? The 

possibilities? 

38 Joshua Correll, Bernadette Park, Charles M. Judd, and Bernd Wittenbrink, “The Police 

Officer’s Dilemma: Using Ethnicity to Disambiguate Potentially Threatening Individuals,” 

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83, no. 6 (2002): 1314–1329. 

39 Patricia G. Devine, Patrick S. Forscher, Anthony J. Austin and William T. L. Cox, “Long- 

Term Reduction in Implicit Race Bias: A Prejudice Habit-Breaking Intervention,” Jour- 

48, no. 6 (2012): 1267–1278. Also Devine personal 

communication, August 2012. 

40 Marilyn Loden and Judy B. Rosener, Workforce America!: Managing Employee Diversity 

as a Vital Resource (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991). For one example, see John Hopkins 

Diversity Leadership Council, Diversity Wheel, accessed 6 August 2015, web.jhu.edu/ 

dlc/resources/diversity_wheel. 




– Look for counter-examples, and learn about them. Pay attention to immigrant 

scientists, technologists, or entrepreneurs, say, or check out the community-service 

activities of a Muslim student association in your area. 

– Catch yourself when you gravitate toward the familiar. Resist the temptation 

to avoid the uncomfortable. 

Trust 

Finally, now that most news is delivered on the Internet or through social media, 

can journalists cut through the chaos? The digital environment delivers 

multiple types of information, some truthful, some false, some propaganda. 

Most journalism is responsible, attempts to be inclusive, and is carefully reported. 

But some presentations that look like journalism are sales pitches, 

and some of these deliberately distort the facts to incite fear and hate. How 

can we assure audiences that our reporting is careful, unbiased, comprehensive, 

and designed to support people’s ability to govern themselves? In other 

words, what must we do to convince today’s digital audience that our work 

gives them information they can act upon? Journalists are beginning to think 

more deeply about the need to earn both audience and source trust. It is a 

rarely mentioned truth that accurate reporting requires sources that are both 

trustworthy and that trust the journalist. Furthermore, without the trust of 

the audience, we cannot expand its willingness to hear alternative voices expressing 

perspectives outside of the familiar. How can we disrupt our audience’s 

group and societal frames? 

Another effort I’m involved in, the Trust Project,41 addresses journalism’s 

need to earn trust. It’s a collaborative effort housed at the Markkula Center 

for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, whose participants include 

Google News and editors of major news organizations across the United 

States, Canada, and Europe. The project hopes to reconnect journalism to its 

basic principles of inclusive, ethical reporting — reporting that represents all 

of society’s constituent groups, helps it clarify its goals and values, and provides 

actionable information to all of its members. 

In recent years, it has become common for editors to complain that the 

digital environment undermines traditional journalistic ethics and even that 

those standards simply do not matter in online space. We propose to address 

41 http://www.thetrustproject.org. See also @journethics at https://twitter.com/journ 

ethics and www.scu.edu/ethics-center/digital-journalism-ethics/2014-roundtable.cfm. 

Funders include the Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund, Google, and the Markkula 

Foundation. 



64 

Sally Lehrman 

this complaint by using technology and the digital environment to support 

the highest journalistic principles. Can we use digital tools to differentiate 

high-quality, original reporting, to indicate expert work in ways such as the 

following? 

1) Author biographies: What is the expertise of this reporter? Does she or he 

have a conflict of interest? 

2) Methodology: How many editors, if any, reviewed a story? 

3) Web of information: Can we help audiences see when one news report is 

built upon other reliable reports or data, when it is an outlier, or when it 

may be fake? 

4) Collaboration: Can we share data and reporting? ProPublica,42 for example, 

opens its investigative databases to other outlets, such as Univision. And 

Univision43 is collaborating with a local news station in San Francisco.44 

5) Transparency: Can we show our ethics and diversity policies on news sites 

and create better methods to be accountable to them? For example, the- 

German press code addresses religious and racial discrimination. That’s 

worth highlighting.45 

Journalists have an important role to play in bringing together all of society’s 

groups, informing them about one another, and helping them to identify and 

shape shared values. By addressing those of our personal values and practices 

that unintentionally create bias and by building trust with our audiences, we 

can do this well. We can rid ourselves of the assumptions embedded in our 

minds and in our cultures that undermine a peaceful, inclusive society. 

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Consumers.” Accessed 27 July 2015. http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/ 

reports/survey-research/african-american-hispanic-news-consumers/. 

Pew Research Center. “Digital: Top 50 Online News Entities (2015).” http://www.journalism. 

org/media-indicators/digital-top-50-online-news-entities list. 

Project Implicit. “Implicit Social Cognition: Investigating the Gap Between Intentions and 

Actions.” Accessed 6 August 2015. http://www.projectimplicit.net/index.html. 

ProPublica. www.propublica.org. 

Trust Project. http://www.thetrustproject.org. 

United States Census Bureau. “2010 Census.” Accessed 6 August 2015. http://www.census. 

gov/2010census/. 

Univision. http://www.univision.com. 

Santa Clara University. “2014–15 Executive Roundtable on Digital Journalism Ethics.” www. 

scu.edu/ethics-center/digital-journalism-ethics/2014-roundtable.cfm. 

Society of Professional Journalists. “Rainbow Diversity Sourcebook.” http://www.spj.org/ 

divsourcebook.asp. 




Abstract 

Dieser Essay untersucht Strukturen und Lehrmeinungen in den U. S.-amerikanischen 

Medien, durch die Probleme bei der Darstellung ethnischer und 

religiöser Minderheiten in den letzten Jahren verschärft wurden, obwohl die 

Presse seit den 1940er-Jahren verspricht und sich bemüht, inklusiver, sorgfältiger 

und ausgewogener zu berichten. Der Beitrag wendet Erkenntnisse 

aus der Sozialpsychologie und das Konzept der Nachrichten-Frames an, um 

Folgendes vorzuschlagen: neue Ansätze für die Gewichtung und den Aufbau 

von Inhalten; neue Möglichkeiten, von einem strukturellen Standpunkt aus 

über Ungerechtigkeiten in der Gesellschaft zu berichten; eine Untersuchung 

der Prämissen, die Eingang in die Berichterstattung finden; die Notwendigkeit, 

das Vertrauen sowohl der Informanten als auch der Leser*innen bzw. 

Zuschauer*innen zu gewinnen. 

Prof. Dr. Sally Lehrman is an award-winning reporter on medicine and science policy, 

with an emphasis on coverage of social diversity. She is a Senior Fellow for Journalism 

Ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and Science 

and Justice Professor at the UC-Santa Cruz Center for Science and Justice. Her book 

on emerging solutions to health disparities, Skin Deep: The Search for Race in Our 

Genes, is to be published by Oxford University Press. Lehrman’s byline credits include 

Scientific American, Nature, Health, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Salon. 

com, and The DNA Files, distributed by NPR. Her book, “News in a New America,” 

argues for an inclusive U. S. news media. Her honors include a Peabody Award and 

the John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University. Latest publication: New Genetic 

Insights Show How Tuberculosis May Be Evolving to Become More Dangerous, in: 

Scientific American Magazine, Volume 309, Issue 1, 2013. 




Religion and the Opinion Makers 

Views of Religion among Elite Journalists in Germany 

1. Introduction 

Since the 1990s, religious themes have been attracting increasing attention 

in Germany. The strong media presence of religion is the outcome of, on 

the one hand, its role in various political upheavals1 and, on the other hand, 

public debates over religion in the social sphere, such as the installation of 

crucifixes in classrooms and the introduction of “life skills, ethics, and religion” 

(Lebens kunde / Ethik / Religion) as a compulsory, nondenominational 

course to replace religious education in schools.2 The spotlight has been on 

religious conflicts and religiously motivated violence as well as on issues that 

accentuate religious differences, for example, whether female Muslim teachers 

should be allowed to cover their hair in school and whether, and where, 

mosques may be built.3 Occasionally, religion itself becomes a media topic. 

The new millennium, for instance, was an opportunity for reflection on 

the Christian roots of Western culture, and the highly public death of Pope 

John Paul II in April 2005 was perceived as a religious event, even a provocative 

or irritating one.4 Islam, which, unlike Christian churches, is experiencing 

growth in Europe, is also featured in the media, though as a potential 

source of the meaningfulness of life that secular society appears to have lost. 

In this way, the media’s coverage and staging of religion have contributed to 

an increase in the visibility of religion, and even institutionalized religion, in 

1 See José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: The University of Chicago 

Press, 1994). 

2 See Joachim von Soosten, “Öffentlichkeit und Evidenz – Evangelische Kirchen im öffentlichen 

Wettbewerb. Ein Bericht zur Lage in Deutschland,” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 

44 (2003): 40–1; Karl Gabriel and Hans-Joachim Höhn, eds., Religion 

heute – öffentlich und politisch. Provokationen, Kontroversen, Perspektiven (Paderborn: 

Schöningh, 2008); and Christel Gärtner, “Die Rückkehr der Religion in der politischen 

und medialen Öffentlichkeit,” in Gabriel and Höhn, Religion heute. 

3 See Werner Schiffauer, Migration und kulturelle Differenz (Berlin: Ausländerbeauftragte 

des Senats, 2002) and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Levent Tezcan, eds., Konfliktfeld Islam 

in Europa (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007). 

4 See Michaela Pilters, “Der ‘Gebrauchswert’ einer Religion,” in Buckower Mediengespräche. 

Die Medien und die Gretchenfrage, ed. Hans-Dieter Felsmann (Munich: Kopaed, 2006). 



Religion and the Opinion Makers 69 

the public sphere but, at the same time, to continuing shifts in the discourse 

on religion.5 

In this paper, I will present some of the findings of “Religion among Opinion 

Makers,”6 our study of the visibility of religion in media and politics. I will 

first outline the study’s questions, objects, and methodology (section 2), and 

then present some of its results (section 3). My principal interest concerns the 

patterns of interpretation that elite journalists adopt as they write about religion. 

I approach this from two perspectives: religion as an object of professional 

journalistic practice (3.1) and religion as a subjective factor, i. e., the extent 

to which the journalists’ own religious attitudes affect their view of the 

world, their understanding of contemporary history and society, and their 

professional ethics (3.2). In the concluding section, I will summarize my findings 

in section 3 and apply them toward understanding the conditions for media 

inclusion and exclusion of religion (4). 

2. Research questions, objects, and methodology 

Our study focuses on news coverage of religion in the public sphere.7 The relationship 

between religion and the media in modern societies is ambivalent. 

Religions have always used media to disseminate their messages, and modern 

mass media offer religion a chance to heighten public awareness of itself 

outside of the church, yet the media themselves have no particular commitment 

to religion. Thus, modern mass media both shape the public’s image of 

religion, as research on, especially, the image of Islam has shown,8 and play a 

5 See Frank Bösch and Lucian Hölscher, “Die Kirchen im öffentlichen Diskurs,” in Kirchen – 

Medien – Öffentlichkeit. Transformationen kirchlicher Selbst- und Fremddeutungen seit 

1945, eds. Frank Bösch and Lucian Hölscher (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2009), 18. 

6 Karl Gabriel and Hans-Richard Reuter led the research project, carried out at the University 

of Münster, with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the 

Adolf-Loges-Stiftung. Christel Gärtner, Karl Gabriel, and Hans-Richard Reuter, Religion 

bei Meinungsmachern. Eine Untersuchung bei Elitejournalisten in Deutschland (Wiesbaden: 

-Verlag, 2012). 

7 See Karl Gabriel, “Säkularisierung und öffentliche Religion. Religionssoziologische Anmerkungen 

mit Blick auf den europäischen Kontext,” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 

44 (2003): 13–36; and Hans-Richard Reuter, “Öffentliche Meinung,” in 

Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, 

vol. 6, 4th ed., ed. Hans Dieter Betz et al. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003). 

8 See, for example, Anne Hoffmann, Islam in den Medien. Der publizistische Konflikt um 

Annemarie Schimmel (Münster: Lit, 2004); Sabine Schiffer, Die Darstellung des Islams 

in der Presse: Sprache, Bilder, Suggestionen. Eine Auswahl von Techniken und Beispielen 

(Würzburg: Ergon, 2005); and Dirk Halm, “Zur Wahrnehmung des Islams und zur soziokulturellen 

Teilhabe der Muslime in Deutschland” (unpublished manuscript, 2006). 



70 


part in transforming religion and religions. There is a dialectical movement 

between the way churches and religions see themselves and the way the media 

see them. On the one hand, media presentations change public perceptions of 

religions, while, on the other hand, churches and religious communities respond 

to those changes with their own reinterpretations.9 

However, the study did not examine the media’s representation of religious 

issues. Instead, it investigated the significance that public opinion makers in 

the media ascribe to religion and communicate to society. Our research was 

guided by questions regarding the selection criteria for coverage of religion, 

the relevance and news value that journalists attributed to religion, their perception 

of religious events, and how they represent the changing function 

and meaning of religion in society. We were also interested in journalists’ 

own understanding of religion, their religious identities, their commitment 

to religious norms, and the relevance of religion to professional ethics in their 

everyday journalistic practice. 

These interests determined the subject of our research, namely, the group 

of influential leader writers and political columnists known as the Commentariat. 

This comparatively small group of opinion makers, which is also 

called a “public-sphere elite,”10 interprets social developments, and its views 

are very influential. We hypothesized that this highly professional minority 

forms a kind of vanguard of changes in perceptions of the relationship 

between religion and the public sphere and is itself an active participant in 

establishing new boundaries between the two. We interviewed a total of 

18 journalists who either hold leading positions on editorial teams for politics, 

culture, or news or write opinion pieces. The media they represent are 

German supra-regional daily and weekly papers, public television and radio 

broadcasters, and private broadcasters. We used contrasting criteria for gender, 

generation, regional origin, and religious background in selecting our 

subjects. One-third were women, who are more strongly represented among 

the younger respondents. Germany’s two major Christian denominations, 

Catholicism and Lutheranism, were approximately equally represented. One 

journalist from eastern Germany was included — the only one who did not 

have a religious upbringing. Atheists are hard to find among Germany’s elite 

journalists, as are members of religious minorities. 

9 This highly complex situation is described in Bösch’s and Hölscher’s volume Kirchen – 

Medien – Öffentlichkeit, which explains how the structural transformation of the public 

sphere in the 1960s changed the ways that churches communicate. 

10 On the term “Öffentlichkeitselite,” see Christiane Eilders, Friedhelm Neidhardt, and 

Barbara Pfetsch, Die Stimme der Medien. Pressekommentare und politische Öffentlichkeit 

in der Bundesrepublik (Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 2004). 




We carried out a combination of narrative-biographical11 and expert interviews12 

with all of the journalists. These were recorded and transcribed. 

On the basis of the interviews, we reconstructed, first, typical patterns of interpretation 

and argumentation and, second, interviewees’ professional and 

religious habitus-formation.13 Interviewees’ statements were interpreted in 

terms of their narrative contexts. In addition to their subjective attitudes, we 

were particularly interested in latent meanings and habitual patterns of action 

and interpretation.14 

The interviews were carried out between June 2006 and April 2007, which 

explains a dominance of Christianity in the results, as the death of John Paul 

II and the election of Benedict XVI were still very recent events and had a positive 

effect on perceptions of the Catholic Church (although this had changed 

by the end of the decade as cases of child abuse came to light). For this reason, 

our study may appear to show more extensive coverage of the Christian 

religion than is actually the case.15 A further high-profile event may also have 

influenced interviewees’ perceptions, viz., the attacks of September 11, 2001, 

which intensified political interest in Islam. Although our research was not 

specifically directed at the treatment of religious minorities, in the following 

I will look at interviewees’ opinions on this issue, especially with regard to 

Islam, which is the subject of far more attention than other religious minorities. 

Clearly, our findings on Islam are historically specific, and if the interviews 

had been conducted today the results might have been very different. In 

recent years, the fixation on Islam as a source of conflicts has lessened slightly, 

11 See Fritz Schütze, “Biographieforschung und narratives Interview,” Neue Praxis 3 (1983): 

283–93. 

12 See Michael Meuser and Ulrike Nagel, “Experteninterviews – Wissenssoziologische 

Voraussetzungen und methodische Durchführung,” in Handbuch Qualitative For schungsmethoden 

in der Erziehungswissenschaft, eds. Barbara Friebertshäuser, Antje Langer, and 

Annedore Prengel (Weinheim: Juventa, 2010). 

13 For details of our analysis of habitus, see Gärtner, Gabriel, and Reuter, Religion bei 

Meinungsmachern 

they report and reflect, attitudes to which they do not have conscious access will always 

influence their work. 

14 On procedures of case reconstruction and their methodological foundations, see Klaus 

Kraimer, ed., Die Fallrekonstruktion. Sinnverstehen in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung 

(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2000); Ulrich Oevermann, “Die Methode der 

Fallrekonstruktion in der Grundlagenforschung sowie der klinischen und pädagogischen 

Praxis,” in Kraimer, Die Fallrekonstruktion; Uwe Flick, ed., Qualitative Sozialforschung. 

Eine Einführung, 6th ed. (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2002); Andreas Wernet, Einführung 

in die Interpretationstechnik der Objektiven Hermeneutik. Qualitative Sozialforschung 

(Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 2006); and Aglaja Przyborski and Monika Wohlrab- 

Sahr, Qualitative Sozialforschung. Ein Arbeitsbuch (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008). 

15 Viewed over the long term, media attention to religion appears to undulate between 

peaks and troughs. See Bösch and Hölscher, “Die Kirchen im öffentlichen Diskurs,” 8. 



72 


due partly to reflection on the part of journalists and partly to the increased 

presence of Muslim Germans in the media. These changes have produced a 

significant expansion in the range of themes covered. 

3. Elite journalists’ patterns of interpretation 

regarding religion 

In this section, I will characterize some of the patterns of interpretation with 

regard to religion that we found among interviewees, which I arrange as a series 

of propositions.16 The analysis first addresses selection criteria for media 

coverage, the relevance of religion for coverage, and interviewees’ views of 

religion (3.1) and, then, the ways in which their religious self-understanding 

influences their actions in the coverage of religion and in their professional 

ethics (3.2). 

3.1 Religion as an object of professional journalistic practice17 

First proposition: The selection of religious themes for media coverage complies 

with criteria typical of the media system as a whole. 

This proposition states that the perceived newsworthiness of religion is 

subject to the same selection criteria as other topics: meaningfulness, mass 

appeal, unexpectedness, the status of speakers, their orientation on conflict 

and scandal, and a certain preoccupation with quantitative data, for example, 

a rise or drop in the number of people leaving a church. Only in exceptional 

cases, and depending on their personal habitus-formation, do journalists 

decide to devote space to religious topics as such, perhaps because they 

observe society’s loss of tradition and do not want to support it.18 Overall, 

however, the data suggest that, for the most part, journalists subscribe to a 

systems-theoretical mirror-model of the public sphere.19 We observed no 

ambition on the part of interviewees that their work contribute actively to 

changes in the society’s understanding of religion. 

16 These propositions are presented in Gärtner, Gabriel, and Reuter, Religion bei Meinungsmachern, 

chapter 2 (written by Karl Gabriel and Hans-Richard Reuter). 

17 For further detail, see ibid., 33–67. 

18 See ibid., 167. 

19 See Niklas Luhmann, The Reality of the Mass Media, trans. Kathleen Cross (Cambridge: 

Polity Press, 2000). Systems theory holds that the mass media offer society and its actors a 

reality-constructing mirror to observe both events and the observers of events. 




Second proposition: Media coverage of religion is based primarily on religion’s 

social and political effects and pursues an inclusionary strategy. 

As one interviewee put it, the media cover religion for worldly, not religious, 

reasons.20 The decisive factors are social and political significance. 

Around two-thirds of German citizens still belong to a church, and the Christian 

churches are a factor in public life, if only because of their constitutionally 

protected status, to which status other religious communities aspire. At 

the same time, the number of immigrants with non-Christian backgrounds 

is rising markedly, so that religious minorities are also becoming a subject of 

interest. Irrespective of their religious affiliation, the majority of interviewees 

advocate a paradigm of inclusion. That is to say, most of them accept that religion 

and the churches should have a place in the public sphere and view the 

social influence of religious representatives as both significant and legitimate. 

In contrast, exclusively religious themes or themes internal to the churches 

call less for news coverage or commentary. Religiosity itself is alien to the 

media system and is therefore seldom addressed; it is generally regarded as a 

private matter. Nevertheless, journalists occasionally take Christian holidays 

such as Christmas or Easter as opportunities to go beyond the everyday business 

of politics and write something “timeless” on religious issues, for example, 

a reflection on theodicy.21 As a rule, journalists working in the area of the 

arts and culture are more likely to feel an affinity with religious questions, 

their interest in literature having familiarized them with the contemplation of 

transcendental matters or the sublime. 

The journalists we interviewed cite three main reasons for the growing interest 

in religion in the mediatized public sphere. 

(1) A special sensitivity to religiously motivated conflicts and violence. Our 

interviewees find that Islam, in particular, has made the public aware of the 

pivotal role of religion in many political conflicts across the world. They argue 

that media coverage of religion has changed since the 9/11 attacks. They believe 

that the global framework of religious conflicts and the various religions’ 

attitudes towards violence have become the focus of media attention. In this 

context, they perceive Islam primarily as a religion that has not sufficiently 

clarified its relationship with other religions and its stance on violence. They 

accuse Islam of failing to incorporate the Enlightenment values that to a certain 

extent pacified Christianity and led to the separation of church and state. 

Coverage of the dangers of religious violence — dangers that they see as associ 

ated with the expansion of Islam — stimulates more general reflections on the 

theme of religion. As one interviewee explains: 

20 Gärtner, Gabriel, and Reuter, Religion bei Meinungsmachern, 55. 

21 Ibid., 60. 



74 


And as a result we are looking into this and we have to think about it, because it 

threatens us ourselves, our way of life, our freedom, our concept of tolerance, and all 

that obviously puts religion on the agenda every day.22 

The difficulties of intercultural communication in everyday life and especially 

the political topicality of religiously motivated terrorism, the global spread of 

Islamism, and the Middle East conflict, all make religion a privileged subject 

of media coverage. In addition, such phenomena generate qualitative changes 

in the perception of religion: according to the interviewees, the conflicts 

among religions and between religion and society show that, far from being a 

private matter, religion is a crucial source of violence, political tension, and 

conflict in the world. This makes national and international dialogue on religion 

extremely important. Today, religion is becoming more accepted as a constitutive 

component of culture. Another journalist remarks: 

And in this context, of course, we discuss it heatedly, and at the moment, these years, 

you’ll find the topic very widespread in all the German media and also with us, and 

anyone who thought that religion was a private affair, well of course in this context 

they’ve had to think again. Religion affects everyone, regardless of whether they personally 

are believers, but religion affects everyone because political dialogue cannot 

exclude the topic of religion, as you can see very clearly these days because everyone 

is affected by the claims of religion both in an ethical respect and in a democracy, but 

also in the separation of religion and state, for example in Islam. And that means dialogue 

within Germany and international dialogue is affected, so we are increasingly 

realizing that the dialogue between states has to be a dialogue about cultures, an important 

component of which are the religions; that’s to say, it’s impossible to ignore 

religion in any international dialogue, in any intercultural dialogue, and anyone who 

tries to do so will probably be leaving aside the most important part, which at the moment 

is causing tension in the world.23 

(2) A second factor informing the new interest in religion stands in contrast 

to the media’s preference for covering interrelationships between religion and 

conflict. According to our interviewees, the Christian religion and churches 

are attracting growing media attention because of their unique role as guarantors 

of public morality and the common good. When it comes to questions of 

principle about social coexistence, interviewees say, the voice of the churches 

is indispensable. 

(3) The third reason, which our interviewees consider particularly characteristic 

of the media’s new interest in religion, is that, as the public death of 

the Pope, the subsequent papal election, and the new Pope’s visit to Germany 

22 Ibid., 56. For the transcription conventions, see ibid., 279; the German excerpts were 

slightly streamlined for readability. 

23 Ibid., 57. 




in 2005 and 2006 show, religion in the age of television and the Internet can 

generate unimagined religious staging. Since the days of the media pioneer 

John Paul II, Catholicism has been successful in combining the media’s interest 

in grand spectacles with the Church’s self-staging. This success may be 

explained in part by the fact that the media depend on the embodiment of religion 

in tangible institutions and charismatic, photogenic personalities. 

Third proposition: Religion is taken to be relevant not only to individuals 

but also (and especially) to institutions and the cultural more generally. 

Our interviewees do not distinguish among the churches, religion, and 

Christianity nor do they have a sophisticated concept of religion. This finding 

was not unexpected. On the one hand, they are able to think about religion 

and religiousness in a framework wider than ecclesiasticism. Indeed, this 

would be hard to avoid given that religious pluralism, which is growing as a 

result of globalization and migration, includes religious traditions that do not 

form churches, such as Islam and Buddhism.24 Interviewees also see a rising 

tension between institutional religion and the subjective aspect of religion, an 

expression which can be found in those forms of worship outside the Church 

that have come to the fore as a result of the New Age movement. On the other 

hand, almost all of the journalists we interviewed find a completely individualistic 

form of religion unimaginable. They find it hard to imagine a religion 

devoid of all connection to a larger community since any such religion would 

be unable to build a tradition or exert influence on society. Likewise, our respondents 

do not believe that the novelty value of alternative forms of religiousness 

favors their mass-media amplification and popularization. 

Three dimensions of religion may be distinguished: (1) the individual or 

personal, (2) the institutional and organized, and (3) the cultural. Interviewees 

consider the first to be an option for individuals. They believe that institutional 

religion is considerably more relevant to the mediatized public sphere 

because they regard religious organizations as a necessary and legitimate 

means for religion to increase its opportunities to influence society. However, 

they ascribe the greatest importance to the third dimension, as it is the provider 

of religion. 

24 See Franz-Xaver Kaufmann, “Die Entwicklung von Religion in der modernen Gesellschaft,” 

in Religion, Kirche, Islam. Eine soziale und diakonische Herausforderung, ed. 

Klaus D. Hildemann (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2003), 31–5. 



76 


3.2 Religion as a subjective factor25 

In the following, I will discuss the extent to which our interviewees’ religious 

self-understanding shapes their views on contemporary history and society 

and on their professional ethics. 

Fourth proposition: In general, a new visibility and public presence for religion 

can be observed. 

Interviewees’ comments on this matter follow four patterns of explanation 

and interpretation. 

(1) The new interest in religion can be interpreted as a “cultural defense”26 

in response to Islam. Some interviewees regard the Islamist attacks on September 

11, 2001, and the new religious pluralism in Germany arising from its 

large Muslim population as causes of a return to Christian roots. They take 

this to explain the media’s dual interest in religion’s potential for conflict27 

and its integrative function. Most of the interviewees in our sample see the 

interweaving of Christianity, humanism, and the Enlightenment as the basis 

of peaceful coexistence, but they tend to deny that Islam is capable of a similar 

combination. Nevertheless, some acknowledge that Islam emphasizes the 

vivid commitment and cohesion that religion can generate. According to the 

interviewees, the new public presence of Christianity is the result of nativeborn 

Germans’ need to reassure themselves of their own religious and cultural 

identity. For example: 

Faced with the attack on our ways of life and our convictions — the ones we have 

founded our society on, that we have set down in laws and constitutions and humanrights 

declarations — combined with … religious attacks coming from parts of Islam, 

I do see something like a … reinvigoration of Christian self-confidence.28 

(2) On questions of social justice and the biomedical manipulation of human 

nature, churches in Germany are ethical agents and defenders of the common 

good. Even if most of the journalists in our sample do not consider religion 

relevant to the conduct of their own lives, they ascribe an important societal 

role to Christianity as a foundation for ethics, morality, and a sense of direc- 

25 See Gärtner, Gabriel, and Reuter, Religion bei Meinungsmachern, 68–118. 

26 Steve Bruce, “What the Secularization Paradigm Really Says,” in Religiosität in der säkularisierten 

Welt. Theoretische und empirische Beiträge zur Säkularisierungsdebatte in 

der Religionssoziologie, eds. Manuel Franzmann, Christel Gärtner, and Nicole Köck 

(Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 2006). “Cultural defense” refers to a countertrend to secularization 

consisting of “circumstances in which people will forego the benefits of increasing 

in which religion remains central” (ibid., 42). Applied to our case, this means the defense 

of Christian, culturally Christian, or secular values. 

27 Gärtner, Gabriel, and Reuter, Religion bei Meinungsmachern, 86. 

28 Ibid., 85. 




tion in life. This suggests that our subjects believe that they are seeing a social 

crisis that gives questions of values and their grounding a special urgency. 

(3) The character of large-scale religious events has proven to be especially 

inviting of mass-media coverage. Thanks to its talent for staging, the Catholic 

Church proved to be particularly attractive to mass media in 2005 and 2006. 

(4) The new public presence of religion depends on the charisma of individuals, 

which the media amplify. During the period of our research, the especially 

charismatic leaders were Cardinal Karl Lehmann, president of the German 

Bishops’ Conference; Bishop Wolfgang Huber, chair of the Council of the 

Evangelical Church in Germany; and Paul Spiegel, president of the Central 

Council of Jews in Germany. The media presence of representatives of Muslim 

associations was still quite minor at the time, though this has since changed. 

Fifth proposition: Organized, institutional Christianity remains the reference 

point for interviewees’ religious self-understanding, whether critical or affirmative, 

but their perceptions of the compatibility between institutional requirements 

and individual religious sensibilities differ according to denomination. 

Thirteen of the interviewees are members of either the Lutheran or the 

Catholic Church. On the basis of baptism, all but one has a Christian background. 

It proved very difficult to find a single representative of an atheist 

identity among the elite journalists. Despite substantial differences in the influence 

of their religious backgrounds and the extent of their disengagement 

from it, all of the interviewees still think about religion in terms of Christianity 

and the Christian Churches, whether approvingly or critically. It is here that 

denominational differences are most striking. For Catholics, there is tension 

between doctrinal moral norms and decisions of conscience taken on one’s 

own responsibility, whereas for Protestants conflicts tend to arise from aesthetic 

or intellectual preferences that diverge from those of church authorities. 

Among the socially relevant functions of religion, interviewees name especially 

the meaningful interpretation of human existence and the moral 

guidance of action. They don’t necessarily combine both; some report a commitment 

to Christian values without a belief in God. The majority considers 

the ideology of critically unmasking and devaluing religion, an attitude long 

dominant among intellectuals, as anachronistic. 

Sixth proposition: Allegiance to standards of professional ethics does not 

depend on an individual’s values or religious attitude. 

All of the interviewees share a binding commitment to respect for human 

dignity as the highest moral principle. Professional associations and training 

institutions are most responsible for passing on the fundamental standards of 

professional ethics set down in the guidelines of the German Press Council. 

The interviewees believe it is necessary to update the profession’s code in 

order to reinforce the media’s autonomy and independence from political influence. 

However, they note that the bases of situationally appropriate deci- 



78 


sions in everyday journalistic life, especially in reflecting on the consequences 

of one’s actions, subjects’ right to privacy, and the portrayal of violence, usually 

exceed what can be codified in general rules or taught as part of training. 

Instead, practical learning on the job and case-specific reflection in the 

editorial peer group are vital. Our analysis of the working habitus of the elite 

journalists we interviewed reveals that they have a fully formed professional 

habitus. The same is not true of journalism as a system, which is in need of 

further professionalization.29 

4. Conclusions 

(1) Concerning the media approach toward religion we observe changes 

since the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, the West German media pursued a 

strategy of exclusion,30 which marginalized the churches and excluded them 

from the circle of socially relevant agents, but the journalists we interviewed 

advocate a strategy of notable inclusion. They rate churches and religions 

highly as a force in civil society and see them as fulfilling the important function 

of providing a foundation for society’s values. Our subjects are becoming 

more aware of the need to preserve Western culture and are recollecting 

their own roots, which some also wish to strengthen. Yet the media inclusion 

and consequent cultural renaissance of the Christian religion may go hand in 

hand with the hardening of attitudes against Islam. This risk arises when citizens 

feel that their personal identities or the internal cohesion of society is under 

threat. 

(2) The media’s exclusion or inclusion of religion may be considered in 

terms of the state of tension and conflict within the realm of religion. The old 

tensions among the Christian denominations, perceptible in Germany well 

into the 1960s, are now almost completely a thing of the past (even if they 

can still be glimpsed occasionally as, for example, when Protestant journalists 

complain of exaggerated “Pope hype”). The new lines of conflict run, on 

the one hand, between the religious and the secular and, on the other, between 

the culturally Christian and Islam. In terms of their responses to the public 

presence of religion and, thus, of religious minorities, our analysis of their 

religious habitus reveals three different types of journalist.31 The first type 

consists of journalists who maintain an institutional affiliation to Christianity, 

even if it is not necessarily accompanied by religious commitments, and take a 

29 Ibid., 201–204. 

30 See Pilters, “Der ‘Gebrauchswert’ einer Religion,” 67–72. 

31 See Gärtner, Gabriel, and Reuter, Religion bei Meinungsmachern, 123–96. 




positive attitude towards religion. This has two consequences. These journalists 

reflect on the limitations of the Enlightenment and secularity, and 

they are more likely to perceive Islam as a religion that generates values and 

community. As a result, they are more inclined towards the inclusion of religious 

minorities in media coverage. The second type lacks any religious affiliation 

but acknowledges the sociopolitical engagement of Christianity and 

the churches, and even welcomes them for their ability to protect minorities. 

However, they perceive Christianity primarily as a culture and not as a religion. 

This attitude is frequently associated with intolerance towards Islam, 

which is perceived as “culturally alien” and thus tends to result in the media 

exclusion of religious minorities. Another form of “cultural defense,” but one 

with a different slant, can be found in the third type, which has a more secularist 

habitus. These journalists combine a positive view of the Enlightenment 

with an “enlightened intolerance” towards all religions, acknowledging their 

rights solely in the private sphere. This type generally argues for an exclusion 

of religion from public space. 

References 

Bösch, Frank, and Lucian Hölscher. “Die Kirchen im öffentlichen Diskurs.” In Kirchen – 

Medien – Öffentlichkeit. Transformationen kirchlicher Selbst- und Fremddeutungen seit 

1945, edited by Frank Bösch and Lucian Hölscher. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2009. 

Bösch, Frank, and Lucian Hölscher, eds. Kirchen – Medien – Öffentlichkeit. Transformationen 

kirchlicher Selbst- und Fremddeutungen seit 1945. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2009. 

Bruce, Steve. “What the Secularization Paradigm Really Says.” In Religiosität in der säkularisierten 

Welt. Theoretische und empirische Beiträge zur Säkularisierungsdebatte in der 

Religionssoziologie, edited by Manuel Franzmann, Christel Gärtner, and Nicole Köck. 

Wies baden: VS-Verlag, 2006. 

Casanova, José. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: The University of Chicago 

Press, 1994. 

Eilders, Christiane, Friedhelm Neidhardt, and Barbara Pfetsch. Die Stimme der Medien. 

Pressekommentare und politische Öffentlichkeit in der Bundesrepublik. Wiesbaden: VS- 

Verlag, 2004. 

Flick, Uwe, ed. Qualitative Sozialforschung. Eine Einführung. 6th ed. Reinbek bei Hamburg: 

Rowohlt, 2002. 

Gabriel, Karl. “Säkularisierung und öffentliche Religion. Religionssoziologische Anmerkungen 

mit Blick auf den europäischen Kontext.” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 44 

(2003): 13–36. 

Gabriel, Karl, and Hans-Joachim Höhn, eds. Religion heute – öffentlich und politisch. Provokationen, 

Kontroversen, Perspektiven. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2008. 

Gärtner, Christel. “Die Rückkehr der Religion in der politischen und medialen Öffentlichkeit.” 

In Religion heute – öffentlich und politisch. Provokationen, Kontroversen, Perspektiven, 

edited by Karl Gabriel and Hans-Joachim Höhn. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2008. 

Gärtner, Christel, Karl Gabriel, and Hans-Richard Reuter. Religion bei Meinungsmachern. Eine 

Untersuchung bei Elitejournalisten in Deutschland. Wiesbaden: -Verlag, 2012. 



80 


Halm, Dirk. “Zur Wahrnehmung des Islams und zur sozio-kulturellen Teilhabe der Muslime 

in Deutschland.” Unpublished manuscript, 2006. 

Hoffmann, Anne. Islam in den Medien. Der publizistische Konflikt um Annemarie Schimmel. 

Münster: Lit, 2004. 

Kaufmann, Franz-Xaver. “Die Entwicklung von Religion in der modernen Gesellschaft.” In 

Religion, Kirche, Islam. Eine soziale und diakonische Herausforderung, edited by Klaus D. 

Hildemann. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2003. 

Kraimer, Klaus, ed. Die Fallrekonstruktion. Sinnverstehen in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung. 

Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2000. 

Luhmann, Niklas. The Reality of the Mass Media. Translated by Kathleen Cross. Cambridge: 

Polity Press, 2000. 

Meuser, Michael, and Ulrike Nagel. “Experteninterviews – Wissenssoziologische Voraussetzungen 

und methodische Durchführung.” In Handbuch Qualitative Forschungsmethoden 

in der Erziehungswissenschaft, edited by Barbara Friebertshäuser, Antje Langer, and 

Annedore Prengel. Weinheim: Juventa, 2010. 

Oevermann, Ulrich. “Die Methode der Fallrekonstruktion in der Grundlagenforschung 

sowie der klinischen und pädagogischen Praxis.” In Die Fallrekonstruktion. Sinnverstehen 

in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung, edited by Klaus Kraimer. Frankfurt am Main: 

Suhrkamp, 2000. 

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Medien und die Gretchenfrage, edited by Hans-Dieter Felsmann. Munich: Kopaed, 2006. 

Przyborski, Aglaja, and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr. Qualitative Sozialforschung. Ein Arbeitsbuch. 

Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008. 

Reuter, Hans-Richard. “Öffentliche Meinung.” In Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Handwörterbuch 

für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, vol. 6, 4th ed., edited by Hans Dieter 

Betz et al. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003. 

Schiffer, Sabine. Die Darstellung des Islams in der Presse: Sprache, Bilder, Suggestionen. Eine 

Auswahl von Techniken und Beispielen. Würzburg: Ergon, 2005. 

Schütze, Fritz. “Biographieforschung und narratives Interview.” Neue Praxis 3 (1983): 283–93. 

Schiffauer, Werner. Migration und kulturelle Differenz. Berlin: Ausländerbeauftragte des 

Senats, 2002. 

von Soosten, Joachim. “Öffentlichkeit und Evidenz – Evangelische Kirchen im öffentlichen 

Wettbewerb. Ein Bericht zur Lage in Deutschland.” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 

44 (2003): 37–51. 

Wernet, Andreas. Einführung in die Interpretationstechnik der Objektiven Hermeneutik. Qualitative 

Sozialforschung. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 2006. 

Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika, and Levent Tezcan, eds. Konfliktfeld Islam in Europa. Baden-Baden: 

Nomos, 2007. 

Abstract 

Die Studie »Religion bei Meinungsmachern«, die mit Elitejournalisten in 

Deutschland durchgeführt wurde, untersucht die Frage, wie Journalisten Religion 

wahrnehmen, deuten und medial kommunizieren. In dem vorliegenden 

Beitrag stelle ich einige Ergebnisse der Studie vor, und zwar zentrale Deutungsmuster 

der meinungsbildenden Journalist*innen im Umgang mit Religion. 

Zum einen wird Religion als Gegenstand der professionellen journalistischen 

Praxis beleuchtet, wobei es um die Auswahlkriterien der Berichterstattung 

und das Religionsverständnis der Journalistinnen und Journalisten geht. Zum 




anderen als subjektiver Faktor hinsichtlich des eigenen religiösen Selbstverständnisses 

der Befragten. Es wird dargelegt, inwieweit das religiöse Selbstverständnis 

die Zeit- und Gesellschaftsdiagnose sowie die berufsethischen Entscheidungen 

beeinflusst. Die journalistische Wahrnehmung und Deutung 

von Religion wird sowohl allgemein als auch im Hinblick auf den Islam in den 

Blick kommen. 

Prof. Dr. Christel Gärtner is a mentor at the graduate school based in the excellence 

cluster “Religion und Politik der Kulturen der Vormoderne und Mo derne” [Religion 

and Politics of Cultures of the Pre-Modern and Modern Cultures] at the University of 

Münster in Germany. She is also the Head of the research project: “Islam und Gender 

in Deutschland. Zur (De-)Konstruktion säkular und religiös legitimierter Geschlechterordnungen” 

[Islam and Gender in Germany. On the (De)Construction of Secularly 

and Religiously Legitimised Gender Relations]. The areas of emphasis in her work and 

research are, among others, the sociology of culture and religion (religion in contemporary 

society, religion and media, and analysis of religious processes of education 

and transformation); socialization studies and analysis of individual and collective 

identities, of social milieux, and of solidarity-based and professional actions. Current 

publication: Sinnverlust: “Religion, Moral und postmoderne Beliebigkeit” [Loss 

of Meaning: Religion, Morality and Post-modern Randomness], in: Handbuch Soziologie, 

edited by Hartmut Rosa, Henning Laux, Jörn Lamla and David Strecker, UVK 

Konstanz, pp. 473–488 (2014). 





Media Representation and 

Stereotyping of Minorities 






German Television Crime Films and 

German Emotions 

Jews in Tatort 

Crime films deal with law and justice. They discuss the order of society — concretely, 

the violations and the restoration of order. What can we discover 

about German society, when Jews in popular contemporary German TV 

crime films are declared as suspects? Two episodes from well-known German 

crime series place Jewish characters at the center of murder cases. What order 

of current German society do they present, when their films negotiate images 

of Jews and Judaism? 

In December 2003 and January 2004, two crime films were broadcast for 

the first time on ARD, one of German television’s public stations: the Tatort 

[Crime Scene] “The Slaughterer” and the Schimanski episode “The Secret of 

the Golem.” “The Slaughterer” takes place in Constance on Lake Constance, 

while “The Secret of the Golem” disentangles itself between Antwerp and 

Duisburg. Both films try to deal with perceptions of Jews and the phenomenon 

of antisemitism; as can be demonstrated, however, antisemitism also 

haunts both films. These two levels of meaning and their relationship to one 

another stand at the center of this analysis. My focus is on the staging of the 

main characters. It is a matter of dramaturgic triangulations of Jewish protagonists, 

non-Jewish detective chief inspectors, and non-Jewish villains. 

Both in the constellations and in the construction of the individual characters 

themselves, the two aforementioned levels are conflated in a strange way. I attend 

particularly to the question: How do visual language, body language, and 

emotions combine with moral sentiments in these two episodes? 

1. The Phenomenon Tatort 

In 1970, ARD produced the first episode of Tatort — the legendary “Taxi to 

Leipzig.” Tatort was originally planned as a crime series for two years but then 

turned into an extremely popular TV show and is one of the most-watched 



86 


German television series to this day.1 Unlike the crime series of ZDF, the other 

public station, such as Derrick or Der Kommissar [The Detective Inspector], 

which exclude current political, societal, and cultural conflicts a priori, ARD 

banked on the idea of taking up and discussing political topics explicitly and 

constantly in Tatort.2 Thus, Tatort can also be understood as a “chronicle of 

the German present from 1970 until today” and as an archive of socio-political 

debates in Germany about Germany during the last 50 years.3 If the direct 

reference to societal conflicts is one important hallmark of the series, then another 

central principle is regionalism. Once again unlike in Derrick, for example, 

Tatort is not based on one detective chief inspector but on several teams of 

different detective chief inspectors, who are located in various regions: there 

are, to name only a few, the Hamburg Tatort, the Dresden Tatort, or the Ruhr 

area Tatort.4 Tatort is not only a crime series but also a series about different 

regional identities — put another way: about various expressions of Germanness. 

The third central feature of Tatort is the time slot: always on Sundays at 

8:15 pm.5 

Klara Blum, on duty since 2002, is one of the series’ few main female detective 

chief inspectors. Schimanski is considered perhaps the most popular 

Tatort detective chief inspector, not least because of his physical appearance, 

which — for the first time in the history of Tatort — evokes a belonging to the 

working class as well as total independence from societal and professionally 

required social hierarchies. The character Schimanski was active from 1981 

to 1991, returning to the screen as a spin-off in 1997 with his own mini- series 

entitled Schimanski — in the same time slot as Tatort and in rotation with 

Tatort — but now as a private investigator.6 

1 On the term “series,” see Christian Hißnauer, Stefan Scherer, and Claudia Stockinger, 

Föderalismus in Serie: Die Einheit der ARD-Reihe Tatort im historischen Verlauf (Paderborn: 

Wilhelm Fink, 2014), 23–56, as well as Hans Krah, “Erzählen in Folge. Eine Systematisierung 

narrativer Forschungszusammenhänge,” in Strategien der Filmanalyse – 

reloaded. Festschrift für Klaus Kanzog, ed. Michael Schaudig (München: diskurs film 

Verlag, 2010), 85–114. 

2 Ingrid Brück et al., Der Deutsche Fernsehkrimi. Eine Programm- und Produktions geschichte 

von den Anfängen bis heute (Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler, 2003), 158–161. 

3 Hißnauer, Scherer, and Stockinger, Föderalismus in Serie, 9–14; quote, ibid., 12. See also 

Tatort. Ein populäres Medium als kultureller Speicher (Marburg: Schüren 

Verlag, 2010), 8–28. 

4 See also Brück et al., Der Deutsche Fernsehkrimi, 161–163; Hendrik Buhl, Tatort. Gesellschaftspolitische 

Themen in der Krimireihe (München: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, 2013), 

23–37. 

5 On the telepolitical background of this time slot, see Brück et al., Der Deutsche Fernsehkrimi, 

202–210 and 277–280. 

6 On Schimanski, see Eike Wenzel, “Der Star, sein Körper und die Nation. Die Schimanski- 

Tatorte,” in Ermittlungen in Sachen Tatort. Recherchen und Verhöre, Protokolle und Beweis 

fotos (Berlin: Dieter Bertz Verlag, 2000), 175–202. 



German Television Crime Films and German Emotions 87 

Today, Tatort enjoys an extremely strong media presence. Thus, for instance, 

the online editions of Der Spiegel and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 

publish preliminary reports as well as film reviews on the episode being 

aired on a given Sunday. No other crime series on German television enjoys 

this privilege.7 There are special websites run by fans, which meticulously list 

production details for each broadcast Tatort and by now are known as reliable 

sources, also consulted by established journalists and scholars.8 On Sundays, 

people enjoy Tatort not only on their own, privately in front of the television, 

but also with others in bars, pubs, and restaurants, which advertise intensively 

for their public Tatort events. No other television crime series on German TV 

stations can claim such a phenomenon of “public viewing.” By now, watching 

Tatort and discussing it with friends and colleagues is a part of German everyday 

culture.9 To examine Tatort from a scholarly standpoint means precisely 

this: to speak about everyday culture and so about present or past moral values 

in Germany — in our context: about everyday culture and the place of Jews 

and Judaism in this everyday culture. 

2. Visual Language and Emotion — 

the Film Studies Approach to Emotions 

In the various scholarly disciplines — the natural and social sciences and the 

humanities — , we can differentiate two fundamentally divergent approaches 

to understanding emotion:10 On the one hand, emotions are regarded as a 

purely material phenomenon. They are ultimately considered to be traceable 

to a neuronal or physiological basis and so are to be categorized exclusively 

7 The regular advance column in Der Spiegel runs under the keyword “Tatort in Fast 

Check;” the post-airing Tatort-column under “Tatort in Fact Check.” The FAZ publishes 

its report afterwards under the keyword “Securing the Crime Scene [Tatortsicherung].” 

The film reviews on Spiegel Online and in the have titles that refer to the titles of the 

relevant episodes and are sometimes published in advance and sometimes the following 

day. 

8 See, for example, www.tatort-fundus.de. 

9 On this issue, see also Regina Bendix et al., “Lesen, Sehen, Hängenbleiben. Zur Integration 

serieller Narrative im Alltag ihrer Nutzerinnen und Nutzer,” in Populäre Serialität: 

Narration – Evolution – Distinktion. Zum seriellen Erzählen seit dem 19. Jahrhundert, ed. 

Frank Kelleter (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2012), 293–319; on the public viewing of 

Tatort, see Arne Freya Zillich, Fernsehen als Event. Unterhaltungserleben bei der Fernsehrezeption 

in der Gruppe (Köln: Herbert von Halem Verlag, 2013). 

10 On this issue, see Jan Plamper, Geschichte und Gefühl. Grundlagen der Emotionsgeschichte 

(Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 2012); Florian Weber, “Von den klassischen Affektenlehren 

zur Neurowissenschaft und zurück. Wege der Emotionsforschung in den Geistesund 

Sozialwissenschaften,” Neue Politische Literatur 53, no. 1 (2008): 21–42. 



88 


as a somatic phenomenon. History or culture do not play a role in this explanatory 

model. Opposed to this view, the second approach shaping the debate 

argues, on the other hand, that emotions are to be understood, in large part 

if not perhaps even exclusively, as culturally contingent and thus historically 

variable phenomena. Or, put another way: the debate surrounding emotions 

constitutes and articulates itself as a conflict between scientism — the idea that 

nothing lies outside the sciences — and culturalism — the notion that nothing 

human lies outside the cultural. Current approaches in film studies attempt to 

mediate between these two positions or rather to combine them. From these 

perspectives, emotions can be understood as simultaneously dynamic, somatic, 

and cognitive phenomena.11 

Films can offer us an excellent way to analyze feelings, for they tell their 

stories primarily with the help of emotions — it is not coincidental that many 

film genres are named, directly or indirectly, for feelings: the thriller, the 

“weepy,” romance or horror films. The movie theater can be understood as a 

place where emotions are shared. For instance, we can feel irritated by or 

happy for a film character together.12 

As the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith already formulated it in 1759, 

shared emotions point to the moral values upon which a society has agreed; 

one knows what is good and causes joy and one knows what is bad and causes 

outrage.13 In other words, moral sentiments are culturally contingent and 

therefore historical. 

We — the audience, the actors, the filmmakers — learn, for example, when 

we should feel ashamed, when it is suitable to be proud, or why in fact we 

have a right to be angry. And we learn how emotions can be translated into 

body language. In this respect, one could say that in a shared cultural context, 

there exists a rehearsed physical visualization of emotions and, linked to it, a 

readability of the corresponding body language. Thus, one can speak of a culturally 

constructed knowledge of emotions and their portrayal, their expression. 

An analytical view of actors’ body language in particular allows one to 

11 On this issue, see Vinzenz Hediger, “Gefühlte Distanz. Zur Modellierung von Emotion 

in der Film- und Medientheorie,” in Die Massen bewegen. Medien und Emotionen in der 

Moderne, ed. Frank Bösch and Manuel Borutta (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 

2006), 42–62. 

12 On emotion and film genre, compare, for instance, Hermann Kappelhoff, “Tränenseligkeit. 

Das sentimentale Genießen und das melodramatische Kino,” in Das Gefühl der 

Gefühle. Zum Kinomelodram, ed. Margrit Fröhlich, Klaus Gronenborn, and Karsten 

Visarius (Marburg: Schüren Verlag, 2008), 35–58. For a fundamental discussion of emotions, 

film genre, and audience, see, for instance, Murray Smith, Engaging Characters: 

Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 

13 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (London: Millar, 1759). On the theory of 

moral sentiments, see also especially the contemporary philosopher Ernst Tugendhat, 

Vorlesungen über Ethik 




draw conclusions about the emotions and the values bound up with them, 

which a film puts up for debate at a given time.14 If we follow the trajectory of 

feelings that a film produces for our eyes and ears and that are fundamental 

to its ability to tell its story, then we also find the moral concepts that the film 

wants to share with the viewers.15 

The question of the place of Jews in German society is ultimately also always 

a question about the moral order that this society declares as valid for itself 

at a given time. Thick descriptions of the plots and microanalyses of those 

scenes central to my inquiry in the two television crime film episodes form 

the basis of my analysis, in order to uncover the visually, acoustically, and 

dramaturgically formulated conceptions of Jews and German society. 

3. The Plots 

The Tatort episode Der Schächter [“The Slaughterer”] begins with a scene of a 

game of boules on the banks of Lake Constance and visually introduces the 

film’s two central protagonists, Klara Blum and Jakob Leeb. Jakob Leeb wears 

a black kippah, has thinning hair, a slightly stooped body, and speaks German 

with an accent. Not often, but time and time again, his language is punctured 

by Yiddish words and vocabulary, such as “Nu.” Visually and acoustically, 

Jakob Leeb is identifiable as a Jew. He is a shokhet, a kosher slaughterer, by 

trade. He works in Strasbourg and spends his days off in Constance in a large 

mansion on the banks of Lake Constance. Klara Blum, the detective chief inspector, 

speaks German homogeneously in regard to dialect and pace and has 

sovereign control over her body. 

The summery idyll on Lake Constance — playing boules — is interrupted 

by a possible murder case: tourists have reported to the police that they saw 

the corpse of a boy on the Rodammers’ campgrounds. The witnesses have already 

departed, however, and the corpse is nowhere to be found. 

14 On the historical dimension of staging feelings, see, for example, Erika Fischer-Lichte, 

“Theater als ‘Emotionsmaschine’: Zur Aufführung von Gefühlen,” in Koordinaten der 

Leidenschaft. Kulturelle Aufführungen von Gefühlen, ed. Clemens Risi and Jens Roselt 

(Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 2009), 22–50; Johannes Riis, “Acting,” in The Routledge Companion 

to Philosophy and Film, ed. Paisley Livingston and Carl Platinga (New York: Routledge, 

2009), 3–11. 

15 On the link between emotions and visual language, as discussed in film studies, see 

Hediger, “Gefühlte Distanz,” 42–62. On the link between emotion, film, and political 

values — with a theoretical model based on the work of Carl Schmitt and Chantal 

Mouffe, rather than Adam Smith and Ernst Tugendhat, however — see also Sabine Hake, 

Screen Nazis: Cinema, History and Democracy , 

2012), 3–31. 



90 


It is finally discovered in the garden of Jakob Leeb’s mansion. The boy’s 

throat was cut with a knife. For the Constance prosecutor, Christian Bux, it 

is obvious that Leeb, as a Jew and a shokhet, must have committed the crime: 

Bux is convinced that he is on the track of a ritual murder. Klara Blum finally 

discovers the real perpetrator: Edgar Rodammer. In a state of panic, Edgar 

killed the boy with a knife, when the boy threatened him physically in order 

to gain possession of the campgrounds’ cash box. Wolfgang Rodammer tried 

to hide his brother’s deed and deposited the corpse and the murder weapon 

on Jakob Leeb’s property. 

Thus, for Fred Breinersdorfer and Jobst Oetzmann, scriptwriter and director 

of this Tatort, the real antisemitic ritual murder affair of 1891 in Xanten 

was the point of inspiration and departure for the plot — albeit not in order to 

tell an antisemitic story, but, as Oetzmann elaborates, to enlighten the viewer 

about antisemitism. But the points of inspiration and departure for Mario 

Giordano and Andreas Kleinert, scriptwriter and director, respectively, of 

Schimanski, lie elsewhere entirely: in the Jewish quarter of Antwerp and in 

numbered bank accounts in Switzerland, or rather in their conceptions of the 

Jewish quarter and Swiss numbered accounts.16 

By coincidence, Schimanski meets David Rosenfeldt in Antwerp. Rosenfeldt 

is portrayed by the same actor who played Jakob Leeb in the Tatort episode 

Der Schächter — by Nikolaus Paryla. Rosenfeldt, too, speaks German with 

Yiddish interjections, his hair is thinning, his gait is unsure, and he wears a 

black kippah. He carries a notebook filled with handwritten text in Hebrew 

letters. Rosenfeldt wants this book to be brought to safety. Shortly there after, 

he is murdered, and Schimanski tries to solve the case on his own. He visits 

a rabbi in Antwerp who was Rosenfeldt’s friend. Rabbi Ginsburg enlightens 

Schimanski about the notebook: it contains the encrypted information 

for accounts in Swiss banks, accounts opened by Austrian Jews in order to 

safeguard their money from the Nazis. Rosenfeldt and Ginsburg survived the 

concentration camp Mauthausen, together with their friend Ari Goldmann. 

- 

ing father. After the war, the three friends used the money from Switzerland 

to support Jewish institutions. None of the original account holders survived 

the Nazi era. State security in Duisburg, which is in charge of this murder 

case, claims that Rosenfeldt and Goldmann were involved in criminal politi- 

16 On the Xanten ritual murder case, see Johannes T. Groß, Ritualmordbeschuldigungen gegen 

Juden im Deutschen Kaiserreich (1871–1914) (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2002). On the 

debate about the bank accounts in Swiss banks of Jewish victims of the NS-system, see 

Thomas Maissen, Verweigerte Erinnerung. Nachrichtenlose Vermögen und die Schweizer 

Weltkriegsdebatte 1989–2004 (Zürich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2005). On 

Oetzmann, see www.jobst-oetzmann.de. 




cal dealings. Finally, Schimanski convicts the head of Duisburg state security, 

the detective superintendent König, of all people, of the murder. König was 

deeply in debt and hoped to be able to return his finances to good order with 

the help of the notebook. 

The Holocaust in the Background 

What feelings are linked with the characters marked as “Jewish” in these 

films? How are the motives that lead the campground owner to try to have a 

Jew sent to prison and the head of state security to kill a Jew explained and 

connected to feelings? And what kind of dramaturgical function regarding 

emotions do Blum and Schimanski take on? 

Leeb and Rosenfeldt are presented in the film as physically weak Jews. Both 

are religious and survivors of the Holocaust. It remains unclear, where — in 

what city and in what country — each feels at home. From the perspective 

of their diegetic environment — the portrayed world of the film — as well as 

from that of the audience, both possess unusual property, or in the case of 

Rosenfeldt, literally carry it with them: Rosenfeldt owns the controversial 

notebook, which is encoded and can only be deciphered by a rabbi, and Leeb 

lives in a huge, multistory mansion in prime location. Only in the course of 

the episode does it become clear that the house, his possession of which cannot 

be explained simply by his occupation, is in fact an inheritance. This inheritance 

refers to his family, which lived in Constance until 1942 and was 

then deported. And it is on this property that the corpse of the Christian boy 

is discovered. Ultimately, each biography, that of Leeb and that of Rosenfeldt, 

circles around the Holocaust inescapably, in the present and in the past. It is 

precisely against this backdrop — of Holocaust, murder, observant Jews — that 

the emotions, which the two films suggest to their audiences, develop. 

4. Tatort, Constance, and Moral Sentiments 

Jakob Leeb lives in seclusion in his mansion on Lake Constance. Klara Blum, 

on the other hand, is completely integrated in Constance. The detective chief 

inspector is on the familiar you — Du — basis with most of the inhabitants of 

the city with whom she interacts — an exception, however, is state prosecutor 

Christian Bux. But as a rule, tight networks of relationships, which in some 

cases have an intimate character, link the people of Constance. Blum had a brief 

affair some time ago, for instance, with the entrepreneur Wolfgang Rodammer. 



92 


These networks between the inhabitants of the town create commitments and 

desires. Thus, Wolfgang Rodammer denounces Leeb to Blum as a loner who 

does not even attend the synagogue of the local Jewish community. This statement 

expresses a social categorization and a social conduct of the “Jew” — Leeb 

does not belong to us, and Leeb isolates himself from us — , and moreover, it is 

an expression of jealousy. In the pitch and choice of words with which he denounces 

Leeb, Wolfgang Rodammer insinuates that Blum has an erotic interest 

in Leeb. Blum’s body language in relation to Leeb does not belie this, in particular 

while salsa dancing. “Well, if you don’t lead, then how should I dance 

with you? — Ok, then I’ll lead!”, Blum says during an evening rendezvous in 

Leeb’s big garden and takes him carefully by the hand and the hip. The stereo 

in Leeb’s garden booms beautiful salsa music, and the two of them sway gently 

to the beat, elegantly feeling their way along physical and emotional boundaries, 

tenderly circled by the camera. 

Yet Blum’s predilection for Leeb reveals not only a physical, erotic interest 

but also a socio-political concern and a moral dimension bound up with it. 

what extent the filmic ascription of “Jewish” refers, for Blum, to Leeb’s body 

(and so is part of the eroticism), to his history (as a Holocaust survivor), to his 

way of living (he observes the Shabbat and serves her gefilte fish), or to a combination 

of many things remains open. Leeb responds only very hesitatingly 

to Blum’s physical advances. 

In the film’s last scene, Blum nevertheless speaks of a “we.” Leeb is released 

from custody late in the evening, since the real perpetrator has been convicted 

thanks to Blum’s criminological abilities and her conviction that Leeb 

is innocent. Early the next morning, Leeb packs his suitcases. He wants to 

leave and sell the house. Blum, who visits him very early in the morning, says, 

“Jakob, we won,” invoking this fact as an argument against his plan to leave 

Constance. How is this “we” constituted for the detective chief inspector? 

Firstly, this “we” includes a reproach, as becomes apparent from Leeb’s 

physical reaction. Leeb can barely look Blum in the eye. Her argument clearly 

makes him uncomfortable. When Leeb, weighed down with luggage, nevertheless 

opens the front door, it is smeared with red paint — an antisemitic act 

that refers to his occupation and the accusation of ritual murder. Leeb walks 

on wordlessly. Blum remains behind and says, in absolute shock, “I’m sorry,” 

and then, entirely composed and very determined, “In the decisive moments 

of my life, I never ran away.” As he continues walking, Leeb answers: “Neither 

did I.” Then he pauses, looks into the camera and turns around. He walks up 

the stairs to the front door, past Blum. Yet his last line of dialogue is: “Are you 

coming, Klara?” Already standing in the apartment, he invites Blum in with 

an outstretched hand, hugs her as she enters — and closes the door. Leeb stays 

in Constance with Blum. 




Fig. 1: Film still Der Schächter (© Foto: SWR) 

What Blum reproaches Leeb for is being ungrateful and abandoning her in 

her fight against antisemitism. One could perhaps also speak of a betrayal 

of their friendship or of cowardice. Secondly, with “we,” Blum constitutes a 

political action group against antisemitism, which is exposed to the danger 

of disintegration by — of all people — the victim. Her reformulation of the 

reproach, in her sentence “In the decisive moments of my life, I never ran 

away” — makes the Jew — the victim — see reason, or so one could interpret 

this exchange as well. She successfully admonishes him to behave in a morally 

correct way, not to be cowardly, for instance. In this scene, Blum’s erotic interest 

in Leeb is translated into a political one, which is very welcome (to take 

action against antisemitism) but implies moral rules, which Blum explicitly 

urges upon Leeb. At the end of the episode, it is once again the “Jew” who has 

to be exhorted to correct moral behavior. 



94 


How does this episode structure Bux’s and Rodammer’s relationships to 

Leeb, and what feelings underpin and shape these relationships? The film 

stages Bux as a prosecutor pursuing career success, who needs a spectacular 

case in order to distinguish himself. In addition, as one may deduce from 

the prosecutor’s lines of dialogue, he comes from an antisemitic family. Ambition 

is one motivation; antisemitic convictions and, bound up with them, 

the good feeling that his father was right another reason why Bux wants to 

charge Leeb with the murder at all costs. No matter how Leeb behaves in the 

criminal investigation, Bux construes everything against him on principle. 

But the viewer knows from the beginning that Leeb cannot be the perpetrator 

(though at the same time, the viewer does not know who the perpetrator 

is). Thus — and this is obvious to the viewer — Bux’s ambition and antisemitic 

convictions lead him down a wrong path. Moreover, he is depicted as a character 

who acts brutally, in an overwrought and morally condemnable fashion, 

in every situation. In this sense, from the viewer’s perspective, all of Bux’s actions 

and statements are morally at least questionable. 

Wolfgang Rodammer presents himself to the audience in a more ambivalent 

way. At the beginning, he is simply jealous of Leeb. This emotional setting 

is complicated by his brother Edgar’s deed. At the end, it is revealed that Wolfgang 

Rodammer acted as he did because he wanted to protect his brother. But 

Wolfgang Rodammer’s actions were most certainly based on an understanding 

of antisemitic fantasies. And he relied on the discretion of his network of 

people in Constance, among whom it is common knowledge that on several 

occasions, his brother Edgar had already cut dogs’ throats, at least, during fits 

of panic. 

Unlike Bux, not all of the motivations underlying the campground owner’s 

actions are morally questionable as a matter of course. It is not morally condemnable 

to want to protect one’s brother. Jealousy may not be a virtue, 

but it is an understandable feeling. The moral ambivalence in Wolfgang 

Rodammer’s actions becomes apparent in the scene at the end in which the 

case is criminologically solved: Blum reacts to Rodammer’s confession with 

anger and outrage — albeit without precisely articulating, firstly, in what system 

of values Rodammer thinks when he makes use of antisemitic fantasies, 

of all things, to protect his brother, and, secondly, what it means for the system 

of values of the Constance network that Blum could only break open its 

secrecy by chance. At least regarding the latter issue one can say: loyalty towards 

members of the network is more important for the people of Constance 

than is breaking open antisemitic structures of thought — a radical statement, 

but one that ultimately comes to nothing in the episode. 

It appears that the director of the Tatort episode “The Slaughterer” wants 

to enlighten the audience about antisemitism, but the staging of the central 

Jewish character corresponds nonetheless at least in part to antisemitic 




conceptions. One also confronts, on the one hand, an antisemite who will 

hardly meet with approval and, on the other hand, a campground owner, who, 

though he acts in an antisemitic fashion by staging a ritual murder legend, in 

so doing follows emotions that the viewer would not necessarily condemn: he 

wants to help his brother. And in Blum, we encounter a detective chief inspector 

who helps the “Jew” but also makes him understand clearly what his moral 

obligations are. 

5. Schimanski, Numbered Bank Accounts, 

and Moral Sentiments 

The Schimanski episode Das Geheimnis des Golem [“The Secret of the Golem”] 

also stages feelings, images of Jews, and antisemitism. At the center of the 

plot, there stand an object — the notebook — and Schimanski. The latter finds 

himself mixed up in the confusing story of the Swiss numbered bank accounts 

because by chance he helps a Jew, Rosenfeldt, who is lying prostrate 

on the ground, being threatened by a stranger. In the course of the episode, 

Schimanski has to deal with various Jewish characters in order to solve the 

case. As a rule, these characters are older, male, religious, and ugly. A beautiful 

young woman named Lea Kaminski is the obvious exception. At the end 

of the episode, it is revealed — to Schimanski as well as to the audience — that 

she is the daughter of Ari Goldmann, the man who received the notebook from 

his father in the concentration camp. 

The episode establishes this contrasting physical and aesthetic setting from 

the very beginning. Schimanski steers into the harbor of Antwerp. The film 

crosscuts to Rosenfeldt’s arrival in the same city. If Schimanski bares his muscular 

upper arms in a tight T-shirt as he stands upright at the helm of his boat, 

then Rosenfeldt, wearing a badly-fitting suit, nervously deboards a train and 

hurries off with unsure steps, his body slightly stooped — to the Jewish cemetery 

and then to the synagogue to Rabbi Ginsburg. While the synagogue appears 

to be a respectable building from the outside, it is dilapidated inside. 

The rabbi’s office is located in the basement. There are long, torn paper scrolls 

with partly huge Hebraic letters hanging on the walls, which are dirty and 

crumbling, and the light is broken. This room is the first Jewish space — apart 

from the Jewish cemetery — with which the viewer is confronted. What the 

paper scrolls mean and why they hang here remain mysteries, as does why the 

rabbi lives in a dilapidated synagogue. But perhaps it is precisely in the enigmatic 

that there lies the essence of what the film presents as Jewish. 

Unlike in the Tatort episode, in the Schimanski episode the audience has 



96 


the viewer’s perspective, the enigmatically Jewish is linked to the mystery of 

Rosenfeldt’s murderer and the secret of the notebook. How these links evoke 

feelings of attraction or repulsion is a complicated question. 

The male Jewish characters are not attractive, and their interests and motivations 

are far from transparent — to either the viewer or Schimanski. Rosenfeldt, 

it emerges after his death, was a decent man after all, and his friend the 

rabbi trusts Schimanski and helps him with the investigation. Their bodies 

and their spaces may be enigmatic and perhaps repulsive, but they do not 

act against Schimanski. And conversely, the engaging Schimanski tells antisemitic 

jokes, which are immediately recognizable and can be downgraded 

right away, but he wants to help these enigmatic Jews. 

The Schimanski episode’s scriptwriter and director play with the enigmatic. 

König, for instance, who reveals himself as Schimanski’s and Rosenfeldt’s 

opponent at the end, tells Schimanski the story of a radical conspiracy that 

threatens the peace, in order to convince him to hand over the notebook: He 

claims that Rosenfeldt was actually an Israeli secret agent, involved in a secret 

weapons trade with Islamic extremists transacted in Germany. With 

his narration, König appeals — albeit in vain — to Schimanski’s honor as a 

policeman and to conceptions of order and justice bound up with it. Moreover, 

König’s story presupposes an understanding of antisemitism as well as 

the conviction that antisemitic fantasies have a persuasive power; visually, 

Rosenfeldt and Ginsburg correspond to antisemitic fantasies. Lea Kaminski 

tries — also in vain — to finagle the notebook from Schimanski with the 

promise of seduction. She does not reveal her true identity, and — representatively 

for the writer and director of the film — she bets on the popular 

European tale of Christian men’s physical desire for mysterious, beautiful 

Jewish women. While König’s fantasies stand for threatening and 

but nevertheless desirable, erotically charged fantasies about Jewish women 

and Judaism.17 

In the course of the episode, all desires direct themselves toward Schimanski; 

he now possesses the notebook. With the exception of König, the 

feelings toward him are positive. Conversely, his feelings towards Ginsburg 

and before that towards Rosenfeldt are ambivalent: shaped, on the one 

hand, by antisemitic rejection — according to Schimanski, Jews are inscrutable 

because they are Jewish — and, on the other hand, by the desire to help 

the weak — Rosenfeldt, lying on the ground. In his feelings, two classic, com- 

17 On the figure of the beautiful female Jew, see Florian Krobb, Die schöne Jüdin. Jüdische 

Frauengestalten in der deutschsprachigen Erzählliteratur vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zum 

Ersten Weltkrieg (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993). 




Fig. 2: Film still Schimanski, Das Geheimnis des Golem (© Foto: WDR/Uwe Stratmann) 

plementary conceptions about Jews reemerge: the conception of their power 

and that of their physical inferiority.18 When Schimanski encounters Lea 

Kaminski, this ambivalent emotional setting becomes erotically charged. 

At the film’s end, Schimanski’s emotional setting receives a Jewish absolution: 

the moral okay of a Holocaust survivor’s daughter. Lea Kaminski bids 

Schimanski farewell. Both go their own ways. Kaminski ruminates silently 

about him: “In Judaism we have an expression for a person like you: You are a 

just man.” She looks after him — Schimanski is still in the frame — and finally 

says, just as before so that he cannot hear her but the viewer can, “Take 

care — Shalom.” 

At the dramaturgical center of both episodes, we find triangular emotional 

constellations with Blum, Leeb, and Wolfgang Rodammer as well as with 

Schimanski, Kaminski, and Ginsburg as cornerstones. All of the characters 

have sympathetic traits, and in their relationships, several desires, partially 

in conflict with one another, intersect: namely desires oriented toward eros, 

18 On the visual tradition of these concepts, see, for instance, Helmut Gold and Georg 

Heuberger, eds., Abgestempelt: Judenfeindliche Postkarten; auf der Grundlage der Sammlung 

Wolfgang Haney. Eine Publikation der Museumsstiftung Post und Telekommunikation 

und des Jüdischen Museums Frankfurt (Heidelberg: Umschau Braus, 

1999). 



98 


friendship, Jews, and German and German-Jewish history.19 In Tatort, erotic 

relationships and friendships are also always comments on contemporary societal 

debates. What is unique, in the context of the Tatort and the Schimanski 

series, about the constellations of desire in our two episodes is their connection 

— in particular regarding the issue of eroticism — to the Judenpolitik [the 

Nazi policy towards the Jews], and to fantasies about Jews and Judaism.20 It 

is also significant that ultimately, the desires and fantasies of the German 

much more than of the Jewish characters stand at the center of the triangular 

constellations. 

6. Moral Sentiments and Pleasure 

From a film-theoretical, historical perspective, emotions can be understood 

as dispositions for actions, as the result of cognitively grasping situations relevant 

to actions in a certain historical and cultural context. Films can represent 

such emotions, but they can also create them. In film, emotions can be 

assigned to three different dramaturgic and narrative levels: Firstly, as a fundamental 

part of the filmic story, that is, as a specific feeling displayed to the 

audience, which shapes and holds together the narration, secondly, the emotions 

of and between the film characters, and thirdly, the emotions suggested 

to the audience in relation to specific characters.21 It is the second and third 

level in particular that interest us in our context. 

The British film scholar Murray Smith argues that from the perspective 

of the viewer, there are two movements: On the one hand, viewers can adopt 

characters’ cognitive perspectives, thinking, for instance, “I understand why 

X behaves in this way,” but, on the other hand, they can also agree with char- 

19 On the literary tradition of the topic of eroticism between Jews and Christians in German 

culture, see Eva Lezzi, “Liebe ist meine Religion.” Eros und Ehe zwischen Juden und 

Christen in der Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2013). Lea Wohl von 

Haselberg provides an overview of the filmic tradition of the topic of Jews, Germans, and 

eroticism in German film after 1945 in Und nach dem Holocaust? Jüdische Spiel figuren 

im (west-)deutschen Film und Fernsehen nach 1945 (unpublished dissertation, University 

of Hamburg, 2015), 125–132 and 286–314. 

20 On Tatort and eroticisim, see Dennis Gräf and Hans Krah, Sex & Crime. Ein Streifzug 

durch die “Sittengeschichte” des TATORT (Berlin: Bertz + Fischer, 2011). On National 

Socialism in Tatort, see Christian Hißnauer, “‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ im Tatort? 

-Bezüge in der ARD-Krimireihe,” Repositorium Mediengeschichte 7 (2014), 3–49. 

21 On this issue, see Matthias Brütsch et al., eds., Kinogefühle. Emotionalität und Film (Marburg: 

Schüren Verlag, 2005); Anne Bartsch, Jens Eder, and Kathrin Fahlenbrach, eds., 

Audiovisuelle Emotionen. Emotionsdarstellungen und Emotionsvermittlung durch audiovisuelle 

Medienangebote (Köln: Halem, 2007). 




acters’ motives and emotions — “I share X’s concerns.” Therefore, emotions 

can be understood and shared.22 If emotions are understood as the result of a 

cognitive performance, then one can also argue, as I explain above with reference 

to Adam Smith, that shared emotions point to shared values and thus 

to morality. 

In our two episodes, emotions and, bound up with them, morality are 

present on three levels. Firstly, we confront an emotional and moral setting 

that condemns antisemitism, in both the diegesis — the depicted world of the 

film — and the clear intention that the viewer should adopt this position. It 

is very difficult to find the prosecutor Bux sympathetic or to laugh at Schimanski’s 

jokes. Secondly, we encounter an emotional setting that oscillates 

between approving and rejecting certain actions. This setting is part of the 

diegesis and also a version suggested to the audience, for instance Wolfgang 

Rodammer, the campgrounds owner, or, in an even more complex fashion, 

the detective superintendent König. König’s family breaks apart, and 

he is deeply in debt. With the money from Switzerland, he wants to pay his 

debts and bring his family back together. König does tell antisemitic stories, 

and he does kill Rosenfeldt, but in the last action scene — at night at a freight 

train station — , he dies a morally good death: walking erect, he shoots himself 

with his service weapon. His opponents do not arrest him and so also do 

not initiate a trial, which would be humiliating for him; instead, they allow 

him to judge himself. König is morally bad, but he dies “with his head held 

high.” The visual and dramaturgic staging — the granting of suicide, the slowness 

with which König carries the act out, his posture, the camera, which is at 

eye level with him – allows this act to appear as a heroic, justified, and therefore 

morally good death. While we clearly reject his criminal actions — or so 

one could interpret the point of view suggested to the audience — we now also 

feel a certain empathy for him. Thirdly, we find the episodes’ antisemitic morals 

in their visual and acoustic staging of the Jewish characters, in their language, 

their bodies, their clothing, and their spaces.23 Antisemitic, because it 

is based on negative images of Jews and relays these images, not in an unbroken 

way but also not clearly contradicting them. Morals, because this staging 

mobilizes emotions that the viewer in particular is supposed to understand 

and share. Or, as the wish for the readability of the visual staging of Jewish 

figures is justified in the press booklet for “The Secret of the Golem”: “Since 

many Germans are guided by the idea that all Jewish men have long beards 

22 See Smith, Engaging Characters, 142–227. 

23 On this question, see also Matthias N. Lorenz, “Im Zwielicht. Filmische Inszenierung des 

Antisemitismus: Schimanski und ‘Das Geheimnis des Golem,’” Juden.Bilder. Text + Kritik. 

Zeitschrift für Literatur 9 (2008), 89–102. 



100 


and sidelocks, wear hats and black caftans,”24 their portrayal thus orients itself 

on supposedly shared conceptions of observant Jews. 

Does the complex visual and acoustic narrative about Jews and Judaism in 

these two episodes also suggest correspondingly conflicting moral feelings? If 

one follows the television reviews of the large German daily newspapers, then 

the ambiguities and contradictions discussed here can be linked without conflict. 

Bringing together these ambiguities is not perceived as a problem; it even 

seems to have a liberating effect. The Süddeutsche Zeitung called the Constance 

Tatort “poetic.” The Berliner Zeitung wrote about the Schi manski episode 

that this is “how one can produce a crime show dealing with Jews and 

money in a casual and relaxed way.”25 

Why is a crime film with a fanatical antisemite, a pale, financially welloff 

Jew, and a German female detective chief inspector who likes to eat gefilte 

fish “poetic”? Perhaps the following explanation helps: Blum and Schi manski 

are not only a detective chief inspector and a private investigator, respectively, 

who solve crimes; they are also good Germans: they help two pale observant 

Jews in possession of fortunes — despite all prejudices, be it their own or those 

of others. 

But would it not also be possible to interpret the figure of the good German 

entirely differently? One might also say, after all, that this figure enables the 

viewer to see antisemitic imaginations in these two films without bad feelings: 

supporting rich, pale observant Jews with hunched bodies is morally good. 

Or, to put it another way: the figure of the good German enables us to enjoy 

antisemitic imaginations with a good conscience — “Take care — Shalom.” 

Filmography 

Tatort – “Der Schächter” (The Slaughterer) 

Director: Jobst Oetzmann; Teleplay: Fred Breinersdorfer; Camera: Immo Rentz; Editing: 

Roswitha Gnädig; with: Eva Mattes (Klara Blum), Nikolaus Paryla (Jakob Leeb), Hannes 

Hellmann (Christian Bux), Ulrich Bähnk (Edgar Rodammer), Felix von Manteuffel 

(Wolfgang Rodammer), et al. Premiere: Sunday, 7 December 2003, 8:15 PM, ARD. 

Schimanski – “Das Geheimnis des Golem” (The Secret of the Golem) 

Director: Andreas Kleinert; Teleplay: Mario Giordano; Camera: Johann Feindt; Editing: 

Gisela Zinck; with: Götz George (Schimanski), Nikolaus Paryla (David Rosenfeldt), Otto 

Tausig (Rabbi Ginsburg), Martin Feifel (König), et al. Premiere: Sunday, 11 January 2004, 

8:15 PM, ARD. 

24 WDR Köln Pressestelle, ed., Schimanski – Das Geheimnis des Golem (Köln, 2003), 21. 

25 Eva Marz, “Mord im Paradies,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 6 December 2013, 18; Björn Wirth, 

“Die Vorzüge der Beschneidung,” Berliner Zeitung, 10 and 11 January 2014, 16. 




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www.tatort-fundus.de 

Abstract 

Visuelle Sprache ist zentral für antisemitische Erzählungen. Aber wie formulieren 

visuelle Quellen antisemitische Erzählungen und was macht diese Erzählungen 

attraktiv? Oder in anderen Worten: Wie verbinden sich diese Bilder 

mit Gefühlen und moralischen Normen? Dieser Text diskutiert diese Fragen 

am Beispiel zweier Folgen der populären Krimi-Serien Tatort und Schimanski: 

»Der Schächter« (Tatort, December 2003, ARD) und »Das Geheimnis des 

Golem« (Schimanski, January 2004, ARD). 

Dr. Daniel Wildmann is a historian and film scholar. He is the Director of the Leo 

Baeck Institute London and Senior Lecturer in History at Queen Mary, University 

of London. His research areas are modern German-Jewish history, the history of the 




Third Reich, the history of the body, masculinities, film and emotion. His major publications 

include Begehrte Körper. Konstruktion und Inszenierung des arischen Männerkörpers 

im Dritten Reich [Desired Bodies. Design and Staging of the Aryan Male 

Body in the Third Reich], Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 1998; Der veränderbare 

Körper. Jüdische Turner, Männlichkeit und das Wiedergewinnen von Geschichte 

in Deutschland um 1900 [The Changeable Body. Jewish Gymnasts, Masculinity and 

the Reacquiring of History in Germany around 1900], Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2009. 

Daniel Wildmann is currently working on a new project entitled “A History of Visual 

Expressions of Anti-Semitism, Emotions and Morality.” 




Arabs and Muslims in the U. S.-American 

Media Before and After 9/11 

Representations of Arabs and Muslims in the U. S.-American media have 

changed in response to major political events and the U. S.’s relations to events 

in the Middle East, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iran Hostage 

Crisis, and September 11, 2001. One thing that has remained consistent, however, 

is the way in which Arab and Muslim identities are conflated in U. S.- 

American government and media discourses, as well as in popular culture. All 

too often, representations of Arabs and Muslims have served to racialize Arab 

ethnicity and vilify the religion of Islam. Since Arabs and Muslims are usually 

represented as one and the same, it is difficult to write about representations 

of Muslims without also addressing representations of Arabs, and vice versa. 

Why are these categories taken to be interchangeable when only an estimated 

fifteen to twenty percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims is Arab? 

This particular conflation enables a specific kind of racial othering that an 

Arab/Christian, Arab/Jew, or Indonesian/Muslim conflation would not. The 

result is damaging to our understanding of Arabs and Muslims because it obscures 

the enormous variety within the world’s Muslim population by projecting 

an image of Arab Muslims as of one very particular type: fanatical, 

misogynistic, and anti-American. This recurring conflation, which has been 

advanced by U. S.-American government and media discourses, both historically 

and in the long aftermath of 9/11, constructs an evil other that can be 

easily mobilized, with powerful consequences during times of war. The Arab/ 

Muslim conflation has been strategically useful in American empire building 

during the War on Terror precisely because it is connected to a longer and 

powerful history. It draws on centuries-old Orientalist narratives of patriarchal 

societies and oppressed women, of Muslim fundamentalism and antisemitism, 

and of irrational violence and suicide bombings. It, in turn, makes 

possible the portrayal of the U. S. as the inverse of everything that is “Arab/ 

Muslim:” the United States is thus democratic and its citizens all equal, culturally 

diverse and civilized, home to progressive men and liberated women, 

and violent only when attacked or protecting democracy. 

Historically, this conflated Arab/Islamic culture has generally been portrayed 

as primitive and barbaric compared to European and North American 



Arabs and Muslims in the U. S.-American Media Before and After 9/11 105 

culture, which has been portrayed as civilized and enlightened. However, after 

9/11 there has been a shift away from the more blatant stereotypes of the 

past towards sympathetic portrayals of Arabs and Muslims, usually in the 

form of a patriotic Arab or Muslim American. This essay examines representations 

of Arabs and Muslims in the U. S.-American media after the events of 

September 11, 2001 that led to a shift from one-dimensional terrorist characters 

to the introduction of sympathetic characters alongside more complex 

terrorist characters. It historically contextualizes this shift by summarizing 

the changes in earlier representations of Arab and Muslim men from romantic 

sheikhs to rich oil sheiks to terrorists and Arab and Muslim women from 

sultry belly dancers and harem girls to oppressed, veiled women. By considering 

the portrayal of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood films, television, and 

the commercial news media in the United States, this essay charts some of the 

ways in which these representations have changed over time and some of the 

ways in which they continue to perpetuate stereotypes. 

Representations of Arabs and Muslims in 

the U. S.-American Media before September 11, 2001 

Early silent films that represented the Middle East, such as Fatima (1897), 

The Sheik (1921), and The Thief of Baghdad (1924), portrayed the region as far 

away, exotic, and magical; a place of Biblical stories and fairy tales; a desert 

filled with genies, flying carpets, mummies, belly dancers, harem girls, and 

rich men living in opulent palaces (or equally opulent tents). This trend continued 

into the eras of sound and Technicolor, as can be seen in films such as 

Arabian Nights (1942), Road to Morocco (1942), and Harum Scarum (1965), 

to name but a few. In Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, Jack 

G. Shaheen documents nearly one thousand Hollywood films and their representations 

of Arabs and Muslims. He describes the “fictional Arabia” projected 

by Hollywood in the 1920s–1960s as consisting of deserts, camels, scimitars, 

palaces, veiled women, belly dancers, concubines held hostage, slave 

markets, and Arab men who want to rape white women.1 Made while parts of 

the Middle East were still colonies of European powers, the films of this period 

reflect, not surprisingly, colonial fantasies and the logic of colonialism.2 It 

was not unusual for both “good” and “bad” Arabs to be represented and for a 

1 Jack G. Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (Northampton: Olive 

Branch Press, 2001), 8. 

2 Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media 




106 


white man to save the day by saving the “good” Arabs from the “bad,” freeing 

the female Arab slaves from their captors, and rescuing white women from 

Arab rapists. 

The year 1945 was an important historical moment. It marked the start 

of the decline of European colonialism, the beginning of the Cold War, the 

recognition of the Holocaust that led to the creation of Israel (in 1948), and 

the beginning of the emergence of the United States as a global power. As 

the United States began its geopolitical ascendancy, representations of the 

“foreign” contributed to the making of American national identity. And the 

projection of exotic and erotic fantasies onto the Middle East began to be replaced 

by more ominous representations of violence and terrorism.3 Representations 

of conflated Arabs/Muslims as terrorists emerged with the inauguration 

of the state of Israel in 1948 and proliferated with the subsequent 

Arab-Israeli war, Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, and the 

resulting formation of Palestinian resistance movements.4 

From the late 1940s to the 1980s, old images of Arab men as romantic and 

dangerous sheikhs were replaced by new images of billionaires who threaten 

the economy of the U. S. and dangerous terrorists who threaten its national 

security.5 These images, Shaheen writes, “regularly link the Islamic faith 

with male supremacy, holy war, and acts of terror, depicting Arab Muslims 

as hostile alien intruders, as lecherous, oily sheikhs intent on using nuclear 

weapons.”6 As for Arab women, before World War II they were portrayed as 

alluring harem girls and belly dancers.7 After the war, images of Arab women 

largely disappeared from popular culture (e.g., Lawrence of Arabia, 1962), but 

in the 1970s they reemerged as sexy but deadly terrorists (e.g., Black Sunday, 

1977), and in the 1980s they became veiled and oppressed. The film Not 

Without My Daughter (1991) best exemplifies the image of Arab and Muslim 

women as veiled and oppressed. It is about an American Christian woman 

who visits Iran with her Iranian Muslim husband who, under the influence of 

Iran’s repressive culture, ends up holding her hostage. However, many films 

set in the Middle East, for example Protocol (1984) and Indiana Jones (1989), 

portray Arab and Muslim women dressed in black abayas to show that they 

are submissive. After the 1990–91 Gulf War, Arab women once again became 

invisible in the U. S.-American media. As Therese Saliba points out, Arab 

women were either simply not represented at all or shown in ways that, par- 

3 Brian T. Edwards, Morocco Bound: Disorienting America’s Maghreb, from Casablanca to 

the Marrakech Express (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005). 

4 Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs, 28–29. 

5 Ibid., 21. 

6 Ibid., 9. 

7 Amira Jamarkani, Imagining Arab Womanhood: The Cultural Mythology of Veils, Harems, 

and Belly Dancers in the U. S. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 




adoxically, served only to accentuate their invisibility and therefore support 

“neocolonial interests of the new world order and the U. S. media’s repression 

of the war’s destruction.”8 

As for primetime television, Jamie Farr on M. A. S. H. (1972–1983) and 

Hans Conried on The Danny Thomas Show (1953–1971) played the only 

consistently non-stereotypical Arab American characters in the history of 

U. S.-American television (until more recently, as I will discuss at the end 

of this essay). Farr, who is Lebanese American, played the Lebanese American 

Corporal Maxwell Klinger on M. A. S. H., a sitcom about American army 

surgeons during the Korean War. Klinger seeks to be discharged from the 

army and therefore cross-dresses to pretend that he is mentally ill and unfit 

to serve in the military. Conried, who was of Austrian Jewish descent, 

played the Lebanese Uncle Tonoose on the sitcom The Danny Thomas Show. 

Arab American actors, such as Kathy Najimy, F. Murray Abraham, and Tony 

Shalhoub, appear on television and in film but rarely in the roles of Arab 

American characters. Representations on television are similar to those in 

film and other forms of popular culture. In The TV Arab (1984), Shaheen examines 

children’s cartoons, police dramas, and comedy shows on U. S.-American 

television from 1975 to 1984, identifying depictions of Arabs as billionaires, 

bombers, and belly dancers. He writes, “Television tends to perpetuate 

four basic myths about Arabs: they are all fabulously wealthy; they are barbaric 

and uncultured; they are sex maniacs with a penchant for white slavery; 

and they revel in acts of terrorism.”9 Sexualizing is a common characteristic 

of racialization, that is, of producing the racial other. Sander Gilman 

has written about how a crucial feature of antisemitism has been portraying 

Jews as existing in an earlier stage of psychological development, i. e., as embodying 

a chaotic, degenerate, or pathological sexuality.10 Similarly, Arabs 

and Muslims have been commonly portrayed both as hyper-sexual and as 

sexually repressed, signifying a sexuality that is either animalistic or unfree 

and, either way uncivilized. 

The significant shift in the 1970s towards portraying Arabs and Muslims 

as terrorists is evident not only in Hollywood filmmaking and TV shows but 

also in the U. S.-American corporate news media. Melani McAlister argues in 

Epic Encounters (2001) that Americans’ earlier association of the Middle East 

with the Christian Holy Land or Arab oil wealth shifted to one with Muslim 

terror because of news reporting on the Munich Olympics (1972), the Arab oil 

8 Therese Saliba, “Military Presences and Absences: Arab Women and the Persian Gulf 

War,” in Seeing through the Media: The Persian Gulf War, eds. Susan Jeffords and Lauren 

Rabinovitz (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 126. 

9 Jack G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular 

Press, 1984), 4. 

10 Sander Gilman, The Jew’s Body (New York: Routledge, 1991), 138.

108 


embargo (1973), the Iran Hostage Crisis (1979–1980), and airplane hijackings 

in the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1968 and 1976, Palestinians and their sympathizers 

conducted twenty-nine hijackings, which became a central part of 

the news cycle in the U. S.11 The news media played a crucial role in making 

the Middle East, and the Islamic countries there in particular, meaningful to 

Americans as a place that breeds terrorism. 

The Iran Hostage Crisis was a key moment in the conflation of Arab, 

Muslim, and Middle Eastern identities. Though Iran is not an Arab country, 

during the Hostage Crisis it stood in for Arabs as well as symbolizing the 

Middle East, Islam, and terrorism — all of which came to be referred to interchangeably. 

Edward Said’s examination of how the news media reported the 

Iran Hostage Crisis demonstrates case after case of biased portrayals of Islam: 

“During the past few years, especially since events in Iran caught European 

and American attention so strongly, the media have therefore covered Islam: 

they have portrayed it, characterized it, analyzed it, given instant courses 

on it, and consequently they have made it ‘known.’”12 In the U. S., “knowing 

Islam” came to mean knowing about fundamentalism and terrorism. The 

monolithic portrayal of Islam as threatening reduces a diverse and dynamic 

religion, with its many followers and their varied experiences, to something 

unknown and unknowable. 

The U. S.-American mass media, and Hollywood films in particular, have 

contributed to racializing Arabs and Muslims. Shaheen examines Hollywood’s 

creation of an Arab phenotype, a distinct look or appearance, over the 

last century. The on-screen Arab has dark features (skin, hair, and eyes), a distinctive 

hooked nose, “exotic” clothing (a veil, a belly dancing outfit, keffiyeh, 

etc.), and conforms to a limited number of cultural tropes (greedy, rich, corrupt 

oil sheik; fanatic with violent religious beliefs; terrorist; etc.).13 Ella Shohat 

demonstrates that Arabs have been racialized via the visual representations, 

troping, and narrative positioning of Eurocentric narratives.14 Historically, 

casting for TV dramas has contributed to this racialization. Through their 

casting, TV dramas participate in the construction of the phenotype and 

the fiction of an Arab or Muslim race and hence the notion that Arabs and 

Muslims can be racially profiled. In Sleeper Cell, the lead terrorist is an Arab 

Muslim but portrayed by an Israeli Jewish actor, Oded Fehr, who has played 

Arab characters before, most notably in The Mummy films (1999 and 2001). 

11 Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and US Interests in the Middle East, 

1945–2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 182. 

12 Edward Said, Covering Islam 

13 Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs. 

14 Ella Shohat, “Gender and the Culture of Empire: Toward a Feminist Ethnography of the 

Cinema,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 13, no. 1–3 (1991), 45–84. 




In season two of the television show 24, Francesco Quinn, who is Mexican 

American, plays the Arab terrorist. (His father, Anthony Quinn, also often 

played Arab characters.) In reality, of course, Arab and Muslim looks span 

the “racial” spectrum and cannot be reduced to one type. The ironic result 

of its racializing is that the U. S.-American media have produced a conflated 

Arab/Muslim look that is both narrow enough to mark Arabs for exclusion 

and discrimination yet also inclusive enough erroneously to include Indians, 

Pakistanis, and Iranians — as evidenced by misdirected hate crimes during the 

Gulf War and after 9/11. My point here is not that only Arabs should portray 

Arab characters but, rather, that casting contributes to the construction of a 

visual image of an Arab/Muslim “race” that facilitates the conflation of Arab 

and Muslim identities. This construction of an Arab/Muslim look in turn supports 

(whether intentionally or not) policies like racial profiling by doing the 

ideological work of matching certain looks with certain categories of people 

deemed threatening and dangerous. 

This brief history of the emergence of the Arab terrorist character in the 

U. S.-American commercial media reveals the decades-long history through 

which they have primed viewers to equate Arabs and Muslims first with dissoluteness, 

patriarchy, and misogyny and then with terrorism. Regarding 

the overall impact of such representations, Tim Jon Semmerling argues in 

‘Evil’ Arabs in American Popular Film (2006) that portrayals of Arabs in U. S.- 

American cinema reveal more about American Orientalist fears than about 

actual Arabs.15 In Home/Land/Security: What We Learn about Arab Communities 

from Action-Adventure Films (2008), Karin Gwinn Wilkins describes 

the focus groups she conducted in order to determine how Americans perceive 

Arab villains in action-adventure films and, more generally, their perceptions 

of Arabs as threats to U. S.-American national security, of the Middle 

East, and of U. S.-American heroes who defeat the Arab threat.16 She reveals 

an indisputable link between media representations and their consequences, 

which are lived out in terms of discriminatory perceptions and practices. 

Wilkins demonstrates that narratives of terrorism in the U. S.-American media 

structure viewers’ perceptions of terrorism during the War on Terror 

which in turn support the implementation of policies that have dire consequences 

for Arab and Muslim life. Domestic policies, such as the USA PA- 

TRIOT Act, have led to the detention and deportation of thousands of Arabs 

and Muslims without due process and foreign policies, such as military intervention 

in Iraq and Afghanistan, that have led to the deaths of over a hundred 

15 Tim Jon Semmerling, ‘Evil’ Arabs in American Popular Film (Austin: University of Texas 

Press, 2006). 

16 Karin Gwinn Wilkins, Home/Land/Security: What We learn about Arab Communities 

from Action-Adventure Films (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008). 



110 


thousand civilians. Such representations and the policies they inadvertently 

or not support are taken to justify the ongoing discrimination against Arab 

and Muslims communities in the U. S. and other countries. 

Representations of Arabs and Muslims in 

the U. S.-American Media after September 11, 2001 

In 2004, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) accused the TV 

drama 24 of perpetuating stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims.17 CAIR objected 

to the persistent portrayal of Arabs and Muslims in the context of terrorism, 

stating “repeated association of acts of terrorism with Islam will only serve to 

increase anti-Muslim prejudice.”18 CAIR’s critics and defenders of 24 retorted 

that programs like 24 are cutting-edge and pertain to one of the most pressing 

social and political issues of the moment, the War on Terror, and that CAIR 

was trying to obscure the reality of Muslim terrorism by confining television 

writers to politically correct themes.19 

24 immediately responded to CAIR with two actions. First, it broadcasted 

a public service announcement (PSA) in February of 2005 during one 

of the program’s commercial breaks. It featured the show’s lead actor, Kiefer 

Sutherland, who plays Jack Bauer, a counter-terrorism agent who saves the 

United States from terrorist attacks by breaking all of the protocols, including 

torturing terrorist suspects. In the PSA, Sutherland stares, deadpan, into the 

camera as he reminds viewers that “the American Muslim community stands 

firmly beside their fellow Americans in denouncing and resisting all forms of 

terrorism” and urges viewers to “please bear that in mind” while watching the 

program.20 Second, a scene was written into one episode in which two patriotic 

Arab American brothers tell Jack Bauer that they want to help him fight 

terrorists. 

24’s efforts to offset the impact of their own stereotyping are not unique 

but, rather, are part of a larger trend that came out of the multicultural movement 

of the 1980s and 1990s. The movement, which conservatives dubbed 

“political correctness,” raised awareness of persistent stereotypes and Eurocentrism 

in the media and educational curricula. Many media critics have 

17 “Fox TV Accused of Stereotyping American Muslims,” Free Republic, 13 January 2005, 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1320357/posts. 

18 “24 Under Fire From Muslim Groups,” BBC News, 19 January 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 

2/hi/entertainment/6280315.stm. 

19 Critics of CAIR include www.jihadwatch.org and www.frontpagemag.com. 

20 This public service announcement (PSA) was broadcast during one of the program’s 

commercial breaks on Monday, 7 February 2005, FOX. 




pointed out the ways in which the multicultural movement has been coopted 

and its political impact diffused; nonetheless, it has led to more diverse portrayals 

of historically marginalized and stereotyped groups. 

My book, Arabs and Muslims in the Media (2012), was inspired by my surprise 

at finding an increase in positive portrayals of Arabs and Muslims after 

9/11. More specifically, what I found was a trend in television shows and films: 

if there is a focus on terrorism perpetrated by Arabs or Muslims, then to diffuse 

the stereotype the production team includes a positive Arab or Muslim 

character, usually a patriotic U. S.-American citizen or an innocent victim 

of a hate crime.21 We can see this trend in current television dramas, such as 

Homeland and Tyrant, and in recent films, such as Argo. 

How should we understand this seemingly positive development? In order 

to see why this trend should seem puzzling, it’s necessary to recall that in 

the weeks, months, and years after 9/11 hate crimes, workplace discrimination, 

cases of prejudice, and airline discrimination against Arabs and Muslims 

increased exponentially. According to the FBI, hate crimes against Arabs 

and Muslims increased 1,600 percent from 2000 to 2001.22 Dozens of airline 

passengers thought to be Arab or Muslim were removed from flights. Hundreds 

of Arab and Muslim Americans reported discrimination at work, receiving 

hate mail, physical assaults, and vandalism or arson of their property, 

mosques, and community centers.23 According to a 2006 USA Today/Gallup 

poll, nearly one-quarter of those Americans polled, 22 %, said they would 

not want a Muslim as a neighbor.24 And the U. S.-American government 

passed legislation that targeted Arabs and Muslims (both inside and outside 

the United States) and suspended constitutional rights. And yet, at the same 

time, there was a proliferation of sympathetic portrayals of Arab and Muslim 

How do such sympathetic representations interact with each other and 

with negative representations to affect the complex field of Arab and Muslim 

21 Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11 

(New York: New York University Press, 2012). 

22 FBI, “Hate Crimes Statistics Report,” (2001), http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hatecrime/2001 

(accessed 20 May 2015). 

23 American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, “Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination 

against Arab Americans: The Post-September 11 Backlash,” (Washington, DC: 

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Research Institute, 2003), www.adc. 

org/hatecrimes/pdf/2003_report_web.pdf (accessed 20 May 2015). Also see Council on 

American-Islamic Relations, “The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States 

2002: Stereotypes and Civil Liberties,” Civil Rights Report (2002), http://www.cair.com/ 

CivilRights/CivilRightsReports/2002Report.aspx (accessed 9 May 2011). 

24 “Anti-Muslim sentiment fairly commonplace,” Gallup Poll News Service, 10 August 2006, 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/24073/antimuslim-sentiments-fairly-commonplace.aspx. 



112 


representations during the War on Terror? I call this phenomenon of inserting 

a positive representation to defuse a negative one “simplified complex 

representation.” These are strategies that television producers, writers, and 

directors use to give the impression of a complex representation, but only 

in the most superficial and simplified way. These are predictable strategies 

whose employment can be expected if a plot involves an Arab or Muslim terrorist, 

and they constitute a new standard compliment to the stock Arab villain 

introduced in the 1980s. If the storyline of a TV drama or film includes 

an Arab or Muslim terrorist, then a “positive” representation of an Arab, Muslim, 

Arab American, or Muslim American is typically included also, as if to 

counteract or subvert the stereotype of the conflated Arab/Muslim terrorist. 

I argue that simplified complex representations signify a new era of racial representations; 

they are a characteristic representational mode of the alleged 

“post-race era.” These “positive” representations often challenge or complicate 

the negative stereotypes they accompany, yet they also contribute to the illusion 

of a “post-race” society. As a result, such “positive” imagery of Arabs and 

Muslims can, ironically, seem to justify discrimination, mistreatment, and 

war against Arabs and Muslims. 

The “positive” representations of Arabs and Muslims in the first half 

of the 20th century — the romantic sheikhs, sultry belly dancers, and harem 

girls — show that the positive post-9/11 representations to which I have 

pointed are not new, in one sense, for supposedly “positive” images have been 

around a long time. Still, they are new in another sense, that is, what distinguishes 

the earlier images from those in the beginning of the 21st century that 

the former were not produced to offset “negative” stereotyping. Rather, those 

“good” Arabs were undeveloped characters whose purpose was to be rescued 

by white men in order that white masculine heroism be portrayed. In contrast, 

recent representations of the “good” Arab or Muslim are attempts to lessen 

the impact of their accompanying negative stereotypes. 

The early images represent Arabs and Muslims as exotic, something the 

Eurocentric imagination could more easily consume.25 But, though their pleasurable 

exoticism made them “positive,” these characters were nonetheless 

standardized, one-dimensional reductions, that is, stereotypes. Moreover, at 

times, the same stereotypical exoticism made such characters ambivalent. In 

other words, images of Arabs and Muslims, whether alluring and pleasurable 

or threatening and repulsive, have long advanced stereotypes. 

There are many forms of simplified complex representation, four of which 

I will outline here. First, the most common form is the patriotic Arab or Muslim 

American character who assists the U. S.-American government in its 

25 Shohat, “Culture of Empire.” 




fight against terrorism, either as a government agent or a civilian. Included 

among such characters are Nadia Yassir, a dedicated member of the Counter 

Terrorist Unit in season six of 24 and, more recently, Fara Sherazi, a CIA analyst 

who wears the hijab in season three of Homeland. The strategy behind 

such characters is to challenge the notion that Arabs and Muslims in the U. S. 

can’t have an American self-identity. Judging from the number of these patriots, 

it appears that writers have embraced this form as the most direct method 

for counteracting potential charges of stereotyping. 

Second, it has become increasingly common to portray Arab and Muslim 

Americans as the unjust targets of hate, as victims of violence and harassment, 

so that the viewer can sympathize with their plight. This new victimization 

and sympathy are particularly significant given long-standing representations 

that have inspired unsympathetic attitudes and even a feeling of celebration 

when Arab or Muslim characters are killed. However, even the most 

sympathetic representations of Arab or Muslim victims can be taken to justify 

ex clusion. For example, in an episode of the television legal drama The 

Practice an airline seeks to bar Arabs/Muslims from flying on their airplanes 

in the name of safety and security.26 An Arab American man sues the airline 

for discrimination. It is clear that the man, a university professor, is the target 

of discrimination, but a preliminary hearing is held to determine whether or 

not the profiling of Arabs and Muslims after 9/11 can be justified. After hearing 

arguments for and against such discrimination, the judge remorsefully 

concludes that racism is wrong except during exceptional times of crisis. So, 

though this episode intends to demonstrate sympathy for Arab and Muslim 

Americans after 9/11 and repeatedly states that discrimination is unjust, its 

message ultimately veers to the other end of the ideological spectrum. Thus, 

sympathetic representations of Arabs and Muslims after 9/11 can participate 

in an attempt to justify the suspension of Arabs’ and Muslims’ civil rights by 

being part of the argument that 9/11 is an exceptional moment of crisis and 

therefore requires exceptional measures. 

Third, TV dramas have employed a host of devices to offset “negative” stereotyping, 

including “flipping the enemy” and fictionalizing their country. 

Flipping the enemy involves misleading the viewer into believing that Muslims 

are plotting to attack the U. S. and then revealing that they are merely 

pawns of or a front for Euro-American or European terrorists. The identity of 

the enemy is thus flipped: viewers discover that the terrorist is not an Arab or 

Muslim, or they find that the real threat is a larger network of international 

terrorists. In season two of 24, the hero spends the first half of the season 

tracking down a Middle Eastern terrorist cell, ultimately subverting a nuclear 

“Bad to Worse,” The Practice, ABC, Season 7, Episode 8, 1 December 2002. 



114 


attack. In the second half of the season, viewers discover that European and 

Euro-American businessmen are behind the plot and had intended to goad 

the U. S. into declaring war in the Middle East so that they could benefit from 

the subsequent increase in oil prices. This form challenges the idea that terrorism 

is an Arab or Muslim monopoly. 

Fourth, it has become increasingly common in television dramas for the 

terrorist characters’ country to go unnamed or be fictional. This form assumes 

that leaving the nationality of the villain unidentified eliminates 

potential offensiveness: if no particular country or ethnicity is named, then 

there is no reason for any particular group to be offended by the portrayal. 

In season four of 24, the terrorist family is from an unnamed Middle Eastern 

country. In season 3 of The West Wing, the fictional country of “Qumar” is the 

source of terrorist plots; in season eight of 24, it is “Kamistan.” Most recently, 

the television drama Tyrant is set in “Abuddin.” Fictionalizing the terrorist’s 

country can provide more latitude for salacious storylines that might be criticized 

if they involved an actual country. 

These four forms of simplified complex representations are intended to 

give the impression that we have entered a “post-race era” in which we no longer 

tolerate racism and “negative” stereotyping. However, closer examination 

of the ideological work done by these strategies reveals that they are often employed 

in narratives that try to justify depriving Arab and Muslim Americans 

of their civil rights or reinforce the association of Arabs and Muslims with terrorism. 

Furthermore, the sorts of “good” Arab and “good” Muslim are limited 

to, for example, the patriotic American who is willing to fight and die to 

protect the U. S. from terrorism and the victim of hate crimes. We have yet to 

see a diverse array of Arab and Muslim characters in the media. 

The Future of Representations 

There have been “positive” and “negative” representations of Arabs and Muslims 

throughout the history of representations, and it is important to understand 

them in their historical context. We must move away from simple assessments 

of an image as “positive” or “negative” towards examining the 

- 

ductive stories about Arabs and Muslims and can, when repeated over and 

over again in various media, lead to prejudiced perceptions, opinions, and 

policies that can have devastating effects on people’s lives. 

Despite the shift away from the more blatant stereotypes of the last few decades, 

Arabs and Muslims are still primarily thought of in relation to terrorism. 

We must ask, then, how effective these strategies to minimize the effects 




of negative stereotyping have been if they continue to be employed in stories 

associating Arabs and Muslims with terrorism? Representations of Arabs and 

Muslims in stories that have nothing to do with terrorism remain strikingly 

unusual in the U. S.-American commercial media. 

While these new representational strategies are certainly an improvement 

over past blatantly “negative” stereotypes, they hardly herald the arrival of the 

post-race future. They show that we must think beyond whether an image is 

“good” or “bad” and ask instead how images can contribute to attempts to justify 

exclusion. So, what would real progress look like? 

I do not think that there is anything inherently wrong with depicting Arabs 

and Muslims as terrorists. The issue is not whether Arabs should be 

portrayed as terrorists but, rather, why they are rarely portrayed as anything 

else. The way to reduce the effects of “negative” stereotypes and increase our 

collective humanity is not simply to add a “positive” Arab or Muslim character 

to a story about Middle Eastern terrorists but to tell so many different 

kinds of stories that the terrorist story becomes just one among them. Breaking 

“negative” stereotypes is not simply a matter of creating counteracting 

“positive” images. The remedy is creating such a diverse range of images that 

no one of them has the power to dominate our thinking about an entire group 

of people. 

There are some promising developments. The character Abed on the television 

show Community is Palestinian American (played by the Indian American 

actor Dani Pudi). He is a weird guy, socially awkward and obsessed with 

popular culture, but these have nothing to do with his ethnicity or religion. 

The character Mohammed (played by the Lebanese American actor Haaz 

Sleiman) in season one of Nurse Jackie is another good example of an Arab 

character who breaks the standard forms. Mohammed is a gay nurse who is 

the leading character’s co-worker and best friend. We need more such characters 

on U. S.-American television who break the mold of “bad” terrorist Arabs 

and Muslims and “good” patriotic ones and who are just normally flawed 

human beings. We also need more shows like the sitcom Little Mosque on the 

Prairie, which was aired in Canada, about a Muslim community in a fictional 

town. In order to compete with the ways of thinking about Arabs and Muslims 

that hundreds if not thousands of films and television shows have entrenched, 

it is necessary to produce alternative images and stories that offer 

insight into the diversity of Arab and Muslim American life. 



116 


References 

Print Sources 

Alsultany, Evelyn. Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11. New 

York: New York University Press, 2012. 

Edwards, Brian T. Morocco Bound: Disorienting America’s Maghreb, from Casablanca to the 

Marrakech Express. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. 

Gilman, Sander. The Jew’s Body. New York: Routledge, 1991. 

Jarmakani, Amira. Imagining Arab Womanhood: The Cultural Mythology of Veils, Harems, 

and Belly Dancers in the U. S. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 

McAlister, Melani. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and US Interests in the Middle East, 

1945–2000. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. 

Said, Edward. Covering Islam. New York: Vintage, Revised Edition, 1997. 

Saliba, Therese. “Military Presences and Absences: Arab Women and the Persian Gulf War.” 

In Seeing through the Media: The Persian Gulf War, edited by Susan Jeffords and Lauren 

Rabinovitz, 125–132. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994. 

Semmerling, Tim Jon. ‘Evil’ Arabs in American Popular Film. Austin: University of Texas 

Press, 2006. 

Shaheen, Jack G. The TV Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 

1984. 

Shaheen, Jack G. Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. Northampton: Olive Branch 

Press, 2001. 

Shohat, Ella. “Gender and the Culture of Empire: Toward a Feminist Ethnography of the 

Cinema.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 13, no. 1–3 (1991): 45–84. 

Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. 

New York: Routledge, 1994. 

Wilkins, Karin Gwinn. Home/Land/Security: What we learn about Arab communities from 

Action-Adventure Films. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008. 

Yunis, Alia and Gaelle Duthler. “Tramps vs. Sweethearts: Changing Images of Arab and American 

Women in Hollywood Films.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 4, 

no. 2 (2011): 225–243. 


Free Republic, “Fox TV Accused of Stereotyping American Muslims,” 13 January 2005, http:// 

www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1320357/posts. 

BBC News, “24 Under Fire From Muslim Groups,” 19 January 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ 

hi/entertainment/6280315.stm. 

FBI. “Hate Crimes Statistics Report.” (2001), http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/ 

2001 (accessed 20 May 2015). 

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination 

against Arab Americans: The Post-September 11 Backlash.” Washington, DC: 

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Research Institute, 2003, www.adc.org/ 

hatecrimes/pdf/2003_report_web.pdf (accessed 20 May 2015). 

Council on American-Islamic Relations. “The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United 

States 2002: Stereotypes and Civil Liberties.” Civil Rights Report (2002), http://www.cair. 

com/CivilRights/CivilRightsReports/2002Report.aspx (accessed 9 May 2011). 




Gallup Poll News Service, “Anti-Muslim sentiment fairly commonplace,” 10 August 2006, 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/24073/antimuslim-sentiments-fairly-commonplace.aspx. 

Abstract 

Dieser Essay untersucht die Darstellung von Araber*innen und Muslim*innen 

in den US-amerikanischen Medien nach den Anschlägen vom 11. September. 

Seit Ende 2001 kann eine Verschiebung von einer eindimensionalen Darstellung 

von Terroristen hin zur Darstellung sympathisch wirkender Charaktere 

zum einen und komplexere Bilder von Terroristen zum anderen verzeichnet 

werden. Diesen Wandel stellt der Essay in einen historischen Kontext: Frühere 

Darstellungsformen reichen vom arabischen und muslimischen Mann als romantischer 

Scheich zum reichen Ölscheich und schließlich zum Terroristen. 

Die Darstellung arabischer und muslimischer Frauen veränderte sich ebenfalls; 

das Bild der temperamentvollen Bauchtänzerin und des Harems mädchens 

wurde von dem der unterdrückten, verschleierten Frau abgelöst. 

Evelyn Alsultany is an associate professor in the Department of American Culture 

at the University of Michigan and Director of Arab and Muslim American Studies. 

She is the author of Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 

9/11 (2012). She is co-editor of Arab and Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, 

and Belonging (2011) and Between the Middle East and the Americas: The Cultural 

Politics of Diaspora (2013). She is guest curator of the Arab American National Museum’s 

online exhibit, “Reclaiming Identity: Dismantling Arab Stereotypes,” which 

can be viewed at http://arabstereotypes.org. For more information, see http://evelyn 

alsultany.com. 




Criminal Blackness 

News Coverage of Black Male Victims 

from Rodney King to Michael Brown 

On 9 August 2014, Michael Brown — a young Black man walking the streets 

of the St. Louis, Missouri, suburb of Ferguson — was shot and killed by a 

White police officer, Darren Wilson. Brown’s body lay uncovered in the middle 

of the Ferguson housing project where he was shot for four hours before 

the coroner’s office removed it. Wilson was never charged with a crime for 

what many thought was an unjustified use of force by a police officer who escalated 

what should have been a routine stop — or no stop at all — to the point 

where Brown was on the receiving end of deadly gunfire. 

Several high profile incidents of Black men brutalized by police officers 

preceded Michael Brown’s killing. In 1991, Los Angeles, California, resident 

Rodney King was beaten almost to death by a group of police officers. The 

beating, which occurred after police had chased King along a highway, is one 

of the most famous incidents, given that it was seen by a national and international 

audience courtesy of an amateur video that was released to television 

news outlets. The acquittal of the accused police officers touched off the 

Los Angeles riots of 1992. In 1999, New York City police officers sprayed the 

apartment of the 23 year-old African immigrant Amadou Diallo with a hail 

of 41 bullets, 19 of which struck him, because he “fit the description” of a 

rapist on the loose in his Bronx neighborhood. While Diallo’s family was later 

awarded a three million dollar settlement for wrongful death, the police officers 

involved in the incident were, again, acquitted. 

The estimated number of Black victims killed at the hands of police before 

Michael Brown and in the two years since range from the high hundreds 

into the thousands, depending on who’s keeping track.1 These incidents, and 

probably many more that we will never know about because they haven’t been 

covered by either local or national news media, have resulted in calls for law 

1 See http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999–2014–1666672349; 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/25/the-14-teens-killed-by-cops-since-mi 

chael-brown.html; https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/a-list-of-unarmed-blackskilled-by-police/; 

and http://killedbypolice.net/. 



Criminal Blackness 119 

enforcement to account for a clear pattern of Black men and women and boys 

and girls falling prey to police misconduct. When asked what makes this pattern 

possible, many individuals — scholars and lay people, political elites and 

grassroots activists, and people of color who feel especially vulnerable to 

police violence — implicate the media in the historic devaluation of Black lives. 

This brief essay is about the ways in which media have historically and continue 

to influence perceptions of Blackness through how they report on and 

frame Blacks in the context of crime and criminal justice. This includes the 

language, imagery, story positioning, and framing in the news media’s production 

of narratives about Blackness and criminality. 

Something Different about Ferguson 

I was a college junior in 1991, when Rodney King was beaten. I recall being glued 

to my dormitory’s communal television set watching the video images of the 

incident, which were accompanied by the color-coded news commentary that 

pointed out the racial difference between King and the officers who continued 

to kick, punch, and beat him with night sticks long after he had been effectively 

subdued. Though the brutality of the incident was astonishing, I recall the persisting 

characterizations of King’s behavior as the wild acts of a drug addict and 

violent criminal who had previously robbed a neighborhood convenient store. 

King’s criminal narrative was etched in the minds of many, and a sense of suspicion 

about Blackness, given the widespread perception about Black criminal 

tendencies, was confirmed by later news reports and commentaries on the reactions 

of South-Central Los Angeles residents to what many of them — Black 

and White — considered to be the unjust acquittal of the accused officers. 

A quarter of a century later, the news of Michael Brown’s killing reminded 

me of Rodney King. But something was clearly different for me. I experienced 

it differently, for one thing. I wasn’t glued to a television set, and even if I had 

been I still wouldn’t have learned anything about Brown’s death during those 

first few days after the shooting. In fact, I was on vacation, and what I knew 

about the event came from a combination of the social medium and microblogging 

network Twitter and two of my graduate students, who had spontaneously 

decided to fly to Ferguson to observe and research what was taking 

place in the days after Brown’s death. Monitoring their reports and the chatter 

on Twitter, which I check sporadically, I got a sense of what had transpired. 

I knew it wasn’t the whole picture. Still, I sensed from the information that 

I received, and how it characterized Michael Brown in relation to Darren 

Wilson, the police officer who shot him, that something about this incident 

was different from the one involving Rodney King. It wasn’t until about a 



120 


month later, however, that I began sifting through the data — news reports 

about the killing and the relentless protests that followed — in order to confirm 

my suspicions about the coverage. In these data, I found evidence to suggest 

that the news media covered Ferguson, and other more recent cases of 

Black male victims of unjustified police violence, differently from Rodney 

King and similar incidents in the 1990s and early 2000s. 

I had been reading news headlines and making calculations as I prepared 

analyses for several news outlets, as many media critics, activists, and politicians 

were criticizing the major news media for their delay in covering Ferguson 

and their seemingly myopic focus on the violence that had begun to erupt 

as protestors vented their anger at Brown’s killing. As I sorted through the 

data, one headline fragment stood out: “Unarmed Black Teenager.” 

It stood out because it was repeated thousands of times in the headlines 

and blog posts of local, national, and world news outlets alike. It was repeated 

in the pages of outlets both large and small, aligned with both the political 

left and the right. But this headline fragment characterizing Brown’s killing 

stood out for me primarily because it struck me as being altogether different 

from past news representations, both recent and historical, of Black people 

in the United States. As I watched and listened to academics, media critics, 

and activists criticize the ongoing news coverage, I became fascinated by the 

novelty of seeing a Black man in such a circumstance being widely described 

as a victim, rather than a criminal. I was struck by the fact, which motivated 

my later investigations, that “all categories of news outlets described Michael 

Brown not as an African American, or as a criminal, but as a teenager. This 

represents Brown somewhat sympathetically, as someone who, because of his 

youth, was vulnerable and did not deserve to die.”2 

Media and Black Criminality 

“Black” has been synonymous with criminality in the U. S. since emancipation, 

when Blacks were elevated to the status of full citizens. Representations 

of Blacks as violent and criminal have been reinforced as each new medium for 

news and public information has evolved: from the silent films that spawned 

the historic film Birth of a Nation3 to political cartoons and print news 

during Reconstruction and Jim Crow4 to the electronic media from radio to 

2 http://academicminute.org/2015/01/charlton-mcilwain-nyu-journalistic-perspectives-onmichael-brown/. 

3 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_birth.html. 

4 http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/brute/. 




the Internet. Historians of race and of media (particularly American film) 

have chronicled the ways in which Black criminality was represented and reproduced 

in the composite images of the Black Brute, the Brutal Black Buck, 

and several other stereotypes, which combined the tropes of Black criminality, 

lawlessness, superhuman strength, and animalistic sexual proclivities with 

the fears of White women being raped by Black men, racial miscegenation, and 

Black retribution, into an almost singular narrative, which became etched in 

the minds of White America and beyond.5 Scholarly accounts are replete with 

research noting the longstanding representation of Blacks as criminals in contemporary 

television6, and an avalanche of empirical work has consistently 

demonstrated the degree to which Blacks are overrepresented in crime reports 

in television and other news venues and the degree to which narratives of Black 

crime and violence effectively incite fear and contribute to the disparate treatment 

that Blacks receive in the criminal justice system.7 Such portrayals and 

associations of Blacks with crime extend to Black and Latino political candidates, 

public officials, and racialized public-policy debates as well.8 The Black 

criminal image is as powerful in the White mind as it is enduring. 

5 Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattos, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History (Harrisberg: 

Continuum International Publishing Group (Sd), 1989). 

6 Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki, The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and 

Race in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 28–29 and Mary B. Oliver, 

“Portrayals of Crime, Race, and Aggression in ‘Reality-Based’ Police Shows: A Content 

Analysis,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 

7 Gregg Barak, ed., Media, Process, and the Social Construction of Crime: Studies in News 

making Criminology (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995); Franklin D. Gilliam, Shanto 

Iyengar, Adam Simon, and Oliver Wright, “Crime in Black and White: The Violent, Scary 

World of Local News,” The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 1, no. 3 (1996): 

6–23; Ted Chiricos, Sarah Esch holz, and Marc Gertz, “Crime, News and Fear of Crime: Toward 

an Identification of Audience Effects,” Social Problems 44, no. 3 (1997): 342–357; Jon 

Hurwitz and Mark Peffley, “Public Perceptions of Race and Crime: The Role of Racial Stereotypes,” 

American Journal of Political Science 41, no. 2 (1997): 375–401; Travis Lemar 

Dixon and Keith B. Maddox, “Skin Tone, Crime News, and Social Reality Judgments: Priming 

the Stereotype of the Dark and Dangerous Black Criminal,” Journal of Applied Social 

Psychology 35, no. 8 (2005): 1555–1570; Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr. and Shanto Iyengar, “Prime 

Suspects: The Influence of Local Television News on the Viewing Public,” American Journal 

of Political Science 1, no. 3 (2000): 560–573; Travis L. Dixon and Daniel Linz, “Race and 

the Misrepresentation of Victimization on Local Television News,” Communication Research 

27, no. 5 (2000): 547–573; and Travis Lemar Dixon and Daniel Linz, “Overrepresentation 

and Underrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos as Lawbreakers on Television 

News,” Journal of Communication 50, no. 2 (2000): 131–154. 

8 Charlton McIlwain and Stephen M. Caliendo, Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race 

in U. S. Politi cal Campaigns (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), 11–45; Tali 

Mendelberg, “Executing Hortons: Racial Crime in the 1988 Presidential Campaign,” Public 

Opinion Quarterly 61, no. 1 (1997): 134–157; Jon Hurwitz and Mark Peffley, “Playing 



122 


Still Something Different About Ferguson 

And, so, my mind went back some twenty years to the brutal beating of 

Rodney King in Los Angeles and how, even in the face of such damning video 

evidence, King was largely characterized as just another Black criminal high 

on PCP or some other drug, violent, and threatening to the police officers who 

apprehended him. Later, the news media focused narrowly on the violent aftermath 

of the trial in which the White police officers who beat Rodney King 

were acquitted, rather than on the systemic, institutional conditions that led 

to it. The coverage was overwhelmingly concerned with the protests, rioting, 

and raging fires. In fact, a video of a Black resident pulling Reginald Denny, a 

White truck driver who was driving through South-Central Los Angeles at 

the time the verdict was announced, out of his truck seemed to circulate more 

widely and draw more consternation from public officials and White America 

in general than did the out-of-focus video of Rodney King’s ordeal. 

Finally, as I reflected on the relatively novel type of headlines reporting 

on Michael Brown’s case, I began to think that they were not the first of their 

kind. As I recalled Trayvon Martin’s case in 2012 and Oscar Grant’s before 

him, I asked myself, “Are things different now, not just with Michael Brown 

but with the contemporary news coverage of incidents of Black injustice? Is 

Black criminality still the dominant feature characterizing the Black image 

in the American mind? Or, is the image changing? Or, are we witnessing the 

expansion of the playing field on which competing images and narratives of 

Blackness battle for supremacy? And, if it is the latter, then what will the consequences 

be?” 

In the next few pages, I pose a series of questions that I will address and 

present the data that speaks to them. I then say what I believe these data mean 

not only in the context of how contemporary news media cover Blacks and 

crime in general but, more specifically, in the context of what the media’s 

coverage of Black crime victims means for citizens’ ability to fight for systemic 

change in a set of institutions that criminalize Blackness in a myriad 

ways, e.g., through media representations, ubiquitous surveillance, policing 

practice, and incarceration. 

the Race Card in the Post–Willie Horton Era: The Impact of Racialized Code Words on 

Support for Punitive Crime Policy,” Public Opinion Quarterly 69, no. 1 (2005): 99–112; and 

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and Democracy (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 1993), 64–101. 




New Media? 

I began my investigation by trying broadly to understand trends in news reporting 

about African Americans. I searched the LexisNexis database9 for stories in 

which the keywords “African American,” “Black,” or “Black people” were used in 

the headline or lead paragraph. I retrieved 82,259 stories after filtering for duplicate 

or mischaracterized articles. These stories, which came from U. S. national 

newspapers, television, magazines, trade publications, and blogs, ran from 2000 

to the end of 2013 and covered a variety of issues related to African Americans. 

I first determined what proportion of the stories related to crime and violence. 

I then focused on their content: Was it explicitly racialized? What types of 

crimes were most frequently covered? How often did stories focus on the perpetrators 

of crime, how often on victims, and who received more coverage? 

Given the historic and persistent connection between race and criminality, 

one might expect that a large proportion of stories covering Black men and 

women in the United States would concern criminal behavior in some way. 

However, only roughly six percent of the stories, a little more than 4,000, focused 

on some aspect of criminality. Two factors account for this paucity of 

crime coverage. One is that most research on media depictions of Blacks and 

crime comes from state, rather than national, media. The other factor is that 

my data did not include stories from the 1980’s (the LexisNexis database does 

not extend back that far), when a kind of mass hysteria about Black crime permeated 

the country as drugs, poverty, gang activity, and other forms of underclass 

behavior, which were concentrated in urban areas such as Detroit, 

Los Angeles, and New York City, threated to spill over into White suburbia.10 

It’s worth mentioning that this kind of criminal Blackness, which erupted in 

the late seventies and the eighties, characterizes much of the discourse about 

Black and Brown people across the “Black Atlantic.”11 

When we look at crime reporting from 2000 forward, we see a pattern 

emerge. First, more than three-quarters of the stories are racialized in some 

way. This means that race-related language occurs frequently in text other 

than headlines and lead paragraphs. In the sample, this form of racialization 

positively correlates with story length, that is, more racialized stories are 

9 LexisNexis is a searchable database of news media outlets which archives material beginning 

in the 1990s. For information, see http://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/home.page. 

10 Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda, “The American Drug Panic of the 1980s,” Moral 

Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance 12 (1994): 205–223 and James E. Hawdon, 

“The Role of Presidential Rhetoric in the Creation of a Moral Panic: Reagan, Bush, and 

the War on Drugs,” Deviant Behavior 22, no. 5 (2001): 419–445. 

Stuart Hall et al., Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order (New York: 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 



124 


longer (as measured by the numbers of words). This means that stories about 

Blacks and crime draw readers’ attention by using racial references in their 

headlines. Such references pervade the stories. We can assume that readers are 

likely to make strong connections between Blacks and crime. 

Second, when it comes to the focus of this coverage, the vast majority of 

headlines cluster around three different but overlapping themes. The majority 

of crime-related headlines (41 %) focuses on the connection between Blacks 

and law enforcement generally, with headlines containing subject terms such as 

“law enforcement” (14 %), “investigation” (12 %), “police force” (9 %), and “cor 

rections” (6 %). The second most frequent set of terms (32 %) refer to violent 

crimes and criminal behavior: murders, shootings, homicides, robbery, and 

domestic violence. Finally, terms in the third most frequent category (27 %) 

have to do with Blacks as victims of gun violence or, more generally, as victimized 

by a system characterized as racist and unjust. (See figure 1.) 

Broadly speaking, then, crime coverage of Blacks from 2000 to 2013 identifies 

them as either the perpetrators or the victims of crime. Interestingly, this 

division doesn’t work out as one might expect it to. On the one hand, Black 

crime victims account for the largest proportion of the coverage, more than 

one-third, in terms of the number of stories. (One-third were neutral). Examples 

of victim-framed headlines are “Commission Finds Blacks Disproportionately 

Face Death Penalty,” “Woman Sues LAPD Over Husband’s Death: 

Widow says Cop Shot him because he’s Black,” and “Race War Plan: Murder 

102 Random Black People and Die Trying to Kill Obama.” 

On the other hand, stories about Black perpetrators constitute only onequarter 

of the total number of stories. These stories have headlines such as 

“OK to Kill a Cop, if its Coming from Radical Black Power Groups, Black 

Panthers & Leftists; Government Under Pressure from Radicals to Drop 

Charges” and “Is Black on Black Violence a Myth,” or “Black Male Serial Killer 

Judge Removed from Case.” 

In the final analysis, however, Black perpetrators, who are least represented 

in terms of the number of stories, receive more coverage in the way that counts 

most: the number of words in stories about them. So, while news media frequently 

report on the kinds of racial injustices that Black people face, e.g., 

wrongful incarceration, underrepresentation on juries, and overt racial discrimination 

that unfairly connects them to the criminal justice system, Black 

perpetrators of crime actually receive the greatest amount of attention overall. 

The mean number of words in stories about Black victims is 694 while for perpetrators 

it is 807, and story length is highly correlated with headlines about 

perpetrators. (See figure 2.) 

These results are consistent with popular images of Black criminality, the 

criminality of Black men in particular. And they illustrate the ways in which 

journalistic fixation on the drama, and the minutiae, of violent crime racializes 




14% 

Law Enforcement 

12% 

41% 

Investigations 

Police Forces 

9% 

6% 

Corrections 

Total 

10% 

Murder 

Shootings 

9% 

5% 

3% 

2% 1% 1% 

1% 

3% 

32% 

Homicide 

Assault & Battery 

Robbery 

Domestic Violence 

Bank Robbery 

Total 

14% 

9% 

27% 

Police Misconduct 

Race & Racism 

Racism & Xenophobia 

Total 

Fig. 1: Proportion of Keywords Used in Stories about Black Crime 

Black criminals and makes both their violence and their blackness suspect 

and threatening. But, what of Black victims? These stories about Blacks, who 

are sometimes victimized by other Blacks but also by a system that institutionalizes 

white supremacy treat them as militarized targets marked for 

incarceration or death by the state. 



126 


Fig. 2: Word-Count Comparison between Stories about Black Crime 

Victims and Black Perpetrators. © Charlton McIlwain 

Black Victims: From Rodney King to Michael Brown 

To consider more closely how news media typically cover Black victims, I 

gathered a set of data on news reports about four prominent Black victims, 

three of whom victims of White police officers. The first was Rodney King, 

who, in 1991, was severely beaten by a gang of White officers of the Los Angeles 

Police Department. The second case is Oscar Grant who was shot by police 

officers on a commuter train in Oakland, California, on New Year’s morning 

in 2009. The third is Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager shot and killed by a 

zealous neighborhood-watch captain in Sanford, Florida, in 2012. Finally, 

there is the case of Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager shot and killed in 

Ferguson, Missouri, by a White police officer, Darren Wilson, in 2014. 

Again, I searched the LexisNexis database for stories on each of these four 

cases across the same type of media outlets as previously. This yielded close to 

15,000 stories: 1,759 stories about Rodney King, 450 stories for Oscar Grant, 

7,050 for Trayvon Martin, and 4,452 for Michael Brown. Given that the number 




% 

Racial (7403 units) 63% 

Not Racial (4382 units) 37% 

Not Racial 

Racial 

Trayvon Martin (6221) % 

% 

% 

Michael Brown (3525) 

% 

% 

Rodney King (1632) 

% 

% 

Oscar Grant (407) 

% 

% 

Fig. 3: Proportion of Racialized Stories 

of available news sources in the Lexis database doesn’t noticeably increase until 

after 2000, the King case differs from the other three in terms of the number 

of available stories, which makes it difficult to compare the relative volume 

of stories devoted to each, especially since stories about Rodney King 

come from relatively few news outlets compared to stories about Martin or 

Brown. Be that as it may, the approximately 15,000 stories that collectively 

covered their deaths demonstrate the following. 

First, the stories taken together show a clear pattern of racialization. That 

is, the language used in reporting on these cases and the keyword tags associated 

with the stories were framed in racial terms. To conduct this part of the 

analysis, I used software12 both to code and machine-classify stories on the 

basis of a list of commonly racialized terms. The list included identity terms, 

such as “black,” “African American,” and “people of color,” as well as such terms 

as “racism,” “racial,” “skin color,” and the like.13 63 percent of all the stories 

were racial, meaning that one or more words in a headline was a race-related 

or race-associated term. Stories about Rodney King and Trayvon Martin had 

the greatest proportion of racialized headlines; up to September of 2014, headlines 

of stories about Michael Brown were the least racially framed. 

12 DiscoverText is a cloud based text-analytics software program which enables machine 

coding of large numbers of short texts. Cf. http://discovertext.com/. 

13 All machine-classified variables used an 80 % threshold for measuring reliability. 



128 


But why is racialization important in this context? Why does the degree to 

which news media frame stories about Black deaths at the hands of the state 

or citizens acting on its behalf as racial matter? It is important, in news media 

in particular, because race is always part of the politics of signification, of 

the contested terrain of framing what race means. It is also important because 

many parties (e.g., activists, policy makers, institutions, etc.) have a stake in 

how race is defined during these moments of rupture, protest, and when the 

disgusting underbelly of systemic, state-created or state-sanctioned racial injustice 

is exposed and demands a response. 

On 16 March 2012, 18 days after Trayvon Martin was shot and killed, the 

New York Times’ columnist Charles Blow wrote a piece entitled “The Curious 

Case of Trayvon Martin.” After recounting Martin’s mother’s story of how she 

learned of her son’s death, Blow writes: 

Trayvon’s lifeless body was taken away, tagged and held. Zimmerman was taken into 

custody, questioned and released. Zimmerman said he was the one yelling for help. 

He said that he acted in self-defense. The police say that they have found no evidence 

to dispute Zimmerman’s claim. 

He adds, almost as an aside: “One other point: Trayvon is black. Zimmerman 

is not. Trayvon was buried on March 3. Zimmerman is still free and has not 

been arrested or charged with a crime.”14 

The purpose and consequence of racialization is demonstrated quite clearly 

here. Several (though not many) news outlets and journalists had reported 

on Martin’s death by this point. Blow’s article was among the first, if not the 

first, to argue that this was not just another tragic accident or senseless confrontation 

that went horribly awry. When Blow mentioned that Martin and 

Zimmerman were of different races, he implied that the event was fundamentally 

racial and that the tragedy was not just the death of a teenager but that 

things always go this way in United States: Blacks are perpetually under suspicion, 

and law enforcement typically gives White’s the benefit of the doubt. In 

the end, Black people are doomed to rest in peace while Whites enjoy peace as 

well as life, liberty, and the right to continue to pursue their happiness. 

Racializing police misconduct is significant because it argues that the misconduct 

is just a symptom of an underlying problem — racism. Thus the underlying 

racial problem must be dealt with. While this may seem obvious in an 

opinion piece whose author clearly intends to persuade, racial framing works 

the same way in texts, such as news headlines, not intended to persuade. In 

such contexts, racial framing, whether implicit or explicit, intentional or unmotivated, 

influences how people think. Robert Entman makes this clear in 

14 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/opinion/blow-the-curious-case-of-trayvon-martin. 

html?_r=0. 




his characterization of framing: “Frames select some aspects of a perceived 

reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way 

as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral 

evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.”15 

While racial framing is important for defining the situation, the timing 

in which frames are presented is also important. The timing with which racially 

framed stories occurred in news reports about the two most comparable 

cases — Martin and Brown — reveals a clear pattern. Figure 4 presents a timeline 

of the number of stories about these two cases that came out on each day. 

The lines indicate whether stories were racially framed or not. In both cases, 

we can see that racialized headlines appear in the initial stages of coverage 

much more often than in latter stages. In the early reporting of both incidents, 

non-racial framing is the norm. But, for both cases, there are also peor 

very close. While the contest over racial framing appears more protracted 

in Trayvon Martin’s case, especially in comparison to Michael Brown’s, one 

should remember that coverage of Martin’s killing did not begin in earnest 

until roughly two weeks afterwards. (See figure 4.) 

The difference in the number of racially framed and race-neutral stories 

in Trayvon Martin’s case indicates that there was a concerted effort by activists 

to frame Martin’s death in fundamentally racial terms. But it also reflects 

an enduring storyline that journalists emphasized: a story about race 

and racial injustice. On the one hand, activists have much to gain by framing 

Martin’s death (and other victims’ deaths) racially, for that allows them 

to use it to show that racial injustice persists in the U. S. That, in turn, serves 

both the rhetorical purpose and the justification for building a political movement 

aimed at ameliorating racial discrimination. On the other hand, journalists 

do not typically act as activists. That is, they do not actively seek to influence 

political agendas (at least not ideally). However, by framing stories 

as racial, journalists justify continued research into and writing about the 

racial dynamics of the stories they pursue and the contexts in which the incidents 

they cover take place. That is, racial framing provides an impetus for 

journalists to further explore and bring to light other forms of racial injustice 

that permeate local communities and the nation. For example, racially 

framing the Michael Brown incident provided a foundation for journalists 

to explore how the municipal court system in Ferguson exploited poor, Black 

residents. Such stories were not about Michael Brown per se, but journalists 

were able to write about them, in part, because it related to the racial context 

surrounding Brown’s case. 

15 Robert M. Entman, “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,” Journal of 




130 


Fig. 4: Timing of Racial vs. Non-racial Stories in Two Cases. © Charlton McIlwain 

Though I haven’t identified the various journalists, columnists, editorial 

boards, and bloggers responsible for the stories I discuss here, one can imagine 

a kind of competition that takes place in the initial stages of reporting on 

cases such as these. We know that a wide array of players compete not only 

for space on the public agenda but also to influence how items on the agenda 

are discussed. Journalists and activists, politicians and policymakers, and bureaucrats 

and lay ordinary citizens all have a stake in how we talk about such 

high-profile incidents, which has an important bearing on the social, political, 

and economic decisions we make. In Martin’s and Brown’s stories, the 

competition for frame positioning seems to have taken place early, and it also 

might provide some criteria for measuring how we judge the success or failure 

of news coverage in terms of the public’s response to these and other sorts 

of incidents. Two arguments could be made about how media coverage of 




Michael Brown, and other recent incidents, differed from coverage of earlier 

cases like Rodney King’s. First, journalists, headline writers, and editors chose 

these stories because they were influenced by public discourse in the first few 

days following the incidents. That is, discussion about these cases, particularly 

on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook (which journalists 

play close attention to), may have influenced journalists’ decisions to view and 

frame these through a racial lens. 

My argument for these claims is based on limited data, which cannot establish 

cause and effect. But other findings suggest that stories’ racial frames 

may be the product of public influence in at least two ways. First, it is well 

documented that talk about the deaths of both Trayvon Martin and Michael 

Brown circulated on social media long before mainstream news outlets covered 

them. A widely circulated infographic by Pew Research16 compares the 

amount of Twitter chatter to the number of minutes that network and cable 

news outlets gave to the stories. It shows that well in excess of half a million 

tweets circulated before network and cable news broadcasters aired even 

one minute of coverage. My point about racialized framing, then, is, given 

that journalists are embedded in Twitter and that Twitter functions predominantly 

as a network for disseminating news,17 it is reasonable to believe that 

the volume of discussion on Twitter influenced the later reporting of network 

and cable news outlets. 

Second, the circulation of news about Brown’s death on social media, and 

Twitter particularly, may not only have influenced the degree to which later 

reports racially framed their accounts of the incident (at least in the beginning) 

but may also have accounted for the relatively favorable framing (favorable 

for those concerned with racial justice) of those accounts, a framing far 

different from that of the reporting on Rodney King more than two decades 

ago. As shown in Figure 5, the proportion of favorable headlines, which include 

those that describe the victims as such, and those that are neutral, far exceeds 

the proportion of those that are negative or unfavorable (e.g., that refer to 

real or imagined, present or past criminality or blame the victims in some way 

for what happened to them). In 1991, two-thirds of the news media’s stories 

on Rodney King had frames that were unfavorable to King, despite the widespread 

circulation of the video showing the brutality of the incident. In stark 

contrast, nearly 80 percent of stories about Martin’s and Grant’s deaths were 

favorable or neutral, as were 54 percent of the early stories on Michael Brown. 

16 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/20/cable-twitter-picked-up-ferguson-storyat-a-similar-clip/. 

17 Haewoon Kwak et al., “What is Twitter, a Social Network or a News Media?,” Proceedings 

of the 19th International Conference on World Wide Web (New York: ACM, 2010), 1–10. 



132 


Favorable 

Unfavorable 

Trayvon Martin ( ) % 

% 

Rodney King ( ) 

% 

% 

Michael Brown ( ) 

% 

% 

Oscar Grant ( ) 

% 

% 

Favorable (492 units) 61% 

Unfavorable (315 units) 39% 

% 

% 

Fig. 5: Proportions of Favorable and Unfavorable Stories 




Conclusion: Is There Really Something Different 

about Ferguson? 

They say the more things change, the more they remain the same. This may 

not apply to the current environment of news media and how, broadly speaking, 

they represent Blacks as crime victims. To be sure, Blacks have been and 

are increasingly being shown to be victims of police misconduct; by some accounting, 

this phenomenon may now be worse than in previous decades. But 

we can also be certain that the news-media environment has changed largely 

because of new media technology, which has allowed the number of news 

sources to balloon beyond the traditional outlets. Further, the social media’s 

rapid and wide circulation of news and information has had its effects. The 

fact that people in the U. S. and abroad first became aware of Trayvon Martin’s 

and Michael Brown’s cases through social media (rather than traditional 

media outlets) attests to how much the media landscape has changed in ways 

that allow ordinary citizens to have a greater influence on what the news media 

cover and how journalists frame those stories. 

My purpose in this paper has not been to show that technology has revolutionized 

the news media in ways that have substantially changed reporting on 

Black crime and Black victims of crime. That would be difficult to measure. 

However, I have tried to demonstrate that such change is possible in our current 

media environment. The evidence I have presented here suggests that, because 

the media’s agenda provides multiple channels for citizens to influence 

what gets covered and how, there are more opportunities to make sure that the 

victimization of Blacks at the hands of the police becomes a salient issue to 

national and local media. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the current 

technology of news dissemination makes it easier for these issues to be covered 

and allows those creating news content to produce increasingly more informed 

and complex reporting on such events. 

There was something different about Ferguson, about Michael Brown, 

Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and those on the long 

list of Black victims who have followed in their tragic footsteps over just the 

past year. We have new ways to learn about them and make their deaths a matter 

of public discussion. And we have new ways of making sure that the right 

people, people who wield power in the news, public affairs, the government, 

and the law as well as activists and ordinary citizens, make our more expansive 

system of information and news distribution work to the advantage of 

those who seek racial justice. 



134 


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Abstract 

Die Verknüpfung von Schwarzsein mit Gewalt und Kriminalität etablierte sich 

in den Vereinigten Staaten unmittelbar, nachdem afrikanische Sklav*innen 

in die Freiheit entlassen worden waren. Diese Zuschreibung, dass sie sich 

gesetzeswidrig verhielten, verfolgt Schwarze im gleichen Maß, wie sich die 

Medien technisch weiterentwickelten: vom Stummfilm und Zeichentrickfilm 

hin zur Zeitung und Zeitschrift, zur Bühne, zum Radio, Fernsehen und 

zum Internet. Ich analysiere in diesem Text die Berichterstattung über Afroameri 

ka ner*innen und Kriminalität in den Nachrichtenmedien sowie über 

prominente Schwarze als Opfer rassistischer Gewalttaten von Weißen über 

eine Dauer von zwei Jahrzehnten. Die Indizien legen nahe, dass es ein zählebiges 

Muster rassifizierter Berichterstattung gibt, das komplexer ist als möglicherweise 

zu erwarten war. Nichtsdestotrotz scheint dieses Geflecht der Berichterstattung 

über die Kriminalität von Schwarzen zu suggerieren, dass jene 

unfähig seien, Widerstand zu leisten – entweder gegen ihre Verwicklung in 

Gewalttaten oder gegen eine Veränderung ihrer gesellschaftlichen Position 

als Opfer von Rassismus. 

Dr. Charlton McIlwain is Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication 

at New York University. He is an expert on racial discourse, media and racial politics, 

and is the co-author of the recent award winning book: Race Appeal: How Candidates 

Invoke Race in U. S. Political Campaigns. In addition to authoring/coauthoring four 

additional books and close to thirty scholarly journal articles and chapters in edited 

volumes, McIlwain regularly provides expert commentary for local, state, national 

and international media. 




Between Everyday Racism and 

Conspiracy Theories 

Islamophobia on the German-Language Internet 

Before the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik committed his 

attacks on 22 July 2011 in Oslo and on the island of Utøya, which left 77 people 

dead, he uploaded a manifesto of more than 1,500 pages onto the Internet 

and simultaneously sent it by email to more than 1,000 recipients. He thereby 

spread his worldview, which was greatly marked by his hatred of Islam and 

Muslims. The manifesto consists largely of extensive excerpts from internationally 

based anti-Muslim websites. Although Breivik’s terror attacks are 

certainly an extreme case, it has been observed over the past few years that 

the World Wide Web plays a significant role in disseminating the sort of anti- 

Muslim thought that the perpetrator invoked.1 This also applies to mobilizing 

people in person, as the protest movement Patriotic Europeans against 

the Islamization of the Occident, known by its German acronym PEGIDA 

[Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West], which started in 

Dresden in October 2014, demonstrates. The group recruited its supporters 

primarily through social networks such as Facebook, and was able to put up 

to 25,000 demonstrators in the street.2 

Statements against Muslims ranging from the discriminatory to the openly 

hateful have been expressed in diverse political milieus. On extreme right-wing 

websites, such as that of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), 

Muslims are attacked as the quintessence of the “other” and the epitome of the 

“foreigner.” These extremists are to be distinguished from Islamophobic 

groups who offer a different justification of their similar attitudes toward Muslims 

in Europe. In contrast to right-wing extremists, they take an explicitly 

philo semitic and pro-American stance and pretend to approve of democracy 

and human rights. My article focuses on such groups, which can be classified 

1 See Liz Fekete, “The Muslim Conspiracy Theory and the Oslo Massacre,” Race & Class 53, 

no. 3 (2012): 30–47. 

2 See http://www.polizei.sachsen.de/de/MI_2015_33890.htm. Unless otherwise noted, all 

websites were last accessed on 23 July 2015. 



Between Everyday Racism and Conspiracy Theories 137 

as right-wing populist. After introductory remarks on the characteristics of the 

Internet as a medium of communication, I will discuss the ideological orientation 

of Islamophobic websites and their predominant argumentation strategies 

as well as main motifs and conclude with thoughts about their potential 

to mobilize supporters beyond the web. 

The Internet as a Medium of Communication 

The World Wide Web has greatly changed global communications. Information 

can be spread more quickly and widely than ever before. Every user can 

be active as both a recipient and a sender, which is why the Internet is considered 

a particularly grassroots means of communication. In weblogs and the 

commentary and discussion forums of online newspapers, on video portals 

such as YouTube, and in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, users 

can publicly express their opinions on various subjects. At the same time, 

the nonexistent or minimal control mechanisms, which are the result of the 

anonymity of Internet communication and the lack of pressure to conform 

to socially desirable norms foster a radicalization of discourses. The resulting 

freedom of communication explains the Internet’s attraction for individuals 

and groups who can therefore propagate extreme political views without 

fear of immediate sanctions. Also, the infrastructure of the Internet helps 

groups to form in the first place by, on the one hand, linking like-minded 

people into a virtual community and, on the other hand, mobilizing them 

for joint activities. The Internet makes it possible for organizations to exchange 

information across local and national borders and thereby greatly facilitates 

their communications, which, in turn, strengthens marginal groups.3 

Via the Internet, they can reach a much wider audience than would be possible 

otherwise. These communicational characteristics allow the Internet to 

serve as a medium for circulating ideologies of exclusion. Under the heading 

“cyberhate,” researchers analyze the virtual activities of these so-called “hate 

groups” that popularize racist and antisemitic ideas.4 

3 See Nicola Döring, Sozialpsychologie des Internet. Die Bedeutung des Internet für Kommunikationsprozesse, 

Identitäten, soziale Beziehungen und Gruppen, 2nd rev. ed. (Göttingen 

et al.: Hogrefe Verlag, 2003), 296. 

4 See James Banks, “Regulating Hate Speech Online,” International Review of Law, Computers 

& Technology 24, no. 3 (2010): 233–239; Barbara Perry and Patrik Olsson, “Cyberhate: 

The Globalization of Hate,” Information & Communications Technology Law 18, no. 2 

(2009): 185–199; Brian Levin, “Cyberhate: A Legal and Historical Analysis of Extremists’ 

Use of Computer Networks in America,” American Behavioral Scientist 45, no. 6 (2002): 

958–988. 



138 


Islamophobia as a Current Form of Racism in Europe 

Among these hate groups’ websites (called “hate sites”) are anti-Muslim sites 

that propagate discrimination against and exclusion of Muslim minorities 

living in Western countries. In Europe, these minorities are made up predominantly 

of immigrants, and their descendants, who either emigrated 

from former colonies, as in France and Britain, or came as migrant workers 

or refugees, as is largely the case in Germany. Analyses of racism show 

that currently Muslims in Europe are racialized, i. e., construed as a natural 

and homogeneous group with certain, usually negative, collective traits regarding 

their religious affiliation and (non-European) origins or descent.5 

According to this construal, Muslims are a non-integrable minority, the 

“other” within Europe. Anti-Muslim discourses serve both to stabilize a constructed 

national community and to invoke a supranational Western identity, 

which has gained significance in the course of European integration in 

recent years. Though religion often serves as a framework for negotiating inclusion 

and exclusion, it is not only practicing Muslims who are subject to 

exclusion. “The Islamic identity — in principle religious and therefore voluntary 

— becomes involuntary as soon as Muslims are racialized,” according to 

the historian Fernando Bravo López.6 The sociologists Steve Garner and Saher 

Selod define “racialization” as “ascribing sets of characteristics viewed as 

inherent to members of a group because of their physical or cultural traits… 

The characteristics thus emerge as “racial” as an outcome of the process.”7 

Expressions of current anti-Muslim sentiments reify religion and culture 

in a similarly deterministic way to how race has been conceptualized. In the 

aftermath of the Nazis’ crimes the concept of race has been tabooed across 

Europe. Hence, racism draws on primarily cultural and no longer biological 

arguments.8 

A specific form of Islamophobia, which I conceptualize as ideologically 

self-contained, is presently articulated first and foremost on the Internet. 

One of its characteristics is to add conspiracy theories to racist depictions 

of Muslims for instance by invoking an imminent Muslim domination and 

5 See Nasar Meer and Tariq Modood, “The Racialisation of Muslims,” in Thinking Through 

Islamophobia: Global Perspectives, ed. Salman Sayyid and Abdoolkarim Vakil (London: 

Hurst Publishers, 2010), 69–83. 

6 Fernando Bravo López, “Towards a definition of Islamophobia: Approximations of the 

early twentieth century,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 34, no. 4 (2011): 58. 

7 Steve Garner and Saher Selod, “The Racialization of Muslims: Empirical Studies of 

Islamophobia,” Critical Sociology 41, no. 1 (2015): 12. 

8 See David Theo Goldberg, Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning (Cam 

bridge: Blackwell, 1993), 71 f. 




thus reversing actual power relations in Western societies. Watered-down 

elements of this narrative can also be found in established discourse about 

Islam and Muslims. This is shown by analyses of mainstream media including 

successful books, such as that of the former Senator of Finance in Berlin 

and best-selling author, Thilo Sarrazin, a member of Germany’s Social Democratic 

Party. His book Deutschland schafft sich ab: Wie wir unser Land aufs 

Spiel setzen [Germany Is Doing Away with Itself: How We Are Risking Our 

Country] was published in 2010 and sold about 1.5 million copies. Sarrazin 

intended it to be a wake-up call about Germany’s supposed cultural decline, 

which he believes the disproportionately high fertility rate among Muslim 

immigrants makes nearly certain. He claims that Muslims are less intelligent 

than white, Christian Germans, which makes them culturally inferior, 

unproductive, and incapable of integration into German society. According 

to Sarrazin, the cause of the decline is Germans’ abandonment of their national 

identity, as left-wing elites have demanded, in favor of an ostensible 

multiculturalism. Other successful books, such as Londonistan: How Britain 

Is Creating a Terror State Within (published in 2006) by the British journalist 

Melanie Phillips, and Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, 

Islam, and the West (published in 2009) by the American journalist 

Christopher Caldwell, though differently focused, pursue Sarrazin’s general 

line. These highlight the transnational dimension of the anti- Muslim 

discourse. 

Furthermore, Islamophobia, together with the rejection of the European 

Union, has become the ideological core of European right-wing populism. 

Merging concerns in relation to immigration with issues in relation to Islam, 

anti-Muslim agitation often replaces the old “Foreigners Out!” slogans, 

as the statements of the Front National in France, the Austrian Freedom Party 

(FPÖ), Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, the Danish People’s Party, the Sweden Democrats, 

and the Italian Lega Nord show. Their election results are now sometimes 

on a par with those of the traditional major parties. 

International Networking of the Islamophobic 

Internet Scene 

The struggle against what such parties see as the decline of the Occident has 

in recent years also been taken up by those involved in the Internet’s global Islamophobic 

scene. Among the most prominent websites in the United States 

are Jihad Watch, which went online in 2003, and Atlas Shrugs, which has existed 

since 2005. Both have large European followings, and Anders Behring 

Breivik extensively cited both in his manifesto. They are operated by the 



140 


journalist-activists Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who have close ties 

with the Republican Tea Party Movement.9 

One of the basic convictions of Islamophobic activists is that Islam is not a 

religion but a political ideology. (They reject the distinction between Islam 

and Islamism as naïve.) This is the source of demands for restrictions 

on the freedom of religion for Muslims. Islamophobes consider extreme Islamists, 

such as Al-Qaida and the so-called Islamic State (IS), to be the representatives 

of un varnished, authentic Islam, in contrast to the supposedly only 

ostensibly moderate majority of Muslims. Anti-Muslim activists thereby fail 

to acknowledge that Muslims themselves make up the largest proportion of 

these groups’ victims. Such activists allege that Muslim minorities in the West 

are working to subvert the societies in which they live. They claim that Islam 

commands Muslims to deceive in order to enforce their interests. And they 

consider political and cultural elites to be “collaborators” in the Islamization 

of Europe and the United States and, thus, part of the enemy. On her blog, 

Pamela Geller commented on Breivik’s attack on the Workers’ Youth League 

of Norway’s Social Democratic Labor Party as follows: “Breivik was targeting 

the future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims 

who refuse to assimilate, who commit major violence against Norwegian natives, 

including violent gang rapes, with impunity, and who live on the dole… 

all done without the consent of the Norwegians.”10 She thus took up Breivik’s 

own perspective, for he wanted his attacks to be viewed as acts of self-defense 

against traitors. 

Pamela Geller gained prominence in 2010 through her leadership of the 

protests against Park51, a mosque and Muslim community center that was to 

be built in Lower Manhattan. Together with Robert Spencer and others, she 

popularized the organization Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), which has 

been classified as an anti-Muslim hate group by anti-discrimination organizations 

in the United States, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the 

Anti-Defamation League. SIOA last attracted attention in May 2015 with a 

cartoon contest about the prophet Muhammad it held in Garland, Texas. 

The Dutch right-wing populist Geert Wilders was invited to hold the keynote 

speech. Two men who, according to newspaper reports, had pre viously announced 

their sympathies for the IS on the Internet, attempted to attack the 

event but were shot by police. 

A popular target of American Islamophobes is president Barack Obama, 

whom they denounce as a secret Muslim and supporter of an Islamist conspiracy 

to infiltrate the United States, a theme that German anti-Muslim websites 

9 See Nathan Lean, The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims 

(London: Pluto Press, 2012). 

10 http://pamelageller.com/2011/07/summer-camp-indoctrination-training-center.html. 




have adopted. But, networking between American and European Islamophobic 

activists is not limited to ideological exchange. In January 2012, SIOA and 

its European offshoot Stop Islamization of Europe (SIOE), which was founded 

by Anders Gravers of Denmark, formed the umbrella organization Stop Islamization 

of Nations with Pamela Geller as its president and Robert Spencer 

its vice-president. The organization’s Board of Advisors met in March 2012 in 

Aarhus and in August 2012 in Stockholm for so-called “Counter-Jihad Movement” 

meetings. It hosted an International Freedom Defense Congress in 

New York on 11 September 2012. Among the board members is Stefan Herre, 

founder of the German blog Politically Incorrect.11 

The German Blog Politically Incorrect 

Politically Incorrect (PI), which began its activities in 2004, has become the 

most popular and leading anti-Muslim website on the German-language Internet. 

According to its statistics, PI receives almost 120,000 visitors daily.12 

As the name indicates, the site, whose editorial team and guest authors post 

an average of ten articles per day, sees itself as a platform for “politically incorrect” 

news and a counter weight to the established media. The site’s writers 

employ a simple technique: they scan the Internet for reports from all over the 

world of objectionable actions by Muslims, or people they assume on the basis 

of their names to be Muslims. In addition to violent events in the Middle East, 

they focus especially on incidents in Germany and other Western European 

countries, whose majority populations they depict as victims of their Muslim 

minorities. This interpretation of social reality is based on a selective perception. 

That is to say, they look for confirmation of their existing convictions 

and either ignore discrepancies, dismiss them as exceptions, or re-describe 

them in the terms of their conspiracy theory. 

The heart of the website is its readers’ comments, which range from a few 

dozen to several hundred per article. Their number appears to substantiate 

PI’s claim to express “the voice of the people.” PI sees its most important task 

in the struggle against the “Islamization of Europe.” At the same time, it explicitly 

presents itself as “pro-American” and “pro-Israel,” and it employs philosemitism 

in an effort to counter charges of racism and right-wing extremism. 

However, the site openly propagates racism not only against Muslims but 

also against Sinti and Roma and Blacks. 

11 

create-stop-islamization-of-nations-sion.html. 

12 As of July 2014. Since 2015 the website owners have stopped publicizing “hit” statistics. 



142 


An Ideologically Self-Contained Islamophobic Worldview 

A central theme of anti-Muslim websites is the fantasy of a conspiracy to subjugate 

and “Islamize” Europe. Bloggers reject mainstream political parties as 

controlled from outside and ridicule liberal and leftist politicians in particular 

as the puppets of Muslims. They accuse the media of deliberate misinforming 

in order to conceal the Islamization. They also claim that there is a taboo 

against publically criticizing Islam and Muslims. According to PI’s guidelines, 

“the pro-Islamic self-censorship of our media is obvious proof that editorial 

offices believe that ‘peaceful’ coexistence with Islam is only possible if we bow 

to Islamic interests.”13 The notion that Muslim interests control media and 

political discourses has certain parallels to antisemitic topoi. 

PI has outlined a threatening scenario for the future of Europe: 

“All of us see day by day how the growing power of Islamic interest groups and their 

Western helpers already goes hand in hand with gradual restrictions that favor the 

pro-Islamic reorganization of our society… The spread of Islam thus means that our 

descendants — and probably we ourselves — … will in two or three decades have to live 

in a largely Islam-dominated social order oriented around sharia and the Qur’an and 

not anymore the constitution and human rights.”14 

A blogger who contributes both to PI and his own website under the alias 

“Michael Mannheimer,” and who has spoken at demonstrations of the PEGIDA 

movement in Würzburg, even warns of a planned “genocide of the German 

people.” “Intention and implementation — as far as the massive Islamization 

of Germany and Europe are concerned — have already existed for decades. 

The demographic proof is overwhelming… Away from the eyes of the public, 

secretly and quietly — and clearly against the will of European populations 

… — the most massive transfer of culture and populations in human history 

is taking place. It is intended and planned by the political elites and is 

supported by industry. And it will turn Europe into a continent that we will 

no longer recognize.”15 In another article on “Eurabia” and “the planned Islamization 

of Europe,” Mannheimer cautions, “All over, Muslims are working 

at seizing power… The influence of Muslims on European politics and political 

power is already enormous.”16 

13 http://www.pi-news.net/leitlinien/. 

14 Ibid. 

15 http://michael-mannheimer.info/2011/12/25/die-islamisierung-ist-ein-genozid-amdeutschen-volk-im-sinne-der-resolution-260-der-un/ 

and http://www.pi-news.net/2011/ 

12/mannheimer-islamisierung-ist-volkermord/ (last accessed on 20 July 2014). 

16 http://www.pi-news.net/2009/08/eurabia-die-geplante-islamisierung-europas/. 




The term “Eurabia,” which has the sense of a conspiracy to transform Europe 

into a Muslim continent, was coined by Gisèle Littman, who writes under 

the pseudonym “Bat Ye’or” and has a lively readership in radical Islamophobic 

circles.17 In his manifesto, Anders Breivik boasts that he received source 

materials from Ye’or personally.18 Her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis was 

published in 2005. She gave an interview to the Jerusalem Post in September 

2008, when the Hebrew translation of her book was coming out. Ye’or 

predicted that Europe’s elites would make themselves subservient to the increasingly 

powerful Muslims, explaining that the Second World War had 

exhausted Europe. Ye’or claims that the continent is making a pact with its 

Muslim enemies in order to avoid violent conflicts in the future. Muslims are 

infiltrating Western educational institutions, she continues, for the purpose 

of indoctrination: “European universities — like those in America — are totally 

controlled by the Arab-Islamic lobby, as are the schools.” Ye’or alleges that 

Muslims want to see Western and Eastern Europe divided geopolitically, since 

“it is easier to take over the West as a whole when it’s divided.”19 

According to these Islamophobic authors and their sympathizers, all of 

Western Europe has been infiltrated, and they consider its “autochthonous” 

populations to be partly defenseless victims and partly active collaborators. 

In reaction to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s participation in the 

breaking of the fast during Ramadan in 2015, PI commenters criticized her 

as a “traitor to her people.”20 They assumed that the reasons for her “cowardly 

proactive submission” to Muslim interests were the growing number of Muslim 

voters and the wealth of oil-exporting Islamic countries. Thus, one commentator 

scoffed: “Has the Protestant woman already converted or did the 

sheikhs just grease her palms?”21 

The accusation that European politicians receive bribes and, so, “sell out” 

their homelands implies that Muslims are enormously powerful. The conspiracy 

of elites and minorities against the people is a core belief of right-wing 

populists.22 Their fear-mongering scenario of Muslims and Islam spreading 

throughout Europe shows a shift in racist thought: Conventional European 

racist discourses usually stigmatize Muslims as backward and culturally inferior, 

while the new populists imagine them to be a fifth column that works 

17 See Matt Carr, “You are now entering Eurabia,” Race & Class 48, no. 1 (2006): 1–22. 

18 See Anders Behring Breivik alias Andrew Berwick, “2083: A European Declaration of Independence”, 

49: http://info.publicintelligence.net/AndersBehringBreivikManifesto.pdf. 

http://www.jpost.com/Features/One-on-One-A-dhimmi-view-of-Europe. 

20 http://www.pi-news.net/2015/06/kanzlerin-merkel-nimmt-am-fastenbrechen-teil/. 

21 Ibid. 

22 See Oliver Geden, Rechtspopulismus. Funktionslogiken – Gelegenheitsstrukturen – Gegenstrategien 

(Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2007), http://www.swp-berlin.org/ 

fileadmin/contents/products/studien/2007_S17_gdn_ks.pdf. 



144 


from within to destroy Western societies. The fiction of a threatening Muslim 

domination resembles patterns of antisemitic thinking. Thus, the new anti- 

Muslim discourses combine different threads of traditional racist thinking 

by simultaneously ascribing inferiority and supremacy. The attitude of superiority 

over the Orient, whose roots are in European colonialism’s construal 

of it as an object to be civilized, merges with a traditional fear of Muslims that 

goes further back in history. The menacing idea of the infiltration and subjugation 

of the West modernizes the Christian European scenarios of fear of 

the Middle Ages and early modern times. According to the historian Almut 

Höfert, in historical discourse on the “Turk menace,” people assumed “that 

all of Christianity was threatened to be overrun by the Anti-Christ as embodied 

by the Ottomans.”23 This apocalyptic narrative echoes in the presentday 

theme of a threatening “Islamization of Europe.” 

“Taqiyya” and “Birth Jihad”: 

The Accusations of Deception and Strategic Reproduction 

In addition to the infiltration fantasy, the inventory of core anti-Muslim topoi 

on the Internet includes fantasies of deception. According to what one finds 

on Politically Incorrect under the heading “Taqiyya,” Muslims who do not express 

extremist views are liars and “outed” by PI as frauds. The Arabic word 

“taqiyya,” which can be translated as “dissimulation in the face of danger,” refers 

to the denial of one’s faith when one’s life, or the lives of family members, 

is threatened. Historically, taqiyya was primarily practiced by Shiites, who 

were repeatedly persecuted as heretics by the Sunni Orthodoxy.24 The concept 

comes from sura 16, verse 106 of the Qur’an, according to which God does 

not punish someone who denies Him under duress. Taqiyya is by no means a 

commandment to deceive; it merely provides protection from divine punishment 

for denying one’s faith in the case of threatened violence. Islamophobes 

deliberately misinterpret and distort the concept of taqiyya in order to insinuate 

that Muslims have a special duty to deceive others. 

In an article saying that “the Taqiyya Masters are most dangerous,” PI’s 

author Michael Stürzenberger claimed that Mouhanad Khorchide, a professor 

23 Almut Höfert, “Alteritätsdiskurse. Analyseparameter historischer Antagonismusnarrative 

und ihre historiographischen Folgen,” in Repräsentationen der islamischen Welt im 

Europa der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Gabriele Haug-Moritz and Ludolf Pelizaeus (Münster: 

Aschendorff, 2010), 28. 

24 Der Islam. Zeitschrift 

für Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients 57, no. 2 (1980): 249. 




of Islamic religious education at the Westphalian Wilhelm University in Münster, 

was a “liar” and “brazen deceiver.” In a newspaper interview, Khorchide 

had spoken about his belief that God is merciful, and Stürzenberger presumed 

that this was a tactical maneuver: “This native-born Lebanese man completed 

his Islamic studies in Beirut. I believe he was trained and sent here for propaganda 

purposes in order to promote Islamization. The clear strategy of such 

taqiyya experts is to lull the nonbelieving society into believing the fairytale 

of ‘peaceful Islam,’ until Muslims are in the position of the majority and then 

true Islam can take power.”25 PI’s authors and readers see Islamist terrorism as 

the embodiment of “true Islam,” which is why they are convinced that Muslims 

who express a different understanding of Islam are dissembling. The charge of 

deception reinforces itself in anti-Islamic thinking because its targets cannot 

refute it: Islamophobes consider any denial to be itself a deception, and they 

interpret any deviation from what they see as typical Islamic behavior as cunning 

employed in the pursuit of ulterior motives. 

The theme of feigned acculturation, which one also finds in the notion of a 

sleeper cell, which intelligence agencies began to employ shortly after the terrorist 

attacks of 11 September 2001, appears on anti-Muslim websites in close 

connection with the subject of the conspiracy for the “silent Islamization” of 

Europe. According to Islamophobes, the silence of the Islamization now taking 

place explains why the majority populations of Western countries have so 

far been defenseless against it, offering hardly any resistance. Thus, the owners 

of the Islamophobic blogs have made it their priority to initiate resistance. 

According to the opinions propagated on anti-Muslim websites, Muslims’ 

most important weapon for “Islamization” is strategic reproduction. The 

catchword “birth jihad,” in which “jihad” refers to a war in the service of Islam, 

expresses this idea of a demographic struggle against the European majority. 

In his speech at a rally in Munich on 1 September 2012, a video of which was 

posted on PI and YouTube, PI’s author Michael Stürzenberger put it this way: 

“It is the demographics. That is the dangerous development that no one notices because 

it creeps along, little by little. Year after year, Muslims in Germany have three 

times more children than non-Muslims. It is the birth jihad, a declared part of their 

strategy. And if you have patience, it can take decades, it can take sixty or seventy 

years… And, then, due to the demographics, they will take power, absolutely legally. 

They’ll take over here and then God have mercy on our children, who will have to experience 

that.”26 

Scandalizing the fertility of Muslims usually goes hand in hand with complaining 

about the high rates of abortion and childlessness among white Germans 

25 http://www.pi-news.net/2012/10/die-taqiyya-spezialisten-sind-die-gefahrlichsten/. 

26 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=38q4AklodOQ. 



146 


and other white Europeans. There are also numerous tirades against “aging 

childless women’s libbers” and the “feminist ideology,” which are to blame for 

the dying out of the “autochthonous Germans.”27 

Taking Up Emancipatory Discourses 

Considering this explicit anti-feminism, women’s rights are broached in rightwing 

populist contexts only if the issue can be used as a rhetorical weapon 

against Muslims. Similarly, the discussion of egalitarianism on Islamophobic 

websites is a key legitimation strategy justifying the aversion to Islam on the 

basis of human rights and the protection of women and homosexuals. Criticism 

of patriarchal structures and sexist attitudes among Muslims is a recurrent 

theme in the postings on anti-Islam blogs. Such arguments are a pretext, 

and they generally accompany bloggers’ own sexist attitudes, as the many discriminatory 

comments about women whose political positions are criticized 

documents.28 

The same is true for the subject of homophobia. It seems that the concerns 

of homosexuals are of interest only to the extent that they can be upheld 

against Muslims. On the one hand, indignation was expressed on PI when a 

Muslim congregation in Berlin cancelled an event with the Lesbian and Gay 

Federation (LSVD). One commentator wrote: “If homosexuals, feminists, and 

church representatives still had an ounce of sanity, they would march right up 

in front of our PEGIDA demonstrations! Because they will be the first to be 

strung up from the jib of a crane in an Islamic society.”29 On the other hand, 

homosexuals are accused of wanting “to force their gay worldview onto the 

majority,”30 and commenters rant about “aggressive homopropaganda in our 

media,”31 lament the repeal in 1994 of Sec. 175 of the German criminal code, 

which criminalized homosexual acts between males,32 and openly express 

their disgust toward homosexuals.33 

An analysis of such posts shows that the charge of sexism and homophobia 

is instrumentalized to justify anti-Muslim racism, which serves simultaneously 

as bloggers’ strategy to mask and project their own sexism and homophobia. 

27 http://www.pi-news.net/2008/10/desperate-feminists/. 

28 See for example: http://www.pi-news.net/2015/07/kahane-der-osten-ist-zu-weiss/. 

29 http://www.pi-news.net/2014/11/berlin-sehitlik-moschee-laedt-schwule-aus/. 

30 http://www.pi-news.net/2015/06/schwulenflagge-vor-thueringer-staatskanzlei/. 

31 http://www.pi-news.net/2013/12/nichts-belegt-die-existenz-von-homophobie/. 

32 http://www.pi-news.net/2015/06/schwulenflagge-vor-thueringer-staatskanzlei/. 

33 See for example: http://www.pi-news.net/2015/05/westfalenblatt-feuert-homophobe-kolum 

nistin/. 




Jews and Israel as an Alibi 

A similar legitimation strategy is the rhetorical instrumentalization of Jews 

and the state of Israel, which the Islamophobic Internet community sees as “the 

free West’s first line of defense against Islam.” “Israel is the civilizational buffer 

against perpetual, merciless Islamic barbarism,” according to PI.34 “If Jerusalem 

falls into the hands of the Muslims, Athens and Rome will be next,” as 

PI approvingly cited one of Geert Wilders’s convictions.35 In these circles, support 

for Israel goes hand in hand with a racially motivated rejection of Muslims. 

Thus, flare-ups in the Israel-Palestine conflict are sometimes welcome 

opportunities to indulge in fantasies of violence against Muslims, in particular 

Palestinians. As one PI commenter put it: “Israel: Wipe Palestine out! Obliterate 

everything, you can do it!”36 At the same time, positive references to Israel 

allow Islamophobes to repudiate charges of racism and right-wing extremism. 

Thus, in 2010, representatives of European right-wing populist parties, including 

the small German political party Die Freiheit [Freedom],37 the Freedom 

Party of Austria [FPÖ], the Belgian Vlaams Belang [Flemish Interest], and 

the Sweden Democrats, visited Israel at the invitation by Eliezer Cohen, a former 

right-wing member of the Knesset. They published a joint statement, the 

Jerusalem Declaration, wherein they expressed their “criticism of Islam as a 

totalitarian system seeking world domination.”38 Similarly, PI activists make 

it a point to carry the flag of Israel at anti-Muslim demonstrations. According 

to Alexander Häusler, who conducts research on right-wing extremism, some 

of Europe’s extreme right adopt philosemitism as a strategy to modernize and 

make its racist views compatible with the views of the general public.39 

Islamophobes’ attitudes toward Jews living in Germany, however, are ambivalent. 

In his protest, on the Internet and in Munich’s pedestrian zone, 

against plans for building a mosque, Michael Stürzenberger, the national 

leader of Germany’s Freedom Party, emphasized his philosemitism and the 

support that he claimed to receive from Jews: “We from Freedom and at PI 

feel a profound sense of solidarity with the only democracy in the Middle 

34 http://www.pi-news.net/2014/07/hamas-krieg-gegen-israel-das-medienmuster/. 

35 http://www.pi-news.net/2010/06/wilders-jordanien-soll-palaestina-werden. 

36 Ibid. 

37 The party Die Freiheit (Freedom) is a small party that was founded in 2010, modeled after 

the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom) of the right-wing populist Geert 

Wilders. 

38 http://www.pi-news.net/2010/12/jerusalemer-erklaerung-verabschiedet/. 

39 See Alexander Häusler, “Feindbild Moslem. Türöffner von Rechtsaußen hinein in die 

Mitte?” in Islamophobie und Antisemitismus – ein umstrittener Vergleich, ed. Gideon 

Botsch et al. (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2012), 169–190. 



148 


East, the Jewish people, and all Jews in Germany, who think clearly and are 

aware of the danger posed by Islamization. I am proud that there is a Jew on 

our list of candidates for the city council and that he is a valued member of 

our party. I am always pleased by the Jews who gladly seek us out at our rallies 

and confirm the importance of our outreach work.”40 However, Islamophobes 

consider Jews as allies only so long as they share their political positions or let 

themselves be co-opted. As soon as a Jew speaks out against anti-Muslim agitation 

or shows solidarity with Muslims, he becomes a target of PI’s activists. 

One example of this is Munich’s city councilor Marian Offman (CSU), who 

has spoken out in favor of building of the mosque that Michael Stürzenberger 

and his supporters are trying to block. Stürzenberger attacked Offman on PI, 

focusing on the fact that he is Jewish: 

It is totally crazy that the Jew Marian Offman evidently sees his calling in making 

Jew-hating Islam socially acceptable in Europe… By currying favor with this dangerous 

ideology and supporting the Islamization of Germany, appeasers like Offman will 

have to face charges of treason someday before German courts… Marian Offman’s 

conduct… is unworthy of a Jew.41 

However, it is not only in cases in which Jews do not let themselves be instrumentalized 

as adversaries of Muslims that the philosemitism of Islamophobes 

seems more likely to be part of a legitimation strategy than a true rejection of 

antisemitism. Antisemitic tones can be detected on PI when Jews become visible 

as a religious minority in Germany, as when the subject of ritual slaughtering 

is raised and during the debate on circumcision that was triggered in 

the summer of 2012 when the Cologne regional court declared that the religious 

circumcision of boys constituted bodily harm. At that time, Jews found 

themselves suddenly grouped with Muslims by PI and demonized for their religious 

practice. As one commenter on PI concluded: “This has nothing to do 

with hatred of Jews, but it is a display of the same moaning and groaning that 

we usually hear just from Muslims.”42 Somebody else commented, “Whether 

Jews or Muslims — all child mutilators need to be reported,” and a third blogger 

held that, “If some people — no matter whether Muslims or Jews — want to 

continue their medieval rituals, they should go to countries where this is common 

practice.”43 But others on PI opposed such comments: “People, enough 

already, leave the Jews alone with their circumcision!” and “A Germany without 

Jews and Jewish life? NO THANKS!!!”44 It is inconceivable that similar 

40 http://www.pi-news.net/2014/03/csu-offman-im-tuerken-journal-interview-judentumislam-und-christentum-gleichwertig/. 

41 Ibid. 

42 http://www.pi-news.net/2012/08/ein-gesprach-uber-die-beschneidung-im-judentum/. 

43 Ibid. 

44 Ibid. 




attitudes towards Muslims would be expressed on PI. Nevertheless, the anti- 

Jewish comments indicate that the strategically adopted philo semitism in 

Islamophobic circles is fragile and falls away as soon as Jews do not allow 

themselves to be incorporated into anti-Muslim arguments. As one of PI’s 

commentators remarked during the circumcision debate himself, “In your 

blind zeal against Islam, with regard to the subject of circumcision you have 

proved yourselves in passing to be enemies of Judaism.”45 

Racist Stigmatization 

Anti-Muslim websites share one key feature, namely the frequent use of variations 

of racist ascription that usually are supported with culturalist and sometimes 

biologically deterministic arguments. Beyond a homogenizing depiction 

as collective, the category Muslim is frequently used as ethnic label. This 

is particularly evident when individuals are identified as Muslims on the basis 

of their name only, and characteristics ascribed to them are derived from 

their supposed affiliation with Islam. Any behavior that is perceived as negative 

and adopted by individuals marked as Muslims is thereby depicted as 

rooted in Islamic norms. For example, one constantly recurring stereotype 

is the “welfare-scrounging Muslim.” Anti-Muslim websites accuse Muslims 

in Germany of “living off the fat of the land,”46 not wanting to work, and 

exploiting the social welfare system. Another equally predominant stereotype 

is that Muslims have a pronounced affinity for violence, especially sexual violence, 

which is rooted in their religion and culture. Again and again, authors 

on these sites cite police reports and news coverage of rapes and assaults 

whose perpetrators are described as Mediterranean looking (süd ländisch), 

that is, as having dark skin and hair. These physical features are taken as an 

indication for the Muslim identity of the perpetrators. In cases of missing description 

of perpetrators’ physical appearance in the coverage PI readers suspect 

the media of hiding their Muslim identities. 

Islamophobes assume that because of their religion Muslims are disloyal to 

Germany and German society and are not able to be fully fledged Germans. 

Thus, commenters on PI call Cemile Giousouf, a member of the German 

Bundes tag and the child of Turkish immigrants, “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” 

and “a Trojan horse,”47 and accuse the Minister of State Aydan Özoğuz, also 

45 http://www.pi-news.net/2012/07/widerstand-gegen-das-beschneidungsgesetz/. 

46 http://www.pi-news.net/2013/09/elf-turken-im-neuen-deutschen-bundestag/. 

47 http://www.pi-news.net/2013/10/neue-cdu-abgeordnete-cemile-giousouf-macht-antritts 

besuch-beim-turkischen-botschafter/. 



150 


of Turkish descent, of being “a Muslim submarine.”48 According to this perception, 

being a Muslim is always linked to the danger that their apparent integration 

into German society is feigned. One commentator put it in no uncertain 

terms: “And even if she was born in Germany ten times, has a German 

passport, and sits in the German Bundestag, she is not one of us.”49 Such accusations, 

in which politicians marked as Muslims (including some who do 

not publically identify as Muslim) are suspected of secretly representing only 

“Islamic” interests, are a racist interpretation of taqiyya. 

What conclusions do the website’s writers and readers draw from their hostile 

assessments of the Muslim minority? Repeatedly commenters emphasize 

that it would be better for Europe’s future if no Muslims were to live here and 

make demands to that effect: “Islam out of Germany and out of Europe”!50 

They also agree that no further immigration of Muslims should be permitted 

and that only Christian refugees should have the right to asylum, calling Muslim 

asylum seekers “invaders” who have to be removed from the country.51 

Mobilization and Social Impact 

The impact of this hatred of Muslims played out online on the everyday lives 

of users is unclear. What is clear is that these weblogs offer a forum in which 

participants mutually reinforce each other’s hostility and that, through the 

daily confirmation of their attitudes, without being challenged by dissenting 

views, they construct their own information universe and immunize themselves 

against a change of mind. Anti-Muslim blogs and social networks also 

subserve the efforts of the like-minded, like the previously mentioned PEGIDA 

movement, to mobilize themselves for activities beyond the Internet. For example, 

the right-wing populist movement Pax Europa, some of whose members 

are also PI bloggers, attempts to initiate local groups to oppose the construction 

of mosques, and its website offers instructions on how to do that.52 

48 http://www.pi-news.net/2015/03/aydan-oezoguz-spd-fordert-gleichbehandlung-vonmigranten-im-gesundheitswesen/. 

49 Ibid. 

50 http://www.pi-news.net/2014/11/video-orf-2-gewalt-im-islam-was-wirklich-im-koransteht/. 

51 http://www.pi-news.net/2015/07/asyl-was-ist-zu-tun-und-was-tun-andere-laender/. 

52 See http://bpeinfo.wordpress.com/moschee-nein-danke/. Similar initiatives also join 

forces in other European countries via the Internet. See Chris Allen, “Anti-Social Networking: 

Findings From a Pilot Study on Opposing Dudley Mosque Using Facebook 

Groups as Both Site and Method for Research,” SAGE Open 4, no. 1 (January 2014): 1–12, 




Furthermore, Islamophobic activists seek to do “outreach work” by organizing 

information stands in pedestrian zones, making appearances at events, distributing 

leaflets, and gathering signatures for petitions. Like the Swiss referendum 

in 2009 to ban minarets, they aim to prevent the future building of 

mosques and Muslim centers by requiring majority approval for such projects. 

Cyber activism is another form of mobilization. Cyber activists, for example, 

intimidate, or at least exert pressure on, politicians who oppose their 

aims. PI and other Islamophobic blogs regularly publish the email addresses 

of people identified as “gravediggers of the Occident” with the understanding 

that supporters are to flood their inboxes. For another example, as soon as the 

online edition of a newspaper puts an article on the subject of Islam online, a 

large number of PI users post comments in an effort to influence readers. 

So far, the reactions of politicians and civil society to anti-Muslim racism 

on the Internet has been reserved. Although the Bavarian Office for the 

Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz), which is the state’s domestic 

intelligence agency, keeps watch on Michael Stürzenberger’s PI group 

in Munich, having classified its activities as “intelligence-relevant Islamophobic 

efforts outside of right-wing extremism,”53 Germany’s federal government 

concluded in June 2014 that there “are only a few actual indications of 

the existence of such an intelligence-relevant Islamophobia as an independent 

phenomenon.”54 

The Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors (BPjM) and the 

Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media (KJM), both of which 

have the task of putting on the index of media harmful to young people whatever 

is “immoral, brutal, or which incite violence, crimes, or racial hatred,” 

have not as yet found on the Politically Incorrect website any “content liable to 

harm young people, which would have justified its being put on the Review 

Board’s index.” Their review over an extended period of time found that “no 

agitation against differently minded people or certain groups of people, such 

as Muslims, is being pursued.”55 

Such appraisals show that society has not yet recognized the virulence of 

virtual Islamophobia. The political challenge arises not only from its propagation 

but also from a widespread insecurity how to tackle the phenomenon 

appropriately. 

53 http://www.verfassungsschutz.bayern.de/imperia/md/content/lfv_internet/islamfeind 

lichkeit_als_verfassungsfeindliche_str_mung.pdf (last accessed on 20 July 2014). 

54 http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/18/016/1801627.pdf. 

55 Email information of the KJM of 9 April 2013 and 15 April 2013. According to information 

of the BPjM of 5 June 2014 up to now there have been no changes in this appraisal. 



152 


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Nations (SION).” 17 January 2012; http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/internationalfreedom-organizations-unite-to-create-stop-islamization-of-nations-sion.html. 

Gabriel, L. S. “Aydan Özoguz (SPD) fordert Gleichbehandlung von Migranten im Gesundheitswesen.” 

Politically Incorrect, 4 March 2015; http://www.pi-news.net/2015/03/aydanoezoguz-spd-fordert-gleichbehandlung-von-migranten-im-gesundheitswesen/. 

Gabriel, L. S. “Westfalenblatt feuert ‘homophobe’ Kolumnistin.” Politically Incorrect, 22 May 

2015; http://www.pi-news.net/2015/05/westfalenblatt-feuert-homophobe-kolumnistin/. 

Geller, Pamela. “Summer Camp? Antisemitic Indoctrination Training Center.” 31 July 2011; 

http://pamelageller.com/2011/07/summer-camp-indoctrination-training-center.html. 

Mannheimer, Michael. “Die von Linken vorangetriebene Islamisierung ist ein Genozid am 

deutschen Volk im Sinne der ‘Resolution 260’ der UN.” http://michael-mannheimer.info/ 

2011/12/25/die-islamisierung-ist-ein-genozid-am-deutschen-volk-im-sinne-der-resolution- 

260-der-un/. 

Mannheimer, Michael. “Eurabia: Die geplante Islamisierung Europas.” Politically Incorrect, 

15 August 2009; http://www.pi-news.net/2009/08/eurabia-die-geplante-islamisierungeuropas/. 

Mark, D. “Ein Gespräch über die Beschneidung im Judentum.” Politically Incorrect, 25 August 

2012; http://www.pi-news.net/2012/08/ein-gesprach-uber-die-beschneidung-im-judentum/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Asyl: Was ist zu tun und was tun andere Länder.” 22 July 2015; http:// 

www.pi-news.net/2015/07/asyl-was-ist-zu-tun-und-was-tun-andere-laender/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Berlin: Sehitlik-Moschee lädt Schwule aus.” 18 November 2014; http:// 

www.pi-news.net/2014/11/berlin-sehitlik-moschee-laedt-schwule-aus/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Elf Türken im neuen deutschen Bundestag?” 24 September 2013; http:// 

www.pi-news.net/2013/09/elf-turken-im-neuen-deutschen-bundestag/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Hamas-Krieg gegen Israel: Das Medienmuster.” 14 July 2014; http:// 

www.pi-news.net/2014/07/hamas-krieg-gegen-israel-das-medienmuster/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Kahane: Der Osten ist zu weiß.” 20 July 2015; http://www.pi-news. 

net/2015/07/kahane-der-osten-ist-zu-weiss/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Kanzlerin Merkel nimmt am Fastenbrechen teil.” 28 June 2015; http:// 

www.pi-news.net/2015/06/kanzlerin-merkel-nimmt-am-fastenbrechen-teil/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Leitlinien. Gegen den Mainstream.” http://www.pi-news.net/leitlinien/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Mannheimer: Islamisierung ist Völkermord.” 28 December 2011; http:// 

www.pi-news.net/2011/12/mannheimer-islamisierung-ist-volkermord/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Neue CDU-Abgeordnete Cemile Giousouf macht ‘Antrittsbesuch’ 

beim türkischen Botschafter.” 17 October 2013; http://www.pi-news.net/2013/10/neue-cduabgeordnete-cemile-giousouf-macht-antrittsbesuch-beim-turkischen-botschafter/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Nichts belegt die Existenz von Homophobie.” 19 December 2013; http:// 

www.pi-news.net/2013/12/nichts-belegt-die-existenz-von-homophobie/. 



154 


Politically Incorrect. “Schwulenflagge vor Thüringer Staatskanzlei.” 16 June 2015; http://www. 

pi-news.net/2015/06/schwulenflagge-vor-thueringer-staatskanzlei/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Widerstand gegen das Beschneidungsgesetz.” 23 July 2012; http://www. 

pi-news.net/2012/07/widerstand-gegen-das-beschneidungsgesetz/. 

Politically Incorrect. “Wilders: Jordanien soll ‘Palästina’ werden,” 20 June 2010; http://www. 

pi-news.net/2010/06/wilders-jordanien-soll-palaestina-werden/. 

Polizei Sachsen. “Polizeieinsatz.” 12 January 2015; http://www.polizei.sachsen.de/de/MI_2015_ 

33890.htm. 

Stürzenberger, Michael. “CSU-Offman im Türken-Journal-Interview: Judentum, Islam und 

Christentum gleichwertig.” Politically Incorrect, 13 March 2014; http://www.pi-news. 

net/2014/03/csu-offman-im-tuerken-journal-interview-judentum-islam-und-christentumgleichwertig/. 

Stürzenberger, Michael. “Die Taqiyya-Meister sind die Gefährlichsten.” Politically Incor- 

, 15 October 2012; http://www.pi-news.net/2012/10/die-taqiyya-spezialisten-sind-diegefahrlichsten/. 

Stürzenberger, Michael. “Gedenkveranstaltung München 1972 – Rede Michael Stürzenberger 

Teil 2.” 4 September 2012; http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v= 

38q4AklodOQ. 

Stürzenberger, Michael. “Thesenpapier gegen die Islamisierung.” Politically Incorrect, 19 November 

2011; http://www.pi-news.net/2011/10/thesenpapier-gegen-die-islamisierung/. 

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www.verfassungsschutz.bayern.de/imperia/md/content/lfv_internet/islamfeindlichkeit_ 

als_verfassungsfeindliche_str_mung.pdf. 

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pi-news.net/2008/10/desperate-feminists/. 

Abstract 

Aufgrund bestimmter Charakteristika, wie der weitgehenden Anonymität und 

fehlenden Kontrollmechanismen sowie dem problemlosen Informationsaustausch 

über nationale Grenzen hinweg, kommt dem Internet als Medium bei 

der Verbreitung und Popularisierung ausgrenzenden Gedankenguts eine wichtige 

Rolle zu. Dies gilt auch im Hinblick auf sein Mobilisierungspotenzial, wie 

zuletzt das Beispiel der Protestbewegung Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung 

des Abendlandes (PEGIDA) gezeigt hat, die ihre Anhängerschaft 

in erster Linie über die sozialen Netzwerke im Internet rekrutierte. Im Fokus 

des Beitrags stehen deutschsprachige islamfeindliche Webseiten, auf denen die 

Ausgrenzung und Diskriminierung von in westlichen Ländern lebenden muslimischen 

Minderheiten propagiert wird. Analysiert werden ihre ideologische 

Ausrichtung sowie die dominanten Argumentationsstrategien und Topoi. Elemente 

des Alltagsrassismus gegenüber muslimisch markierten Migrant*innen 

und ihren Nachfahren werden dabei mit Verschwörungstheorien angereichert, 

die zum Teil an antisemitische Argumentationsmuster erinnern. 




Dr. Yasemin Shooman is Head of the Academy Programs of the Jewish Museum Berlin. 

She is responsible for the Academy’s Programs on Migration and Diversity and the 

Jewish-Islamic forum. She holds a Magister degree in Modern History and German 

Philology and received her Ph. D. from the Center for Research on Antisemitism at 

the Technische Universität Berlin, where she had previously worked inter alia as an 

associate on the research project “Der Ort des Terrors – Die Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen 

Konzentrations lager” [The Site of Terror – History of the Nazi Concentration 

Camps] and as a project manager for a Summer School on Antisemitism and 

prejudices against minorities in everyday life. Her research interests include racism, 

Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and media analysis. Her doctoral dissertation, “… weil 

ihre Kultur so ist:” Narrative des antimuslimischen Rassismus [“… Because That’s How 

Their Culture Is:” Narratives of Anti-Muslim Racism] was published in 2014 by the 

transcript Verlag, Bielefeld. 





Media Content and Its Effect 





Peter Widmann 

Stereotypes, Sound Bites, 

and Campaign Strategies 

The Interaction between Politicians and Journalists in 

the German Debate on Roma from Southeastern Europe 

In 2013/14, a long familiar topic was once again attracting attention in 

Germany. Politicians, journalists, and scholars were debating how to assess 

immigration from Southeastern Europe. Terms such as Armutsmigration 

[poverty-driven migration] and Einwanderung in die Sozialsysteme [immigration 

into social-security systems] were in the air. According to reports, a large 

number of destitute people, who were incapable of integration, were flocking 

to Germany from Southeastern Europe, and city governments were overwhelmed 

with the task of housing and caring for them. It was said that many 

immigrants were coming to Germany to apply for welfare benefits and either 

did not intend to look for work on the German labor market or did not have 

the necessary language or professional skills to do so. 

The debate centered on immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania. Both 

countries had joined the EU in 2007 and thus become part of a common market 

that was organized around four fundamental freedoms: the unrestricted 

movement of goods, services, capital, and people. In order to protect national 

labor markets after this enlargement of the EU, several of the older member 

states, including Germany, issued seven-year transitional regulations that, 

while not prohibiting Bulgarians and Romanians from working in other EU 

countries, placed restrictions on their right to do so.1 With the expiration of 

these regulations on 1 January 2014, fears of uncontrolled immigration grew. 

Reports on German TV and online news sites and in German newspapers repeatedly 

mentioned the Roma people. It was claimed that in various German 

cities they made up a large percentage of the people living in squalid quarters 

and without any work prospects. 

1 European Commission, memo “End of restrictions on free movement of workers from 

Bulgaria and Romania,” 1 January 2014, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO- 

14–1_en.htm (accessed 28 March 2015). 



160 

Peter Widmann 

The spotlight was thus focused on an ethnic group that since the fall of 

the Iron Curtain had repeatedly been seen as embodying the dangers of immigration 

from Eastern Europe. In early September 1990, four weeks before 

German reunification, the weekly Der Spiegel pictured on its cover a 

throng of dark-skinned people, some holding children, looking expectantly 

into the camera.2 The headline above them read “Asylum in Germany? The 

Gypsies.” In the following years, when the country’s asylum policy had become 

a heatedly debated political topic — primarily as a result of violent rightwing 

extremists’ attacks on refugees — press reports often focused on Roma, 

and this minority group remained at the center of media attention after Germany 

restricted the fundamental right to asylum in 1993. Tabloids presented 

readers with stories about gangs from Southeastern Europe who used children 

to steal from passers-by in German cities. And, in summer 2002, the Kölner 

Express featured a cover in the style of a wanted poster showing more than 

50 photographs of children’s faces under the headline “The Child Thieves of 

Cologne.”3 

When ten Central and Eastern European states joined the EU in 2004, 

many observers feared that the Roma people, in particular, would immigrate 

in large numbers to Germany. Television footage of Slovakian slums where 

Roma lived on the margins of society fueled the anxiety in Germany that 

many would soon head westward in the hope of a better life there. Though 

mass Roma immigration never materialized after this initial eastern enlargement 

of the EU, people had similar fears when Romania and Bulgaria became 

EU members in 2007. 

In 2013 and 2014, the German public once again saw images of Roma in 

squalid living conditions on television and online news sites and in newspapers. 

Now, though, the shots were of German cities — of Duisburg, for example, 

where a rundown building with 47 apartments made national headlines. 

There were also reports, including one from the Neukölln district of 

Berlin, that Roma families with large numbers of children were living off the 

monthly child benefit they received.4 Although there was no reliable data 

on Roma immigration from Romania and Bulgaria and it was impossible 

to say how widespread this practice was, the reports created the impression 

that Germany was threatened with the general decay of its urban districts and 

the abuse of its social-welfare system. 

2 Der Spiegel, 3 September 1990. 

3 Kölner Express, 22 August 2002. 

4 Lisa Caspari, “Verarmte Roma, überforderte Kommunen,” Die Zeit 

www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2013–02/roma-grossstaedte-bulgarien-rumaenienstaedtetag-strategie. 



Stereotypes, Sound Bites, and Campaign Strategies 161 

Stereotypes 

Many of these reports renewed stereotypical ideas about Roma that drew on 

traditional views of “Gypsies.” From the 19th century onward, novels, poems, 

operettas, folk songs, hit pop songs, and movies presented the so-called “Gypsy 

life” as the antithesis to civilization. Depending on how the creators of such 

representations regarded civilization — whether as a project of the Enlightenment 

and a manifestation of progress or a threat to human freedom — the 

“Gypsies” they portrayed were either of a primitive culture or noble savages 

who, free from the constraints of bourgeois life, happily roamed the land to 

the sounds of beautiful music.5 

Variants of these ideas can be found in many of the press reports from 

2013/14. One example is the headline “With the Influx of Roma, Worlds Collide” 

in the 25 February 2013 issue of Die Welt.6 The article underneath, which 

addresses the conflicts between the residents of Duisburg- Rheinhausen and 

Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants, presents the Roma as a people with 

fundamentally different attitudes and values than the citizens of a modern 

state. In the article, the neighbors of an apartment building inhabited primarily 

by Roma report on the “abysmal conditions on the other side of the 

street: loud music, shouting, and barbecue parties until late at night, garbage 

thrown from windows, human excrement on the premises, no manners, 

no decency.” 

A traditional aspect of both the romantic and the derogatory ideas about 

“Gypsies” is the clichéd belief that as a group they are hostile to vocational 

training and regular work and would rather make a living from begging, 

theft, scams, and the fraudulent collection of welfare benefits. To the editors 

of Die Welt, it was apparently so obvious that crime was a Roma characteristic 

that in February 2013 they used an image of four colorfully dressed women 

in headscarves and long skirts to illustrate an article about German deportation 

policy toward criminal immigrants — an article that never even mentioned 

Roma.7 Under the headline “Friedrich to Deport Criminal Eastern 

5 On the various stereotypes about Roma in the contemporary media, see, most recently, 

Markus End, 

medialer Kommunikation (Heidelberg: Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrum Deutscher 

Sinti und Roma, 2014). 

6 Kristian Frigelj, “Mit Zuzug der Roma prallen Welten aufeinander,” Die Welt, 25 February 

2013, www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article113882481/Mit-Zuzug-der-Roma-prallen- 

Welten-aufeinander.html. 

7 “Friedrich will kriminelle Osteuropäer abschieben,” Die Welt, 23 February 2013, www. 

welt.de/politik/deutschland/article113850055/Friedrich-will-kriminelle-Osteuropaeerabschieben.html. 



162 

Peter Widmann 

Europeans,” the paper reported that the German Interior Minister, Hans- 

Peter Friedrich, had called on municipal authorities to take decisive action 

against “poverty-driven refugees” from Bulgaria and Romania. The caption 

of the accompanying photograph is the only place where Roma are mentioned 

by name: “Germany 2012: A group of Roma women crossing Alexanderplatz 

in Berlin.” The editors thus made Roma a symbol for criminals from Eastern 

Europe. It was apparently so obvious to them that their readers would associate 

this minority with crime that they did not deem it necessary to make the 

alleged connection explicit. 

Exemplifications 

Stereotypes about Roma can be found primarily in articles that report on local 

events. Drawing on the work of the political scientist and communication 

scholar Shanto Iyengar, such articles have an “episodic” frame of reference.8 

They are limited to specific places and times and feature anecdotes and direct 

quotes from residents, social workers, and public employees. Their authors 

often characterize Roma not by explicitly attributing any traits to them 

but by identifying them as an ethnic group and then describing conditions 

that fail to meet middle-class norms of cleanliness, morality, and so on and, 

thus, confirm traditional associations with the “Gypsy life.” For example, in 

July 2014, under the headline “Roma Building Declared Uninhabitable,” Germany’s 

largest tabloid, Bild, reported that the city of Duisburg wanted to evict 

economic refugees from Romania from a rundown building in the Rheinhausen 

district. Although the newspaper did not explain the term “Roma 

building,” readers learned that 44 adults and 120 children lived on the premises; 

the owner worked in the “red light business;” and a neighbor had complained 

about rats, garbage, and noise.9 

This combination of themes — large numbers of children, sexual licentiousness, 

squalor, and indifference to the peace and public order — so perfectly 

matched traditional ideas about “Gypsy” characteristics that it seemed unnecessary 

to explain what had caused the situation. In other words, the author 

left it to readers to construct their own explanations in terms of the ethnic 

character of the people described. As in many other articles, the individuals 

described as “poverty-driven migrants” remained shadowy and elusive. Most 

8 Shanto Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues (Chicago 

and London: University of Chicago Press, 1991), passim. 

9 Marc Oliver Hänig, “Roma-Haus für unbewohnbar erklärt,” Bild, 16 July 2014, www.bild. 

de/regional/ruhrgebiet/roma/romahaus-muss-geraeumt-werden-36837692.bild.html. 




such pieces quote residents, politicians, and representatives of public administrations 

but hardly ever the immigrants themselves. 

Although the episodically framed articles from this period limited themselves 

to specific people and places, many of them nevertheless suggested that 

they were describing general developments. In other words, they implied that 

the unacceptable conditions in one place exemplified those in many other German 

cities. To achieve this effect, all a journalist had to do was use the term 

“poverty-driven immigration,” as it conjured up the image of a mass movement 

of people from Eastern to Western Europe. Many articles also used phrases 

along the lines of “in cities such as Düsseldorf, Duisburg, and Mannheim.” 

The “such as” before the list implied that more than the mentioned cities were 

affected by the intolerable conditions described. At times, authors explicitly 

stated that their observations of one city were meant to exemplify others. 

This can be seen in an article published in the 16 July 2014 issue of Die Welt. 

The conditions in an apartment building in Duisburg, the journalist writes, 

“turned a spotlight on the problems of poverty-driven immigration across 

Europe.”10 This practice follows a frequently observed dialectic inherent to 

the media’s presentation of “evidence:” an event makes headlines because it 

violates the norms of what is familiar; at the same time, those headlines draw 

their significance by implying that they refer to a widespread phenomenon. 

A second type of press coverage is also observable, at times in the very same 

newspaper. It uses frames that can be assigned to Shanto Iyengar’s “thematic” 

category. Whereas the episodically framed articles employ a narrative mode 

of presentation, the thematically framed pieces are dominated by analysis. In 

addition to questioning the appropriateness of terms such as “poverty-driven 

immigration” and “immigration into social security systems,” the authors of 

these articles describe the legal situation and discuss the campaign interests 

of the politicians using the buzzwords. In addition, they cite studies and statistics 

that show that only a small number of immigrants from Romania and 

Bulgaria applied for welfare benefits.11 

In his experiments on American TV coverage of social and political issues, 

Shanto Iyengar showed that episodic and thematic frames lead people to draw 

different conclusions about the causes of problems.12 For example, TV viewers 

who watch episodic reports about poverty tend to attribute it to the personal 

10 Kristian Frigelj, “Roma müssen Problemhaus bis Ende Juli verlassen,” Die Welt 

2014, www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article130234317/Roma-muessen-Problemhausbis-Ende-Juli-verlassen.html. 

11 An example of a thematically framed article is Corinna Budras, “Welche Sozialleistungen 

stehen EU-Bürgern zu?” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 28 March 2014, www.faz. 

net/aktuell/wirtschaft/wirtschaftspolitik/armutszuwanderung-welche-sozialleistungenstehen-eu-buergern-zu-12865438.html. 

12 Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible? 



164 

Peter Widmann 

weaknesses of the affected people, while viewers who watch thematic reports 

link poverty to social factors. Both of these reference frames can be found in 

the German media’s coverage of poverty-driven migration in 2013/14.13 In the 

national coverage from 2014 that was evaluated for this essay, we find a preponderance 

of thematically framed reports; however, it can be assumed that 

the share of episodic reports is higher in the local and regional press. 

The Selection of Topics 

Ever since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the German media have presented 

Roma mainly in connection with intolerable situations or as threats. This can 

be seen even in the reports that identify Roma not as the root cause of a problem 

but as victims of poverty and marginalization. German newspapers, television 

programs, and online news sites almost never depict Roma as citizens 

of the country or as classmates, neighbors, or colleagues. This is partially due 

to the criteria that news editors use in deciding which events to cover. The 

topics that make headlines usually concern conflicts between identifiable 

parties, are unusual in some way, or provoke fear or other strong emotions. 

Everyday unconflicted interactions rarely attract the press’ attention. 

There is also a social component. Whereas poverty tends to make groups of 

people more visible, the individual who has found his or her place in the work 

force, a neighborhood, or the education system has become invisible. Invisibility 

is not just the result of becoming an established member of society; it is 

its prerequisite. If an employer or a landlord knows an applicant’s ethnicity, 

that applicant has a much lower chance of getting the job or apartment. This 

connection is self-reinforcing. Because of widespread clichés, this mechanism 

has a greater impact on Roma than on other population groups. The more 

invisible individual Roma who do not fit the stereotype of outsiders without 

education or profession become, the more closely poverty comes to be associated 

with the Roma people as a whole. This in turn increases the pressure to 

remain invisible. 

Large parts of the German population are unaware that many Roma with 

family roots in Southeastern Europe have been living in Germany for decades 

and enjoy middle-class prosperity. They include many of the migrant workers 

13 However, TV news in the U. S. and Germany is dominated by episodic frames; see Georg 

Ruhrmann and Denise Sommer, “Vorurteile und Diskriminierung in den Medien,” in 

Diskriminierung und Toleranz: Psychologische Grundlagen und Anwendungsperspek tiven, 

eds. Andreas Beelmann and Kai Jonas (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2009), 421; Denise 

Sommer and Georg Ruhrmann, “Ought and Ideals: Framing People with Migration 

Background in TV News,” Conflict and Communication Online 9 (2010): 1–15. 




who came to Germany after 1968 as part of the recruitment agreement between 

Germany and Yugoslavia. At the time, their German neighbors saw them as 

Yugoslav guest workers, and these Yugoslavians probably avoided raising the 

subject of their Roma identities for fear of arousing their neighbors’ presumed 

prejudice. 

Strategic Communication 

In a position paper released in January 2013, the Association of German Cities 

wrote that immigration from Bulgaria and Romania had resulted in “serious 

problems and undesirable developments:” 

The immigration of Bulgarian and Romanian nationals without language skills, 

job prospects, or a social safety net, who often move into neglected buildings or live 

homeless in cities, is having a significant impact on local education, social welfare, 

and health care systems, on the labor and housing markets, as well as on local communities 

as a whole. 

According to the paper, the immigration of skilled nationals from both countries 

usually proceeded smoothly, but the “poverty-driven immigration” of 

people who were already marginalized in their home countries was creating 

enormous problems. A large percentage of these immigrants were Roma. As a 

group, they lacked formal education, professional training, and German language 

skills. And their “experiential horizons, determined by socialization,” 

made integration difficult. The Association of German Cities warned that 

xenophobic forces and right-wing groups could take advantage of the situation.14 

German newspapers reported on the position paper, and in February 

2013 — one month after its publication — the German Interior Minister, Hans- 

Peter Friedrich, appealed to municipal authorities to review more strictly the 

welfare applications of Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants.15 However, it 

took nearly a year for the issue to draw public attention. 

On 28 December 2013, under the headline “CSU Plans Offensive against 

Poverty-Driven Immigrants,” the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the conservative 

Christian Social Union (CSU) — the ruling party in Bavaria and a 

14 Deutscher Städtetag, “Positionspapier des Deutschen Städtetages zu Fragen der Zuwanderung 

aus Rumänien und Bulgarien,” 22 January 2013, 1, 2, and 4, www.staedtetag.de/ 

imperia/md/content/dst/internet/fachinformationen/2013/positionspapier_zuwanderung_ 

2013.pdf. 

15 “Friedrich droht Armutsflüchtlingen mit Abschiebung,” Focus, 23 February 2013, www. 

focus.de/politik/deutschland/missbrauch-deutscher-sozialleistungen-friedrich-drohtarmutsfluechtlingen-mit-abschiebung_aid_925765.html. 



166 

Peter Widmann 

member of the federal coalition — was laying the groundwork for an anti-immigration 

campaign. The party wanted to make it more difficult for Bulgarian 

and Romanian nationals to gain access to German social-welfare systems. 

The CSU feared that immigration numbers would increase once the transitional 

regulations restricting the free movement of people expired. Around 

370,000 Romanian and Bulgarian nationals, including many Roma, were already 

living in Germany at the time. The first paragraph of the Süddeutsche 

Zeitung’s article mentioned a slogan from a position paper that the CSU had 

drafted for the upcoming conference of its Bundestag members: “Wer betrügt, 

der fliegt” — “Cheat the system, get deported.”16 This slogan was to dominate 

the debate in the coming months. 

The same day, other German news outlets covered the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s 

exclusive report and the initial responses to it.17 The slogan “Wer betrügt, 

der fliegt” received special attention and was cited either directly in 

headlines or at the beginning of articles. Politicians from other parties criticized 

the slogan, likening it to extremist right-wing propaganda. Konstantin 

von Notz, the deputy leader of the Greens in the Bundestag, said it reminded 

him of the election posters of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany.18 

Bernd Riexinger, the national chairman of the Left Party (Die Linke), 

described it as “vile rabble-rousing that the CSU is using to incite the brown 

mob to violence.”19 Criticism also came from the Social Democratic Party 

(SPD), another member of the federal coalition. As Michael Hartmann, the 

domestic-policy spokesman for the SPD’s Bundestag contingent, explained, 

“Anyone who strikes up this tune is inviting right-wing extremists to dance.”20 

16 Robert Roßmann, “CSU plant Offensive gegen Armutsmigranten,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 

28 December 2013, www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/wegen-bulgarien-und-rumaenien-csuplant-offensive-gegen-armutsmigranten-1.1852159. 

17 For example, “‘Wer betrügt, der fliegt’ – CSU fordert scharfe Regeln gegen Armutszuwanderer,” 

Focus, 28 December 2013, www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/csu-will-armuts 

migration-verhindern-bulgaren-und-rumaenen-schaerfere-regeln-fuer-sozialleistungen_ 

id_3507667.html; “Scharfe Kritik der SPD an CSU-Vorstoß ‘Wer betrügt, der fliegt,’” Westdeutsche 

Allgemeine Zeitung, 28 December 2013, www.derwesten.de/politik/csu-willzuwanderern-zugang-zum-sozialsystem-erschweren-id8814739.html; 

and “CSU gegen Ar- 

Tageszeitung, 28 Dezember 2013, www.taz.de/ 

!130062/. 

18 Manuel Bewarder, “Grüne sehen CSU im Fahrwasser der NPD,” Die Welt, 29 December 

2013, www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article123380131/Gruene-sehen-CSU-im-Fahrwas 

ser-der-NPD.html. 

19 “Scharfe Kritik der SPD an CSU-Vorstoß ‘Wer betrügt, der fliegt,’” Westdeutsche Allgemeine 

Zeitung, 28 December 2013, www.derwesten.de/politik/csu-will-zuwanderern-zugangzum-sozialsystem-erschweren-id8814739.html. 

20 “CSU verlässt den antirassistischen Konsens,” Die Welt, 29 December 2013, http://www. 

welt.de/politik/deutschland/article123364445/CSU-verlaesst-den-antirassistischen-Konsens. 

html. 




Based on its contents, style, and how it was used, we can assume that the 

position paper containing the slogan was not written solely for discussion 

among the CSU’s Bundestag members at their retreat. Rather, it was intended 

to reach the public. The disclosure of the text to the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 

late December 2013 was probably one of the CSU’s communication strategies. 

Published during the news doldrums between Christmas and New Year’s, it 

was sure to attract a great deal of attention. Another CSU text found its way 

into the media at the same time, a European policy paper, also written for the 

party’s upcoming retreat, in which the party voiced its opposition to a “central 

European government.” It, too, contained a line, a shot at the European 

Commission, that many journalists felt compelled to quote: “We need detox 

for commissioners high on their regulatory powers.”21 

Because it was cited by a large number of media outlets and provoked the 

expected responses from the SPD, the Greens, and the Left Party, “Wer betrügt, 

der fliegt” proved to be a highly effective slogan. The critics could not 

help but become part of the show. Their responses allowed representatives of 

the CSU to take a clear stand. They were now able to set themselves apart from 

parties they saw as guardians of political correctness. The CSU portrayed itself 

as a party that honestly addressed problems and was in touch with ordinary 

Germans and the realities of life in German cities and communities.22 

The policy paper containing “Wer betrügt, der fliegt” was titled “Dort, wo 

die Menschen wohnen: Die Belange der Kommunen zukunftsfest gestalten” 

[“In the Places where People Live: Protecting Local Communities’ Sustainability”]. 

11 days after the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s report, 56 CSU Bundestag 

members came together at their annual retreat in the southern Bavarian 

town of Wildbad Kreuth to adopt its recommendations and those of papers 

on other policy fields. The paper is formulated very generally and contains 

only a few of the details important for the legislative process and funding. 

Three and a half pages long, it lists a variety of policy goals and the passage 

about “poverty-driven migration” consists of just a single paragraph. According 

to the authors, the party was examining whether social-welfare benefits 

could be suspended for the first three months of a person’s stay in Germany. 

21 CSU-Landesgruppe, “Europas Zukunft: Freiheit, Sicherheit, Regionalität und Bürger nähe,“ 

8 January 2014, CSU 

landesgruppe.de/sites/default/files/uploads/kreuth-beschluss_2014_-_europas_zukunft_ 

freiheit_sicherheitregionalitaet_und_buergernaehe.pdf, 3; “Strategiepapier: CSU startet 

Anti-Brüssel-Wahlkampf,” Spiegel Online, 29 December 2013, www.spiegel.de/politik/ 

ausland/csu-startet-anti-bruessel-wahlkampf-a-941108.html. 

22 This argument was made by Gerda Hasselfeldt, chairwoman of the CSU’s parliamentary 

group in the German Bundestag, in an interview: “Wer betrügt, der fliegt – das ist scharf, 

aber richtig,” Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, 16 August 2014, www.noz.de/deutschland-welt/ 

politik/artikel/498806/wer-betrugt-der-fliegt-das-ist-scharf-aber-richtig. 



168 

Peter Widmann 

In addition, the party wanted to make it possible to ban re-entry when documents 

had been falsified or benefits had been fraudulently collected. It was 

here that the principle “cheat the system, get deported” applied.23 

The slogan, which is found in the last part of the text, seems all the harsher 

when seen in connection with the paper’s introduction, where the metaphor of 

rootedness occurs twice. The second sentence reads “Local communities are 

the places where people live, where they have their homes and roots.” Just two 

sentences later comes “Bavaria is a successful federal state primarily because 

the people living here are deeply rooted in their communities.”24 Against this 

backdrop, immigrants appear rootless, and Roma the most rootless. 

In media jargon, phrases such as “Wer betrügt, der fliegt” are called “sound 

bites” — concise formulations that distill a message to its essence.25 Sound 

bites are a tool used by speech-writers and the authors of position papers. Any 

writer who has mastered the art of sound bites can influence which parts of a 

text journalists quote and prevent them from expressing the message in their 

own words. Ideally, the creators of sound bites determine headlines and journalists’ 

lead-ins. For journalists search for simple, boldly describable events to 

cover, and a good sound bite makes a politician’s message so catchy that it becomes 

exactly that. Thus, a good sound bite gives journalists just what they 

are looking for. The sound bite unites the interests of politicians and journalists, 

for both groups want attention — politicians for themselves and their 

messages, journalists for their articles. 

“Wer betrügt, der fliegt” was a particularly successful coinage. Journalists 

and politicians cited it over and over, and it became the tendentious framing 

of the debate on immigration from Southeastern Europe. It combines many of 

the characteristics of a successful sound bite. It is compact, consisting of just 

four words, three of which are monosyllabic. It also rhymes, if imperfectly. It 

reduces complex legal, social, and political issues to a simple dictum. It suggests 

that the problem, the guilty parties, and the possible solutions are clear, 

and it expresses determination and strength. 

Thanks to its position paper, the CSU, which is a regional party, managed 

to generate enough nationwide public pressure within just a few days’ time to 

force the government to act. In early January 2014, Chancellor Angela Merkel 

and Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, the chairman of the SPD, Merkel’s part- 

23 CSU-Landesgruppe, “Dort, wo die Menschen wohnen: Die Belange der Kommunen zukunftsfest 

gestalten,” 7 January 2014, CSU conference in Wildbad Kreuth from 7 to 9 January 

2014, accessed 29 March 2015, https://www.csu-landesgruppe.de/sites/default/files/ 

uploads/kreuth-beschluss_2014_-_die_belange_der_kommunen_zukunftsfest_gestalten. 

pdf, 3 f. 

24 Ibid., 1. 

25 Jonathan Charteris-Black, 

(Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 5–6. 




ner in the federal coalition, agreed to convene a committee of cabinet undersecretaries 

under the direction of the Interior and Labor Ministries to examine 

conditions in local communities and suggest solutions. The federal 

cabinet officially established the committee on 8 January 2014 while members 

of the CSU were still at their retreat in Kreuth. 

Around six months later, on 27 August 2014, the federal cabinet adopted 

the committee’s final report and introduced a bill based on it.26 The bill contained 

a number of provisions regarding freedom of movement, including 

temporary bans on re-entry in the event of fraud or other violations of the law 

as well as penalties for making false statements on applications for residence 

permits. It also placed a six-month time limit on stays in Germany for the 

purpose of looking for employment. Other provisions were designed to discourage 

under-the-table employment and prevent immigrants from applying 

for child benefits in several places at the same time. The Bundestag passed the 

bill as an amendment to the Freedom of Movement Act in November 2014, 

and the German Federal Council (Bundesrat) followed suit three weeks later. 

The most important regulations went into effect in December 2014.27 

Agenda Setting 

The CSU took this issue up in late 2013 not only because restrictions on 

the freedom of movement of Romanians and Bulgarians were due to expire 

soon but also because the party was facing two elections in the first half of 

2014: the local elections in Bavaria in March and elections for the European 

Parliament in May. The CSU had to position itself in the run-up, particularly 

since it was competing with two other parties for the conservative vote. The 

Free Voters (Freie Wähler) had become such a powerful force in Bavarian cities 

and towns that in many places they had broken the long undisputed dominance 

of the CSU. And, in 2013, the Alternative for Germany (Alternative für 

Deutschland) — a right-wing populist party critical of the euro — began offering 

a political home to voters who felt that the Christian Democrats (CDU) 

under Angela Merkel and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU, had drifted too 

far to the center. 

26 Press release of the Federal Interior Ministry, “Staatssekretärsausschuss: Kabinett beschließt 

Abschlussbericht,” 27 August 2014, www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/ 

DE/2014/08/abschlussbericht-armutsmigration.html. 

27 Press release of the German federal government, “Freizügigkeit ja, Sozialmissbrauch nein,” 

8 December 2014, www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/Artikel/2014/08/2014–08–27- 

freizuegigkeitsgesetz.html. 



170 

Peter Widmann 

In addition, the CSU faced a strategic challenge on the federal level. In the 

Bundestag elections in October 2013, the coalition of the CDU, the CSU, and 

the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) had failed to win a majority. 

As a result, Chancellor Angela Merkel formed a grand coalition with 

the Social Democrats. The CSU was also a part of this coalition, but the government 

no longer needed it to ensure its majority. The party therefore lost 

influence. In the previous CDU/CSU-FDP coalition, the Interior Minister 

had been a member of the CSU, but when the federal cabinet was reshuffled 

in December 2013 the party did not receive a single important ministry. It 

had to settle for the Ministries of Agriculture, Transport, and Development. 

The German media painted the CSU as the loser of the coalition’s negotiations. 

With its focus on poverty-driven migration, the party attempted to 

reverse its dwindling importance and show that it was still capable of setting 

the agenda. The official name of the January 2014 retreat in Kreuth was 

therefore “The CSU Is Setting the Pace for the Grand Coalition.”28 Against 

this backdrop, putting immigration on the federal government’s agenda 

and initiating an amendment to the law was an important achievement for 

the CSU. 

From the CSU’s perspective, their self-presentation strategy was a success, 

but it provoked criticism from more than just the other political parties 

in Germany. Migration researchers and social-welfare organizations pointed 

out that the CSU’s claims had no empirical basis. In response to the Süddeutsche 

Zeitung’s coverage of the party’s policy paper, many articles cited 

studies and reports that showed that immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania 

were not placing an excessive burden on the German social-welfare system 

and were not expected to do so in the future.29 The authors of these studies 

worked for various institutions, including the Bonn Institute for the Study 

of Labor, the Berlin Institute for Employment Research, the Expert Council of 

German Foundations on Integration and Migration, and the European Commission. 

When the German Interior Minister, Thomas de Maizière (CDU), 

presented the final report of the committee of cabinet undersecretaries at a 

press conference in August 2014, he emphasized that, despite the problems in 

some localities, poverty-driven immigration was not a widespread phenomenon 

in Germany. According to de Maizière, the government had responded 

28 CSU regional group, “Die CSU-Landesgruppe ist Taktgeber der Großen Koalition,” CSU 

conference in Wildbad Kreuth from 7 to 9 January 2014, accessed 27 March 2015, www. 

csu-landesgruppe.de/sites/default/files/uploads/bericht_aus_kreuth_2014.pdf. 

29 For example, Daniel Bax, “Von wegen Armutsmigration,” tageszeitung, 28 December 2013, 

www.taz.de/!130016/; Jannis Brühl and Kathrin Haimerl, “Mythos Armutsmigration,” 

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 3 January 2015, www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/einwanderer-ausosteuropa-mythos-armutsmigration-1.1854451. 




to these problems by amending the law and making federal funds available to 

the affected communities.30 

Many observers regarded the amendment as a symbolic act whose regulations 

had little practical relevance.31 In August 2014, the conservative Frankfurter 

Allgemeine Zeitung offered its verdict: the CSU had “failed miserably” 

in drafting the new law. Because of the provisions of European law, bans on 

re-entry could be imposed only in narrowly defined cases, and it was almost 

impossible to limit the legal right to the child benefit.32 From the CSU’s perspective, 

therefore, the results were mixed. On the one hand, it had increased 

its visibility. For voters who were suspicious of immigration, the CSU had 

managed to position itself as a political force that aimed to ensure controlled 

immigration even within the framework of the European common market. 

At the same time, though, many Germans could easily see through the party’s 

strategy and see that its claims were not justified by the facts. 

Dilemmas 

The debate on poverty-driven immigration was in fact a debate on the political, 

economic, and social consequences of European integration, even if politicians 

and journalists failed to discuss this fact in any great detail. Those aspects 

of the EU that many in the population regarded as progressive — the common 

market; the associated freedom of movement; the opportunity to study, work, 

and conduct business throughout Europe — were seen by others as a threatening 

abandonment of national control, security, and traditions. From this 

perspective, Roma embodied the threatening dissolution of national borders. 

As empirical political sociology has shown, globalization, Europeanization, 

and the declining importance of national borders in European societies 

have produced both winners and losers.33 The winners are the well-educated 

30 An audio recording of the press conference on 27 August 2014 can be found on the 

Federal Interior Ministry’s website, accessed 26 March 2015, www.bmi.bund.de/Shared 

Docs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2014/08/abschlussbericht-armutsmigration.html. 

31 For the legal perspective, see Hannah Tewocht and Gabriele Buchholtz, “Kampf der 

Junge Wissenschaft 

im Öffentlichen Recht, 1 October 2014, www.juwiss.de/119–2014/. 

32 Thomas Gutschker, “Wer betrügt, der fliegt noch lange nicht,” Frankfurter Allgemeine 

Zeitung, 24 August 2014, www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/missbrauch-von-sozialleis 

tungen-wer-betruegt-der-fliegt-noch-lange-nicht-13113184.html. 

33 This is one of the central findings of the research group led by Hanspeter Kriesi and 

Edgar Grande. Cf. Hanspeter Kriesi et al., eds., West European Politics in the Age of Globalization 

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Hanspeter Kriesi et al., Political 

Conflict in Western Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 



172 

Peter Widmann 

Europeans who speak foreign languages; are young, healthy, and mobile; and 

can take advantage of the freedoms of the common market. People with less 

education, who can communicate only in their mother tongues, or who due 

to their age or personal circumstances are tied to their home regions are more 

likely to be among the losers or to fear that they will become losers and move 

down the social ladder. These people have experienced the fading of the nation-state 

as a loss. They have generally found it more difficult than in past 

decades to do well on the labor market. At the same time, the social safety net 

has frayed. This division into winners and losers of denationalization is one of 

the defining conflicts of our time.34 

This development has presented catch-all parties with a special challenge 

because they depend on bringing together members and voters from various 

strata of society. Today this means bringing together the winners and losers 

of the new political and economic order. Smaller parties can attract members 

and voters from one group. They can speak to the winners of denationalization 

and support the new freedoms and cultural diversity, as the Greens and 

the FDP do. Or they can side with the losers and defend the nation (like rightwing 

populist parties do) or the welfare state (like the Left Party does). 

This strategy is not feasible for catch-all parties. The CDU/CSU has faced a 

special challenge because it has been involved in shaping the European unification 

process since the 1950s. Since then, the common market and the 

single currency have been planks in their platform. The party cannot consistently 

oppose the free movement of people as that is fundamental to the 

common market. Given this situation, the CSU decided to use as its strategic 

instrument the rhetoric of controlling Germany’s borders, of home, and 

of protecting the native. In terms of specific laws and measures, this rhetoric 

has had, at best, a limited effect, but it signals to voters that the party understands 

and represents their need for security. The CSU apparently does not 

care whether its rhetoric worsens the social climate and revives stereotypes 

about certain population groups. 

In this context, journalistic efforts to educate the populace confront two 

limitations. The first results from the established norms of journalism. As the 

coverage of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria shows, many journalists 

were aware of traditional stereotypes and of politicians’ communication 

strategies. For example, many cited statistics and studies that showed that the 

34 Often the politicians and authors who address the fear of losing social status are members 

of the elite, as the leaders of right-wing populist parties and authors such as Thilo 

Sarrazin show. However, the data analyzed by Kriesi et al. demonstrate that in Western 

European societies a clear link exists between the susceptibility to right-wing populist 

and neo-nationalist messages, on the one hand, and social characteristics, such as formal 

education and position on the labor market, on the other. 




fears, which the widespread immigration horror stories provoked, had no empirical 

basis. And, a variety of articles analyzed the CSU’s election strategy. 

In an age, however, when politics is increasingly shaped by the mass media, 

political actors know how to use the media’s norms to benefit their own 

campaigns. An important factor in their manipulation of the press is the selection 

of campaign issues: clearly defined conflicts that arouse strong emotions 

have a high news value and make headlines. Thus, by following the established 

journalistic norms for deciding which issues to cover, even critical 

journalists can become part of the show that skilful populist politicians or 

their spin doctors stage. The same can happen when journalists employ established 

modes of representation, such as episodic framing with its implicit 

claim to describe examples of wider phenomena. After all, journalists can 

exert only minimal influence on the norms of their profession. They learn 

in journalism school, and also from their colleagues, to make abstract ideas 

come alive through anecdotes. In the process, they create types, which are often 

stereotypes, such as the overwhelmed individual living next door to a shelter 

for immigrants and the lower-class person who is trying to escape hardship. 

The susceptibility of many journalists to sound bites is also the result of 

established professional routines. In all of these ways, journalistic norms can 

hinder journalists’ efforts to expose the strategies of populist politicians. 

Contemporary social conflicts and the growing division of European societies 

faced with globalization, Europeanization, and denationalization illustrate 

the second limitation. Not even conscientious reporting can lessen 

the susceptibility of some members of society to certain political messages. 

What is at stake for the political actors who profit by addressing the losers 

and the fearful is, above all, visibility. Thus, even negative coverage can be 

advantageous. 

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Abstract 

Die öffentliche Debatte um »Armutsmigration« in Deutschland der Jahre 

2013/14 belebte traditionelle Stereotype über Roma neu. In vielen auf einem 

episodischen Framing fußenden Presseberichten erschienen Roma aus Bulgarien 

und Rumänien als nicht integrierbare Gruppe. Ein Teil der Berichte legte 

dabei nahe, dass anekdotische Schilderungen über Roma, die in deutschen 

Städten in verwahrlosten Umständen lebten, ein deutschlandweites Phänomen 

spiegelten. Mechanismen der Themenselektion sorgten gleichzeitig dafür, 

dass Roma in den Berichten ausschließlich im Zusammenhang sozialer 

Missstände auftraten. In dieser Situation nutzte die Christlich Soziale Union, 

der bayerische Ableger der deutschen Christdemokraten, Instrumente strategischer 

politischer Kommunikation zum erfolgreichen agenda setting, um sich 

gegenüber Konkurrenten im konservativen Teil des politischen Spektrums zu 



176 

Peter Widmann 

behaupten. Die Fallstudie identifiziert Grenzen journalistischer Aufklärung 

gegenüber solchen Kommunikationsstrategien. Die Grenzen resultieren sowohl 

aus etablierten journalistischen Routinen als auch aus der gesellschaftlichen 

Konfliktlinie zwischen Gewinnern und Verlierern einer Denationalisierung, 

deren Teil der europäische Binnenmarkt und die damit verbundene 

Personenfreizügigkeit ist. 

Dr. Peter Widmann is a political scientist and the coordinator of the project Marburg 

International Doctorate at the Philipps-Universiät Marburg. He studied political science 

at the Freie Universität Berlin; at the Center for Research on Antisemitism of 

the Technische Universität Berlin, he completed his doctorate on the topic of municipal 

policy toward Sinti and Roma in the Federal Republic of Germany. He was 

assistant professor at the Center for Research on Antisemitism and has undertaken 

political-science teaching assignments at the TU Berlin. From 2010 to 2015 he was a 

lecturer for political science of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at 

Istanbul Bilgi University. His areas of emphasis in teaching and research are political 

sociology and political communication. 




Integration in the Media 

Between Science, Policy Consulting, and Journalism 

It is early 2015 in Germany. Right-wing populists’ arguments concerning asylum, 

refugees, and immigration are increasingly gaining public attention, 

and right-wing populist parties throughout Europe are attracting more and 

more disappointed citizens.1 Thorough, systematic analyses of the social and 

political processes underlying these phenomena have long appeared to be of 

no particular interest, at least not to party politics. An adequate understanding 

of integration requires an understanding of the concept of integration, 

which, in turn, requires the findings of basic research worked out over the last 

two decades. Applied social science and policy advice require the same, for 

both attempt to describe and implement integration on the basis of plausible 

assumptions without sound scientific understanding. 

At the same time, politicians claim that they can determine (without further 

ado) which sorts of immigrants have become integrated, and how well, into 

German society. Consequently, they attempt to determine who should be integrated 

into our society, and how, when, and where. Since the 1980s, that sort 

of attitude has become firmly established in right-wing populist discourse in 

the United States, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe. Thus, one hears claims 

that, for example, certain demographic groups or ethnicities cannot be integrated, 

a position that is gaining popularity and increasingly wide approval.2 

In this article, I start by examining some of the dimensions of the concept 

integration (part 1). I then consider certain types of media coverage, 

their characteristics, and the contact that they establish between majority and 

1 See Britta Schellenberg, “Developments within the Radical Right in Germany: Discourses, 

Attitudes and Actors,” in Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse, ed. Ruth 

Wodak et al. (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 149–162 and Timo Lochocki, “Countering 

Right-Wing Populism: The AFD and the Strategic Dilemma for Germany’s Moderate Parties,” 

The German Marshall Fund Policy Briefs 2, no. 1 (2015). 

2 See Elizabeth Anderson, The Imperative of Integration (Princeton: Princeton University 

Press, 2010); Claudia Posch et al., “German Postwar Discourse of the Extreme and Populist 

Right,” in Analysing Fascist Discourse: European Fascism in Talk and Text, eds. Ruth 

Wodak and John E. Richardson (New York: Routledge, 2013), 97–122; and Paul Collier, 

Exodus: Immigration and Multiculturalism in the 21 st Century (London: Penguin, 2013). 



178 


minority groups, a subject that has long been discussed by social psychologists 

(part 2). Finally, I critically examine the relationships among research, 

policy advice, and journalism and indicate how the media present and evaluate 

scientific studies (part 3). In conclusion, I summarize my findings as issues 

and questions for further discussion (part 4). 

1. Disintegration: Dimensions and Debates 

The term integration describes a long-term, dynamic, social process that occurs 

on different levels. Integration brings together social groups with different 

values and lets them grow together. The host society, which is usually only 

rudimentarily multicultural, often excludes immigrant groups in many ways 

and for a number of reasons.3 Immigrants frequently live within the cultural 

context of their society of origin. 

On the other hand disintegration describes the processes and situations in 

which social bonds erode and become weaker. Social processes of fragmentation 

and disintegration begin and produce a decrease in solidarity among 

groups and, eventually, a shared loss of meaning that manifests itself in intergroup 

tensions and hostilities, which can lead to political and economic 

instability. Such conflicts can also emerge in societies with a long tradition of 

ethnic tolerance and integration. They are apparent in social discourses and 

political controversies and, later, in social unrest, demonstrations, and sudden 

eruptions of violence. Media coverage is topical, event-related, and short 

term. It does not explain the social causes of disintegration, which include the 

fact that many groups depending on welfare benefits are forced to live in continuous 

poverty and involuntarily and inevitably reproduce these increasingly 

precarious conditions.4 Particularly high unemployment rates bring 

about and reinforce such poverty, and in regions of high unemployment, especially, 

one observes greater than average discrimination. People with immigrant 

backgrounds excluded from employment opportunities are denied the 

resources that are made available as a matter of course to members of the majority 

society.5 

3 See Anthony Heath et al., The Political Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Britain (New 

York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 

4 See Klaus Dörre, Stephan Lessenich, and Hartmut Rosa, Sociology, Capitalism, Critique, 

trans. Jan-Peter Herrmann and Loren Balhorn (London: Verso, 2015) and Mike Cole, 

Racism. A Critical Analysis (London: Pluto Press 2015). 

5 See Anthony Giddens, Sociology (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006) and Alice Goffman, On 

the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014). 



Integration in the Media 179 

Largely unnoticed in political and journalistic discourse, social scientists 

differentiate two concepts of integration: social integration and system integration. 

Social integration is used especially with respect to individuals 

(e.g., with immigrant backgrounds) and groups. Scientific research, both theoretical 

and empirical, into social integration seeks to explain how individuals 

and groups perceive themselves in society, how they communicate, and 

whether, and if so how, they organize themselves.6 With respect to migration, 

the concept of social integration is further refined to include structural integration, 

the aspects of which pertain to access to jobs and resources, such 

as material goods, labor income (wages), and inherited assets (capital), all 

of which are relevant to a dramatically increasing social inequality. Current 

economic data from the United States, England, Canada, France, Germany, 

Sweden, and Japan clearly confirm this development.7 

An essential aspect of structural integration, long neglected by politicians 

and journalists, is language, i.e, the language competence that immigrants 

have or will acquire. Cognitive and social psychologists have acquired complex 

theoretical and empirical insights about the links between communication, 

intergroup relations, and social discrimination.8 

Social scientists also study how natives and immigrants coexist, in cities, 

towns, and rural areas, in everyday life as well as the conditions under which 

social integration is perceived as successful, that is, when groups within the 

immigrant and host society mutually accept one another not only at work, but 

also within the family and in private spheres. Such acceptance can allow the 

development of new feelings of belonging. 

System integration, the second concept, applies to the cohesion of social 

subsystems, such as the economic, legal, and media subsystems.9 System integration 

cannot be observed directly or grasped by journalistic terms; it must 

be investigated analytically. 

Public and political debates about integration consider it from an overly 

narrow perspective, namely, as a challenge for immigrants. From the perspective 

of social science, however, every member of a society works constantly to 

secure his or her own integration (for example, on the labor market). 

6 See Joseph B. Atkins, Covering for the Bosses: Labor and the Southern Press (Jackson: University 

Press of Mississippi, 2008). 

7 See Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: The Belknap Press 

of Harvard University Press, 2014), 304–335, 377–470. 

8 Regarding different perspectives, see Daniel Wigboldus and Karen Douglas, “Language, 

Stereotypes and Intergroup Relations,” in Social Communication, ed. Klaus Fiedler (New 

Discourse and Knowledge: 

A Sociocognitive Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 139–167. 

9 See Margaret Archer, “Social Integration and System Integration,” Sociology 30 (1996): 

679–699. 



180 


In times of intensified social or economic crisis, a weakening connection 

between social and system integration can become a dominant and topical 

political and, thus also media, subject. During the recent financial crises, for 

example, public controversies over refugee policies and European integration 

reached a fever pitch.10 Nevertheless, the “achievements and effects of integration” 

of the media are rarely mentioned in political discourse. Instead, 

politicians loudly express moralizing attitudes, as, for example, that “the” 

journalists and “the” media need to report on immigration and integration in 

appropriate, balanced, and objective ways. Journalists in general face the accusation 

of deliberately stirring up, and even creating prejudices against immigrants, 

and with this accusation comes the presumption that such reporting 

reinforces stereotypes among “the” society. 

Press, radio, television, and, increasingly, the Internet are considered to be 

both causes of and media for advancing social disintegration. What does research 

on this subject show? 

2. Media Representations of Immigrants: 

Structures and Types 

The issues in the public discourse and media coverage of Germany’s integration 

policies, which were introduced only 10 years ago, are equal treatment, 

equal opportunities and access to education and training, and a fair share of 

material and immaterial goods for immigrants. Empirical media analyses 

ascertain the topics and actors presented. Systematic media-content analyses 

reveal strongly negative media images of immigrants distorted by stereotypes. 

These images can reinforce the xenophobic attitudes of different social 

groups.11 

10 See Immanuel Wallerstein et al., Does Capitalism Have a Future? (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2013) and Claus Offe, Europe Entrapped (Cambridge: Polity Press, 

2015). 

11 See Georg Ruhrmann, “The Stranger: Minorities and Their Treatment in German Media,” 

in The Mission: Journalism, Ethics and the World, ed. Joseph B. Atkins (Ames: Iowa State 

University Press, 2002), 79–90; Daniel Geschke et al., “Effects of Linguistic Abstractness 

in the Mass Media: How Newspaper Articles Shape Readers’ Attitudes toward Migrants,” 

Journal of Media Psychology 22, no. 3 (2010): 99–104; Teun A. van Dijk, “The Role of the 

Press in the Reproduction of Racism,” in Migrations: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, eds. 

Michi Messer, Renee Schroeder, and Ruth Wodak (Vienna: Springer, 2012), 15–29; and 

Cole, “Racism. A Critical Analysis”, 50–67. 




Structures and Types of Television News Reporting 

on Immigration 

Since systematic television studies are complex and time-consuming, especially 

if they seek to illuminate the conditions of production of ethnically relevant 

content, there are only a few studies of the presentation of immigrants 

on television news.12 These show that worldwide reporting on immigrants is 

especially frequent when the subject is crime. Television news reports shed 

light solely on isolated aspects of disintegration, e.g., juvenile crime, violence 

against women, and fundamentalist activities, and these give the impression 

that certain groups simply cannot be integrated.13 

Since the early 1980s, the frequency with which German media mention 

certain nationalities has correlated with the negativity of their assessment. 

Turkish actors, and, increasingly, those labeled “Muslim,”14 are both overrepresented 

in the media and disproportionately shown in connection with 

escalating controversies, conflicts, and violence.15 

Journalists orient themselves, with an eye toward the economic and political 

elite, around the mainstream media. On this basis, one can distinguish different 

typical criteria of story selection and types of coverage. The factors of negativity, 

controversy, aggression, and damage appear relatively often in news reporting.16 

As for the factors of influence and prominence, journalists have for decades 

presented images of “foreigners” and people with im migrant backgrounds 

who both lack influence. More frequently, journalists describe such people as 

objects, that is, as the passive recipients of the effects of events, not as communicative 

or political agents of them. For example, immigrants are interviewed 

as objects and their reactions to events are predicted and evaluated as those of 

objects. In general, one can observe in television news a greater frequency of reporting 

on politically passive immigrants than on the politically active. Certain 

12 See Debra M. Clarke, Journalism and Political Exclusion: Social Conditions of News 

Production and Reception (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014). 

13 See Rodney Benson, Shaping Immigration News: A French-American Comparison (Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press, 2013). 

14 On the shift in discourse on immigration policies, in the course of which guest workers 

and later Turks increasingly became Muslims, see Riem Spielhaus, “Religion und Identität. 

Vom deutschen Versuch, ‘Ausländer’ zu ‘Muslimen’ zu machen,” Internationale 

Politik (March 2006): 28–36 and Yasemin Shooman, “… weil ihre Kultur so ist.” Narrative 

des antimuslimischen Rassismus (Bielefeld: transcript, 2014), 37–40. 

15 See Georg Ruhrmann and Denise Sommer, “Migranten in den Medien – von der Ignoranz 

zum Kontakt?,” Zeitschrift für Ausländerrecht und Ausländerpolitik 25, no. 3–4 (2005): 

123–127. 

16 See Denise Sommer and Georg Ruhrmann, “Oughts and Ideals: Framing People with Migration 

Background in TV conflict and communication online 9, no. 2 (2010): 1–15. 

http://www.cco.regener-online.de/2010_2/pdf/sommer_ruhrmann.pdf. 



182 


kinds of key events, such as xenophobic attacks, change the interpretive framework 

of news coverage, which can take thematic, episodic, or other forms.17 

Episodic frames depict concrete individuals and single actions and describe 

conflicts in terms of acts of violence. The journalistic construction of episodic 

frames needs telling images and film sequences, which, consequently, are produced 

or acquired under maximum competition and time pressure. 

Thematic frames present immigration more abstractly, though they do explain 

the causes of economic and social developments and discuss the political 

consequences of decisions. Thus, thematic framing does not reduce immigration 

conflicts to aggressive behavior illustrated with spectacular images 

of violence. Instead, it presents them as the results of the unresolved (or unresolvable) 

opposition of economic, political, and social interests and interprets 

them accordingly. In both the United States and Germany, episodic 

frames predominate in television news coverage: approximately 80 percent 

of TV news stories are episodic, and only 20 percent are thematically 

framed.18 

As experiments have shown, different forms of framing lead audiences to 

make different judgments about immigration and integration. Viewers of thematically 

framed news stories expect complex conditions as a basis for political 

decisions and assign responsibility to collectively organized agents. Viewers 

of episodically framed reporting, however, tend toward simple causal 

explanations and attributions of responsibility to individuals.19 

Analyzing television news coverage of immigration and disintegration in 

terms of a number of formal and content characteristics and then classifying 

individual stories for cluster analysis reveals various types of news sto 

ries (fig. 1). 

The types can be arrayed on a two-dimensional coordinate system. Along 

the y-axis, TV news stories are arranged according to the aggressiveness of the 

behavior of the immigrants they portray. Along the x-axis, stories run from 

lesser to greater newsworthiness. The position (rank) and duration of a message, 

as revealed by content analysis, determines newsworthiness.20 

Type 1 news coverage focuses largely on crime and portrays immigrants 

sensationalistically. Private, commercial television stations in Germany favor 

this episodically framed type of news coverage. Type 2 stories, which occur 

17 See Shanto Iyengar, “Framing Responsibility for Political Issues,” Annals of the American 

Academy of Political and Social Science 546 (1996): 59–70. 

18 See Sommer and Ruhrmann, “Oughts and Ideals,” 1–15. 

19 See Denise Sommer, “Framing und Kontaktinformation in der Rezeption,” in Georg 

Ruhrmann et al., Medienrezeption in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft. Eine vergleichende 

Studie zur Wirkung von TV-Nachrichten (Mainz: MASGFF, 2007), 70–72 and Van Dijk, 

Discourse and Knowledge, 143–145. 

20 See Sommer and Ruhrmann, “Oughts and Ideals,” 8–9. 




Dimension 1: Aggression (y-axis) 

Type 1 

“Crime” 

Type 4 

“Terrorism Risk” 

Type 3 

“Cultural Proximity” 

Type 2 

“Integration Policy” 

Dimension 2: Newsworthiness (x-axis) 

Fig. 1: Types of German TV News Reporting on Immigration. 

(Based on Sommer and Ruhrmann, “Oughts and Ideals”) 

more seldom, cover the political background of immigration and integration 

policies. This thematically framed coverage explains the events and developments 

it describes. Relatively frequent Type 3 stories cover the extent of cultural 

similarity between the host society and the immigrant groups or individuals 

portrayed. Type 3 stories are episodically framed news-in-brief and 

tend to be about nonpolitical events of low newsworthiness (as measured 

along the x-axis) involving less conflict or aggression (as measured along 

the y-axis), for example, a story on the successes of Turkish businessmen in 

Germany. Type 4 stories report on the “terrorism risk” that a journalist associates 

with the events covered. Sensationalized type 4 stories (with high 

x-values) personalize the terroristic behavior (with high y-values) they attributed 

to immigrants.21 

21 Ibid. See also Georg Ruhrmann, “Schwankendes Terrain. Die Risiken der Risikoberichterstattung” 

in Organisierte Phantasie. Medienwelten im 21. Jahrhundert – 30 Positionen, 

eds. Jochen Hörisch and Uwe Kammann (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, Grimme Institut), 

84–91. Some journalists individualize the current terrorism: “The terrorists have struck 

in Paris, products are of our societies” and “foreigners inevitably form the most loyal, 

docile troop of IS,” Der Spiegel, no. 49 (2015), 14, 19. 



184 


In sum, these four types of television news coverage of people with immigrant 

backgrounds constitute different journalistic strategies for representing 

integrative and disintegrative aspects of immigration. At the same time, 

they depict different long-term, social and political patterns of discourse in 

Germany. Since they deal with the subjects of immigration, integration, and 

disintegration in very different ways, one cannot speak of the journalists or 

the news media. 

On the Role of Contact Shown in the Media 

(Parasocial Contact Hypothesis) 

For some time, social psychologists have discussed the role that contact between 

minorities and majorities plays in integration. Studies in communications 

and social psychology have shown that the media’s reporting can create 

a type of media or virtual contact, whose impact is similar to that of real, 

interpersonal contact.22 This finding is significant for rural regions where, 

studies of central and eastern Germany show, immigrants and native-born 

Germans have less real contact with one another.23 As with other findings of 

social scientific research, however, participants in the current political debate 

are only beginning to take it into account. (I’ll take this up in part 4.) 

Contact can decrease prejudice when members of the different groups in 

contact have approximately equal status and cooperate in their pursuit of 

common goals.24 The content and quantity of television that a person watches 

influences how the person evaluates natives and immigrants. When tele vision 

portrays immigrants in contact with members of the host society, viewers 

tend to assess them more positively. The same is true for television news: when 

it explicitly shows contact25 between natives and immigrants, viewers sometimes 

evaluate the immigrants portrayed more positively than when no contact 

is shown.26 Reporting that depicts such contact also includes significantly 

less violence than reporting that does not. 

22 See Edward Schiappa, Peter B. Gregg, and Dean E. Hewes, “The Parasocial Contact Hy- 

Communication Monographs 72, no. 1 (2005): 92–115. 

23 See Ulrich Wagner et al., “Ethnic Prejudice in East and West Germany,” Group Processes 

& Intergroup Relations 6, no. 1 (2003): 22–36. 

24 See Schiappa et al., “The Parasocial Contact Hypothesis.” 

25 See Gordon W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (New York: Perseus Book, 1954), 262–281; 

see also Thomas F. Pettigrew and Linda R. Tropp, “A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup 

Contact Theory,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90, no. 5 (2006): 751–783. 

26 See Sommer, “Framing und Kontaktinformation” and Gunnar Lenner, Meta-Analytic 

Evaluations of Interventions to Improve Ethnic Attitudes (Marburg: Philipps-Universität 

Marburg, 2011). 




This phenomenon, especially as it occurs on the Internet, calls for further 

research if we are to understand it sufficiently to be able to use it to shape and 

change perceptions of immigrants. The processes of technologizing and commercializing 

social connections and their effects also need further research. 

Social psychology and communication studies address themselves more and 

more to questions of personal identity, interpersonal relationships, and how 

in- and out-group status is communicated.27 

3. Between Science, Policy Advice, 

and Journalism in Germany 

In this section, I discuss the extent to which policy advice considering immigration 

takes into account the role of the media in dealing with the results of 

basic social science research. In an excursus, I introduce some of the forms 

and criteria of social scientific research. I then discuss how the news both covers 

and ignores them. 

Science and the Role of the Media 

Studies of disintegration, xenophobia, and right-wing extremism often consider 

the role of the media but usually only take very general statements about 

media content and its impact into account. They seldom consider the findings 

of systematic observations and surveys of journalists, qualitative or quantitative 

content analyses, or experiments on viewers employing subtly discriminatory 

images and texts. 

The results of discourse-analytical research on disintegration and discrimination 

in a larger, more complex context have hardly any influence on political 

decision-making. Policy advisers mostly ignore the causes of structural 

economic and social inequality. The dynamics and distributions of power are 

general not analyzed, but at most interpreted in a moralizing manner. Only 

informed political elites show an interest in their effects and consequences. 

More and more, public relations replaces political discussion, and, consequently, 

politicians prefer the results of applied research conducted on behalf 

of the PR agendas they aim at particular target groups. In the wake of 

27 See José van Dijck, The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media (New 

York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 3–5, 68–70 and Howard Gardner and Katie Davis, 

The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination 

in a Digital World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 45–67. 



186 


xenophobic attacks, civil society organizes candlelight vigils and marches, 

and corresponding pictures are broadcast around the world on television. 

But, a serious political discussion of integration and disintegration is only just 

beginning. 

The media do not systematically process and disseminate the results of 

social science research and trans-national and cross-cultural comparative 

studies that are relevant to immigration policy. When they do, they do not reliably 

disclose the information that ensures that common criteria for the objectivity 

of research have been satisfied, things like the research’s sponsors, 

its investigators’ financial relationships with them, and the contractors it employs. 

And they often only vaguely describe the objectives of studies or the hypotheses 

being tested. For these and other reasons, the public, and often the 

politicians themselves, knows little about the implementation of scientific results 

in political decisions. Relevant questions that remain unasked include: Is 

this an applied study or basic academic research? How are data collected and 

surveys given? Are methods chosen on the basis of theory and, if so, what is 

the basis? Are samples representative? 

Politicians and policy advisers are frequently not interested in the methodology 

of social scientific research on the integration of immigrants and 

minorities or its lack. However, it is important that they become interested 

if scientific research is to be instrumentalized as a basis for political 

decisions.28 

Excursus: Evidence and the Quality of Scientific Studies 

Although the role of research in evidence-based political decision-making has 

been studied for more than 20 years, German decision-makers are only now 

beginning to appreciate the importance of at least international research.29 In 

the current debate over immigration and integration, however, its findings 

28 Roger A. Pielke, Jr., “Lessons from 50 Years of Science Advice to the US President,” in 

Wissenschaftliche Politikberatung im Praxistest, eds. Peter Weingart and Gert G. Wagner 

(Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2015), 51–66. For a critical social-theory perspective, 

see Colin Crouch, The Knowledge Corrupters: Hidden Consequences of the Financial 

Takeover of Public Life (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015). 

29 See Nancy Cartwright and Jeremy Hardie, Evidence-based Policy: A Practical Guide To 

Do It Better (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); John D. Brewer, The Public Value 

of the Social Sciences: An Interpretative Essay (London: Bloomsbury, 2013); and Simon 

Bastow, Patrick Dunleavy, and Jane Tinkler, The Impact of the Social Sciences: How Academics 

and Their Research Make a Difference (Los Angeles and London: Sage, 2014); 

see also Credible and Actionable Evidence: The Foundation for Rigorous and Influential 

Evaluations, eds. Stewart L. Donaldson, Christina A. Christie, and Melvin M. Mark (Los 

Angeles and London: Sage, 2015). 




quickly fade into the background. Instead, “scientific court purveyors”30 summarize 

the results of complicated social science research (and sometimes its 

methodology) in ways that political ministers, department heads, and undersecretaries 

can understand.31 Politicians and policymakers rarely consider the 

scientific evidence or the criteria for the quality of research. 

Research quality is ranked hierarchically, and a study’s place in the hierarchy 

is taken to determine the validity of research methodology and the reliability 

of its findings.32 At the top are studies that have undergone systematic 

peer review, in which reviewers evaluate a study’s design, investigators’ understanding 

of the relevant scientific literature, the quality of the resulting data, 

the appropriateness of the statistical analyses, and the validity of the conclusions 

drawn. At the next level come diligent reviews of scientific literature and 

meta-analyses of empirical studies. Such reviews are common in medicine 

and academic psychology.33 Next come cohort studies, which can be based on 

longitudinal studies. Next are surveys and descriptive studies, which are considered 

less probative. Finally, single-case studies and informal expert opinions 

are considered to be the least authoritative from a scientific point of view. 

It is important to realize that a study’s place in the hierarchy of scientific 

evidence is not the same as its degree of scientific (or political) relevance. 

Qualitative investigations; single, pilot, and case studies; and influential essays 

can stimulate continued research and political discussion and controversy. 

This has been increasingly the case in recent years for both substantial 

immigration research and research summaries and essays on immigration.34 

Journalists use the latter to find orientation, which accentuates their political 

significance and effect on the public discussion. This raises the question of 

how journalists deal with conflicting or controversial evidence. 

30 Mirella Schütz-Ierace, Von geheimen Politikmachern und wissenschaftlichen Hoflieferanten. 

Wissenschaftliches Wissen in der Politikberichterstattung (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2010). 

31 For a critical, systematic, and more fundamental discussion, see Martina Franzen, Peter 

Weingart, and Simone Rödder, “Exploring the Impact of Science Communication on Scientific 

Knowledge Production: An Introduction,” in The Sciences’ Media Connection – 

Public Communication and its Repercussions, eds. Simone Rödder, Martina Franzen, and 

Peter Weingart (Dordrecht: Springer, 2012), 3–16. 

32 Systematic Review and Meta- 

Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 

33 See Wagner et al., “Ethnic Prejudice”; Schiappa, Gregg, and Hewes, “The Parasocial 

Contact Hypothesis”; and Andreas Beelmann, “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen systematischer 

Evidenzakkumulation durch Forschungssynthese in der Bildungsforschung,” in 

Von der Forschung zur evidenzbasierten Entscheidung. Die Darstellung und das öffent liche 

Verständnis empirischer Bildungsforschung, eds. Rainer Bromme and Manfred Prenzel 

(Wiesbaden: Springer/VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2014), 55–78. 

34 See Collier, Exodus; Schellenberg, “Developments”; and Klaus J. Bade, Gewalt und Kritik: 

Sarrazin-Debatte, “Islamkritik” und Terror in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft (Schwalbach: 

Wochenschau Verlag, 2013). 



188 


Scientific Evidence and Distorted News Coverage 

Journalists increasingly report on scientific studies of immigration and integration. 

At the same time, however, the scientists who conduct those studies 

notice that media coverage is often summary and frequently focuses on isolated 

or sensational findings taken out of their context. Critical studies also 

show that the media sometimes present the complex findings of social science 

research in distorted or incomplete ways and, in particular, fail to consider the 

addressed epistemological dimensions.35 Journalists often are not interested 

in theoretical and methodological advances or are they sensitive to the fragility 

of new evidence based on these findings. Instead, they select for coverage 

isolated aspects or single cases that are spectacular or especially relevant to 

the public’s interests. These can then easily be used in immigration-policy 

controversies as alleged proof of politically motivated positions. Journalists 

justify their selections in terms of their obligation to inform the public or the 

legitimacy of following up on the earlier reporting of their colleagues, who report 

on scientific research in a similar manner. Figure 2 illustrates how this 

happens. 

Scientific studies from all levels of the evidence hierarchy are subject to 

common journalistic selection criteria and strategies. These include gatekeeping, 

news factors, news frames, and news biases. Coverage depends, in the 

first place, on the feasibility of a study’s subject matter as a story, which in 

cludes the quick availability of images and text and the study’s fit into established 

journalistic forms. For example, journalists seek objectivity and balance 

in the form of points and counterpoints. A study’s evaluation of practical 

opportunities and risks are also relevant. (See fig. 2.)36 But, journalists do not 

then simply describe actual studies. Instead, they select interesting aspects 

and details in accord with sound journalistic practice. (See the top of fig. 2.) 

Journalistic selection criteria include a study’s innovativeness, its political and 

social relevance, its problems and risks for the population that it addresses, 

and the social or economic benefit of its results. 

The immigration-policy debate in Germany offers several examples of 

these in the forms of appeals, manifestos, and disputes among experts. These 

35 See Martyn Hammerley, Media Bias in Reporting Social Research? The Case of Reviewing 

Ethnic Inequalities in Education (New York: Routledge, 2006), 135–155 and Sharon 

Dunwoody, “Journalistic Practice and Coverage of the Behavioral and Social Science,” 

in Handbook on Communicating and Disseminating Behavioral Science, eds. Melissa 

L. Welch-Ross and Lauren G. Fasig (Los Angeles and London: Sage, 2007), 57–72. 

36 Georg Ruhrmann and Lars Guenther, “Risk communication,” in Oxford Bibliographies 

(Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); http://www.oxfordbibliographies. 

com/view/document/obo-9780199756841/obo-9780199756841–0156.xml (accessed 21 July 

2015). 




Science 

Studies 

Selection of Studies 

Journalism 

News Reporting 

1) Deskriptive 

Studies, 

»narrative 

summaries« 

2) Empirical 

Research 

3) Meta- 

Analyses 

4) Systematic 

Review (Discussion 

of scientific 

evidence) 

Topicality 

Relevance 

Subject 

Benefit 

Risk 

Feasibility 

Context 

Corresponding Actors 

Ad 1) Media 

Companies, 

Political Parties, 

Policy Consulting 

Ad 3) 

Foundations, 

Researchers 

(Basic Research) 

Ad 2) Foundations, 

Research- 

Researchers 

Ad 4) Academic 

ers (Applied (Basic Research) 

Research) 

Selection of Actors 

Status 

Influence 

Standing 

Prominence 

Success 

Objectivity 

Balance 

Fig. 2: Selection Criteria for Coverage of Scientific Studies. 

are what prompt journalistic attention and subsequent news coverage. Journalists 

present conflicting scientific evidence, which is expected and normal, 

as evidence of controversy. Such coverage almost always ignores the studies’ 

scientific background and the quality of their designs and results, i. e., their 

contexts of discovery and justification. At most, journalists attend to epistemological 

issue by questioning the objectivity of researchers and sponsors 

and the representativeness of the sampling that researchers report. Currently, 

daily reporting in Germany does not cover meta-analyses, or even international 

systematic reviews, on the subjects of immigration and integration. 

How the news portrays scientists in its coverage of immigration and integration 

is also relevant. It is not only politicians and their parties who speak 

up in immigration debates; but media companies and publishers also participate 

directly. (See below.) Foundations that collaborate with government 

ministries can expect journalistic attention if they have a copy of the report 

from the most recent study and, perhaps, the results from a counter study 

(See the bottom left of fig. 2.) The public isn’t interested in scientists or foundations 

whose researchers investigate subjects outside of the current political 

agenda. The same is true for basic social science research, which journalists 

hardly ever cover. Journalists decide to cover scientists on the basis of their 

prominence. It is their professional status that determines their journalistic 

relevance and, thus, their success at disseminating their interests through 

the mass media. 



190 


4. Summary and Future Prospects: Discussion Themes 

These considerations can be summarized into the following themes for further 

discussion. 

– The politically based and scientifically informed discussion of integration, 

which began only about ten years ago, is now in full swing. At the same 

time, right-wing populist contributions to the debate, which are motivated 

by racism, are gaining popular approval. 

– The analysis of the complex processes of immigration, integration, and disintegration 

remain the pursuit of social scientists and receive almost no 

public attention. 

– Politicians’ use of the results of applied social-science research is ad hoc 

and motivated by their view that integration is the responsibility of individuals. 

The time lag between scientific knowledge and its influence on 

political decision-making is about 20 years in Germany. It is no longer politics 

but, increasingly, the economy that drives the discussion of immigration 

policy. 

– For decades, the German media have marginalized the subjects of asylum, 

refugees, immigration, and immigrants’ prospects for integration. For decades, 

from the 1960s to the 1990s, news reporting has been about immigrants, 

but they have not spoken out actively. Immigrants do not make 

assessments, but (usually negative) assessments are made of them. Immigrants 

do not make demands, but demands are made on them. 

– It is now a crucial fact for European societies that immigrants are increasingly 

taking on leading economic, political, journalistic, and scientific 

posi tions. Corresponding political demands have long been voiced in the 

economy, politics, science, and cultural system. 

– Systematic empirical analyses of the media coverage of immigration and 

integration reveal four consistent themes: integration policies, cultural 

proximity, crime, and the risk of terrorism. 

– The role of the media’s depiction of contact between immigrants and natives 

is only starting to be examined systematically. The Internet and its 

social media can play a critical role in furthering integration. Research into 

new options for interaction and participation is needed.37 

– The media’s coverage of scientific research on immigration and integration 

often distorts its findings. Systematic analyses of the communication 

37 Saskia Witteborn, “Constructing the Forced Migrant and the Politics of Space and Place- 

Making,” Journal of Communication 61, no. 6 (2011): 1142–1160 and Christian Fuchs, 

Social Media: A Critical Introduction (Los Angeles and London: Sage, 2012). 




of scientific understanding should explain how, and with what intentions, 

science, journalism, and politics interact. 

– Whether scientific understanding can be communicated sufficiently to give 

policy a scientific basis remains to be seen. Thus, the question arises: How 

can scientific research put politics within the scope of evidence-sensitive 

transfer projects? 

– In Germany, there is still a long way to go before social-scientific research 

becomes the basis of evidence-based decision making. Part of the problem 

is increasing specialization in the social sciences. 

– Increasing competition and time pressure force journalists, especially in 

the new audiovisual media and on the Internet, erroneously to present 

new and spectacular studies as illustrations of the state of scientific knowledge. 

Journalists do not usually report on conflicts in scientific evidence as 

normal and expected. Instead, they create and stage public controversies. 

They portray scientists as fighting among themselves. The background 

to research and the economic and political interests that motivate remain 

opaque to the public. 

Discussion of these themes can stimulate the communication of scientific understanding 

and help it to enter into the public discourse on immigration and 

integration. Business leaders, politicians, scientists, and journalists should not 

pit themselves against one another, as frequently happens in Germany. Instead, 

they can use their different expertises to stimulate each other’s thinking. 

Quality science journalism can promote this form of communication. It 

can help reverse the trend toward increasing disintegration in immigration 

societies and have a lasting effect on integration. 

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194 


Abstract 

Migration und Integration gelten zunehmend als relevante politische Themen – 

Rundfunk, Presse und Social Web berichten. Die Inhalte und Wirkungen dieser 

Berichterstattung wurden – ausgehend von internationalen Forschungsarbeiten 

– hierzulande erst in den letzten zehn Jahren verstärkt analysiert. 

Doch wie evident bzw. wissenschaftlich gesichert sind die Befunde? Und: 

Werden sie von der Politik(Beratung) rezipiert? 

Soziale Integration wird unterstützt, wenn Medien aktuell und hintergründig, 

wenn sie journalistisch berichten. Der Vortrag beschreibt, wie TV-Nachrichten 

das Thema Integration zeigen und teilweise auch erklären. Einige 

Rezipienten können die Meldungen über (Des-) Integration nicht nur emotional 

bewerten, sondern auch erinnern und verstehen. Abschließend wird diskutiert, 

welche Auswahl- und Gestaltungskriterien eines veränderten Journalismus 

relevant sind, wenn sozialwissenschaftliche Grundlagenforschung 

zum Thema Migration und Integration berücksichtigt werden soll. 

Since 1998, Prof. Dr. Georg Ruhrmann has been teaching Communication Science at 

Friedrich-Schiller-University, Jena, Germany. He studied sociology and biology in 

Marburg and in Bielefeld. Among other things, from 2002 to 2008 he managed projects 

in the German Research Foundation (DFG) researchers’ group “Discrimi nation 

and Tolerance in Intergroup Relations”. Since 2009, he has been researching as part 

of program 1409 of the German Research Foundation’s focus area “Wissenschaft 

und Öffentlichkeit” (Science and the Public). He is a member of the Kommission für 

Risikoforschung und -wahrnehmung (Committee for Risk Research and Risk Perception) 

of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and a member of the Council 

on Migration (Rat für Migration). New publication: Schwankendes Terrain. Die 

Risiken der Risikoberichterstattung. In: Jochen Hörisch and Uwe Kammann (eds.): 

. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink – Grimme 

Institut, 2014, S. 83–92. 




The Negative Effects of Mass Media 

Stereotypes of Latinos and Immigrants 

Introduction 

In 2015, nearly 55 million Latinos, about 18 % of the total population, call the 

United States home. The growth of the Latino population is forecast to continue 

dramatically such that by around 2042 the United States is expected to 

reach a historic milestone as the White, non-Hispanic population drops below 

50 % of the total. This growth is being matched by an equally dramatic dispersion 

over the last several decades of Latinos from traditional receiving states to 

smaller towns and cities around the country, particularly in the South and Midwest. 

Public reaction to this growing population has ranged from welcoming 

to discriminatory to outright violent. Absent federal comprehensive immigration 

reform, state and local elected officials have been crafting and passing immigration 

legislation, stoking sometimes virulent debates across the country.1 

Given the inevitable political, economic, and social challenges that accompany 

this massive demographic change, it is more important than ever to understand 

how Americans perceive Latinos and immigrants and what role the 

news and entertainment media play in shaping this collective public perception. 

If public opinion reflects the media’s pervasive stereotypes of Latinos 

and immigrants as law-breaking, permanent foreigners, it will severely hinder 

the United States’ ability to live up to its ideals of an inclusive, multiracial 

democracy. 

In this chapter, we leverage data from a national survey and an interactive 

online experiment to answer two key questions. First, which stereotypes 

about Latinos and immigrants do Americans hold? Second, does exposure to 

these stereotypes from popular media sources reinforce or attenuate them? 

We find convincing evidence that non-Latinos attribute both negative and 

positive stereotypes to Latinos and immigrants, that these stereotypes are 

not moderated by interpersonal contact with Latinos or immigrants, and that 

news and entertainment media can shape public opinion about Latinos and 

immigrants in a variety of ways. 

1 Andrea Christina Nill, “Latinos and S. B. 1070: Demonization, Dehumanization, and 

Disenfranchisement,” Harvard Latino Law Review 14 (2011): 35–66. 



196 


Latino-Threat Narrative 

At least since the beginning of the 20th century, Latino immigrants have been 

constructed by political and media elites as threatening to the nation.2 The 

creation of a new citizenship category in the 1920s — “illegal alien”3 — reframed 

immigration from Mexico as both undesirable and an affront to strong American 

traditions of law and order. These frames have not only persisted but have 

been applied, at least in popular discourse, to all Latino immigrants as well as 

their U. S.-born children.4 

These legal and political constructs are not just artifacts of American political 

history, but they have also heavily influenced the public and published 

debate over contemporary immigration policies at the local, state, and national 

level. California’s political battles over immigrants and immigration in 

the early 1990s are particularly illustrative. Flailing incumbent governor Pete 

Wilson built his 1994 re-election campaign around support for Proposition 

187, a punitive ballot measure that barred undocumented immigrants from a 

number of state services, including education and health care. Leveraging the 

stereotype of Latinos and immigrants as criminals, Wilson played to and exacerbated 

White voters’ fears of demographic change, catapulting himself into 

another four years in office.5 

Wilson’s loud embrace of anti-immigrant politics and rhetoric also thrust 

Latino and immigrant stereotypes into mainstream public discourse. Shortly 

after the Proposition 187 fight, California voters passed Proposition 209, ending 

the use of affirmative action, and Proposition 227, eliminating bilingual 

education from the state’s public school system.6 Together, the fights over 

these ballot initiatives legitimized caustic public discourse about Latinos and 

immigrants that would shape public opinion and set the tone for the immigration 

debates that were to follow. 

By the time Congress attempted an overdue overhaul of the federal immigration 

system in 2006, anti-Latino and anti-immigrant forces were well en- 

2 Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton, 

NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); Leo Chavez, Covering Immigration: Popular 

Images and the Politics of the Nation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001). 

3 In some portions of this chapter, we use the phrase “illegal alien” to refer to undocu mented 

immigrants. In order to test subjects’ responses to the language that is actually used in the 

news media, survey questions used “illegal” rather than “undocumented.” We recognize 

that the accepted terminology is “undocumented” and are not endorsing the use of “illegal.” 

4 Chavez, Covering Immigration. 

5 Daniel HoSang, Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California 

(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010). 

6 Otto Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public 

Discourse (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002). 



The Negative Effects 197 

trenched and armed with powerful frames to derail reform efforts. Both White 

supremacy groups and respected scholars warned of the reconquista of the 

Southwest.7 Groups of armed vigilantes organized to patrol the U. S.-Mexican 

border, newly designated a terrorist gateway in post-9/11 America.8 Loud cries 

of “No Amnesty” from the grassroots, energized partly through cable television 

and conservative talk radio, forced Republican U. S. Senators worried about 

primary challenges to distance themselves from any immigration legislation 

that included a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.9 With 

withering public support, loud opposition, and negative stereotypes firmly entrenched 

in both popular discourse and public opinion about Latinos and immigrants, 

the 2006 and 2007 immigration reform efforts both died in Congress. 

By now, it is common to see media coverage of Latino immigrants that 

is negative in tone, full of stereotypes, and highly sensational.10 A 2008 

Brookings Institute report on immigration coverage analyzed 70,737 stories 

from 48 media outlets across five different media types and concluded that 

coverage of Latinos and immigrants focuses almost exclusively on undocumented 

immigrants and immigration, lacks important context, and often 

frames immigration as a crisis.11 

These media frames matter. As Santa Ana (2002) points out, human thinking 

relies on images and metaphors. These images and metaphors are the 

mental building blocks with which humans make sense of their social world. 

Given that Americans are poorly informed about issues of immigration,12 

media and political elites can play a large role in constructing the metaphors by 

which Americans come to understand demographic change, immigration, and 

7 Southern Poverty Law Center, “American Border Patrol/American Patrol,” http://www. 

splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/american-border-patrol/americanpatrol, 

n.d.; Samuel Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National 

Identity (Simon and Schuster, 2005). 

8 Marc R. Rosenblum, “US Immigration Policy Since 9/11: Understanding the Stalemate 

Over Comprehensive Immigration Reform” (Migration Policy Institute, 2011), http:// 

www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/RMSG-post-9–11policy.pdf. 

9 Banu Akdenizli et al., “A Report on the Media and the Immigration Debate” (Brookings 

Institution Report, 2008). 

10 Marisa Abrajano and S. Singh, “Examining the Link Between Issue Attitudes and News 

Source: The Case of Latinos and Immigration Reform,” Political Behavior 31 (2009):1–30; 

Regina Branton and Johanna Dunaway, “English and Spanish-Language Media Cover 

age of Immigration: A Comparative Analysis,” Social Science Quarterly 89, no. 4 (2008): 

1006–22; Regina Branton and Johanna Dunaway, “Spatial Proximity to the U. S.-Mexican 

Border and Local News Coverage of Immigration Issues,” Political Research Quarterly 62, 

no. 2 (2009): 289–302. 

11 Akdenizli et al., “A Report on the Media.” 

12 John Sides and Jack Citrin, “How Large the Huddled Masses? The Causes and Consequences 

of Public Misperceptions about Immigrant Populations” (paper presented at the 

annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, 2007). 



198 


Latinos.13 These metaphors can also set the range, tenor, and content of the 

public policy proposed and passed by lawmakers at all levels of government.14 

While we now understand how Latinos and immigrants have been framed 

in popular discourse,15 few studies have explored the extent to which non- 

Latinos believe these stereotypes or the priming effects that these stereotypes 

might have on public opinion when seen in various forms of public media. 

We explore both in turn. 

The Data 

The data for this study come from two surveys, fielded by the independent 

consulting firm Latino Decisions in March of 2012, which were commissioned 

by the National Hispanic Media Coalition.16 17 The first is a national 

telephone survey of 900 non-Latinos from across the United States. The second 

is an interactive online experiment with 3,000 non-Latino respondents 

who were randomly assigned to receive different messaging about Latinos and 

immigrants from across four types of media — print media, radio, television 

news, and television and film entertainment — and then asked a number of 

questions about their views on Latinos, immigrants, and the media. 

Stereotypes of Latinos 

Before we examine the relationship between public opinion and media messages, 

we begin by establishing the extent to which respondents believe common 

stereotypes about Latinos. In the aggregate, we find that respondents 

13 Ted Brader, Nicholas Valentino, and Elizabeth Suhay, “What Triggers Public Opposition 

to Immigration? Anxiety, Group Cues, and Immigration Threat,” American Journal of 

Political Science 52 (2008): 959–78. 


15 Santa Ana 2002; Chavez 2001; Akdenizli et al. 2008. 

16 Latino Decisions, “The Impact of Media Stereotypes on Opinions and Attitudes towards 

Latinos” (study commissioned by The National Hispanic Media Coalition, 2012), http:// 

www.latinodecisions.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/RevisedNHMC.Aug2012.pdf. 

17 The authors wish to thank Alex Nogales, President and CEO of the National Hispanic 

Media Coalition, for his support of this study. The NHMC commissioned the original 

study which provided the data for this chapter in a report from September 2012 entitled 

“The impact of media stereotypes on opinion and attitudes towards Latinos.” 

Matt Barreto and Gary Segura, co-founders of Latino Decisions, also contributed to the 

NHMC report upon which we drew, and we thank them for their contributions. 




Family oriented 

Hardworking 

Religious/Churchgoing 

Honest 

Welfare recipients 

Less educated 

Refuse to learn English 

Too many children 

Take jobs from Americans 

Don’t keep up their homes 

Percentage who agree 

or somewhat agree 

Note: Bars indicate the percentage of respondents who agree or somewhat agree that each 

term describes Latinos. 

Fig. 1: Belief in Common Positive and Negative Stereotypes About Latinos 

Criminal 

Gardner 

Maid 

Police 

Dropout 

Doctor 

Teacher 

Judge 

46 

45 

42 

38 

56 

61 

64 

71 

0 20 40 60 80 

Percentage who see Latinos in 

stereotypical roles 

Note: Bars indicate the combined proportion of respondents who very often or sometimes recall 

seeing Hispanics or Latinos playing each role. 

Fig. 2: Latinos in Stereotypical TV and Film Roles 

tend to hold a number of negative and positive stereotypes about Latinos. Figure 

1 shows that while over three-quarters of respondents see Latinos as family 

oriented (90 %), hardworking (81 %), religious (81 %), and honest (76 %), 

either a plurality or a majority agree that terms like “welfare recipient” (51 %), 



200 


“less educated” (50 %), “refuse to learn English” (44 %), and “too many children” 

(40 %) also describe Latinos very well or somewhat well. A smaller proportion 

agrees that Latinos “take jobs from Americans” (37 %) and “don’t keep 

up their homes” (33 %). While a much larger percentage of our respondents 

believe positive stereotypes, a shocking number buy into negative stereotypes. 

In order to tie stereotypes to media depictions of Latinos, respondents were 

asked to think about films and television programs and to recall the roles they 

often saw Latinos play. As we see in Figure 2, the top three responses were 

criminal or gang member (71 %), gardener (64 %), and maid (61 %). Far fewer 

could recall seeing Latinos depicted in more positive or prestigious professions: 

doctor, nurse, educator, or lawyer. 

We know, however, that public opinion about Latinos is shaped by a number 

of personal demographic variables as well as contextual factors. Here we 

focus primarily on respondent familiarity with Latinos. 

Some scholars contend that contact with out-groups will, over time, promote 

acceptance of them.18 Were that the case, then the more familiar respondents 

were with Latinos, the less likely they would be to believe media stereotypes. To 

test this, we combined three variables into a familiarity index: whether the respondent 

has regular interactions with Latinos, is familiar with Latino culture, 

and personally knows Latinos. In all, about 44 % of the sample was very familiar 

with Latinos, 37 % was moderately familiar, and 19 % was slightly familiar. 

Looking first at how familiarity might moderate general favorability toward 

Latinos and immigrants, we asked respondents to use a feeling thermometer19 

to register their feelings about Latinos. We found a generally favorable 

attitude towards Latinos but one that was influenced by a respondent’s 

familiarity with members of the group. Latinos received an average score of 

59 (out of 100) from those who were slightly familiar, 67 from those who were 

moderately familiar, and 72 from those who were very familiar. 

Familiarity with Latinos had little impact, however, on belief in negative 

stereotypes. Figure 3 shows the percentage of respondents, for each level of familiarity, 

who agreed with any of the top four negative stereotypes about Latinos. 

We see that familiarity had no consistent moderating effect on belief in 

18 Gordon Allport, The Nature of Prejudice 

D. Voss, “Beyond Racial Threat: Failure of an Old Hypothesis in the New South,” The 

Journal of Politics 58, no. 4 (1996): 1156–70. But see V. O. Key, Southern Politics in State 

and Nation (New York: Knopf, 1949); Hubert Blalock, Toward a Theory of Minority- 

Group Relations (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1967); Benjamin Newman, “Acculturating 

Contexts and Anglo Opposition to Immigration in the United States,” American 

Journal of Political Science 57, no. 2 (2012): 374–90. 

19 A feeling thermometer is a scale from zero to 100 that allows a respondent to express 

feelings towards a person or group in terms of degrees. Zero, “cold,” indicated that the respondent 

does not like the person or group at all. 100, “warm,” indicates that they like the 

person or group a lot. 




Low familiarity 

Moderate familiarity 

High familiarity 

Percent who agree or 

somewhat agree 

38 41 39 

44 

36 37 48 

42 44 49 

49 49 

Too Many Kids Take Jobs 

Refuse to Learn 

English 

On Welfare 

Note: Bars indicate percentage of those who agree or somewhat agree that each stereotype describes 

Latinos for each level of familiarity on our familiarity scale. 

Fig. 3. Negative Stereotypes by Familiarity with Latinos 

negative stereotypes. More recent research on racial threat suggests that the 

impact of racial context on attitudes towards out-groups is moderated by levels 

of segregation20 and rate of growth conditioned on baseline size of outgroup 

population,21 contextual indicators that were not measured in the survey 

and therefore were not captured by our familiarity index. 

Finally, we looked at how respondents feel about undocumented immigrants. 

The survey tested the phrase “illegal aliens,” the dominant media 

frame of immigrants.22 We found, not surprisingly, that respondents had 

fairly negative attitudes about undocumented immigrants but that these attitudes 

were moderated by familiarity with Latinos. Those with low familiarity 

with Latinos had, on average, very cold feelings towards undocumented immigrants 

(average score of 28 out of 100) compared to those with moderate 

familiarity (36) and high familiarity (44). 

20 Rene Rocha and Rodolfo Espino, “Racial Threat, Residential Segregation, and the Policy 

Attitudes of Anglos,” Political Research Quarterly 62, no. 2 (2009): 415–26; Rene Rocha 

and Rodolfo Espino, “Segregation, Immigration, and Latino Participation in Ethnic Politics,” 

American Political Research 38, no. 4 (2010): 614–35. 

21 Benjamin Newman, “Acculturating Contexts and Anglo Opposition to Immigration in 

the United States,” American Journal of Political Science 57, no. 2 (2012): 374–90; Daniel 

J. Hopkins, “Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke Local 

Opposition,” American Political Science Review 104, no. 1 (2010): 40–60. 




202 


In sum, we see that individuals hold both positive and negative stereotypes 

of Latinos and that negative stereotypes often correspond with negative depictions 

on television and in film. We find that generally favorable attitudes 

toward Latinos and undocumented immigrants are moderated by familiarity 

but that negative stereotypes about Latinos persist regardless of respondents’ 

familiarity with Latinos and Latino culture, suggesting a potentially strong 

role for other sources, like media stereotypes, in shaping individuals’ attitudes. 

News Sources and Opinions about Latinos and Immigrants 

and information and how much they trust each form. We found that a large 

number (66 %) of respondents rely primarily on television for their news, 

whether that be national cable news (30 %), national network news (18 %), or 

local news (18 %). Only 12 % rely primarily on newspapers, 11 % on the Internet, 

and 7 % on radio. 

When asked how much they trust these news sources, respondents overwhelmingly 

reported that they trusted television news. 81 % of respondents 

trusted local news to be honest and accurate very often or somewhat often. 

73 % trusted national network news to be honest and accurate very often or 

somewhat often. A majority even trusted CNN (68 %), Fox News (58 %), and 

MSNBC (59 %) to be honest and accurate very often or somewhat often, suggesting 

even further that all forms of television news could have a powerful 

impact on attitudes about Latinos and immigrants. 

Returning to our feeling thermometers, we can assess the general attitudes 

towards immigrants of those respondents who indicate trust in different news 

sources. While we cannot assess causality, the trends are revealing. (See Figure 

4.) A large percentage of those who trust more liberal news sources, like 

MSNBC, or public news sources, like NPR and PBS, which tend to be consumed 

by those with more liberal worldviews, feel warmly towards Latinos. 

Those who listen to more conservative media, like Fox News and talk radio, 

tend to feel less warmly towards Latinos. 

Returning to our data on stereotypes, we can break down the percentage of 

respondents who agree with negative stereotypes in terms of their choices of 

news sources. As we see in Figure 5, those who watch Fox News are the most 

likely to agree with negative stereotypes about Latinos, followed by network 

news viewers, and then MSNBC viewers. The trend persists for all negative 

stereotypes. 

We can also examine those who listen to radio for their news and information. 

Comparing those who listen to conservative talk radio and NPR, we see a 




Warm Neutral Cold 

64 

61 

60 

60 

54 

56 

Percent 

31 

31 

33 

31 

38 

35 

5 

7 

7 

9 

8 

9 

NPR 

PBS 

MSNBC 

CNN 

Fox News 

Talk radio 

Note: Numbers indicate percentage of respondent who felt warm, neutral, or cold towards 

Latinos across different trusted news sources. 

Fig. 4. Attitudes Towards Latinos by Trusted News Sources 

Fox News 

Network News 

MSNBC 

56 



42 

39 37 

48 

48 

42 43 

28 

19 

49 

41 

On Welfare Refuse learn English 

Take jobs 

Too many kids 

Note: Numbers and bars indicate percentage of respondents who agree or somewhat agree 

with each stereotype for viewers of three different media sources. 

Fig. 5. Latino Stereotypes by News Sources 



204 


Talk radio 

NPR 



On Welfare 

Take jobs 

Refuse learn English 

Too many kids 

Note: Numbers and bars indicate the percentage of talk radio and NPR listeners who agree or 

somewhat agree with each stereotype. 

Fig. 6. Belief in Latino Stereotypes by Radio Audience 

large divergence in belief in negative Latino stereotypes. (See Figure 6.) Conservative 

talk radio listeners are 22 percentage points more likely to believe 

that Latinos take jobs from natives, 16 percentage points more likely to think 

that Latinos have too many kids, 7 percentage points more likely to think that 

Latinos are on welfare, and 6 percentage points more likely to think that Latinos 

refuse to learn English than their NPR listening counterparts. 

Similar to the patterns above, we also find differences in the attitudes towards 

undocumented immigrants of those who trust different news sources. 70 % of 

respondents who trust Fox News feel cold towards undocumented immigrants 

compared to just 46 % of those who trust NPR. See Figure 7 for the full details. 

In sum, we see that respondents rely primarily on television for their news 

and information and that they trust this news to be honest and accurate. Assessing 

feeling thermometer ratings toward Latinos and undocumented immigrants 

across different programs showed small but consistent patterns of 

more positive feelings for viewers who trust more liberal news or non- partisan 

news compared to those who trust more conservative sources, like Fox News 

or conservative talk radio. Returning to agreement with negative Latino stereotypes 

across various programs, the trends are starker. Those who watch 

Fox News are more likely to agree with negative stereotypes about Latinos 

MSNBC. Similarly, those who listen 

to conservative talk radio are more likely to agree with negative stereotypes 

about Latinos than those who listen to NPR. 




Warm 

Neutral 

Cold 

Percent 

NPR 

PBS MSNBC CNN Talk radio Fox News 

Note: Numbers indicate percentage of respondent who felt warm, neutral, or cold towards “Illegal 

Aliens” across different trusted news sources. 

Fig. 7: Trusted News Sources and Attitudes Towards Undocumented Immigrants 

While we cannot address issues of potential reverse causality with observational 

data, we are confident that strong relationships exist among viewing 

and trusting more conservative news sources, having colder feelings towards 

Latinos and undocumented immigrants, and agreeing more strongly with 

negative stereotypes. Other research, however, suggests that the relationship 

might be causal. As Akdenizli et al. (2008) point out, conservative voices on 

cable television and talk radio played a crucial role in framing the debate on 

comprehensive immigration reform, mobilizing grassroots opposition, and 

stymying the immigration reform debate in 2006 and 2007.23 

Priming Experiment 

While the previous survey found strong correlations between media consumption 

and attitudes towards Latinos, we were unable to measure directly 

the impact of the medium and the message. Given that respondents trust 

some media sources more than others, and that media elites use a variety of 

23 See also “Campaign for President Takes Center Stage in Coverage” (Pew Research Center, 

Journalism and Media, 2007), http://www.journalism.org/2007/08/20/campaign-forpresident-takes-center-stage-in-coverage/. 



206 


frames, metaphors, and stereotypes when talking about Latinos and immigrants, 

it is possible that some media and some messages have a stronger impact 

on respondents’ attitudes than others. Using data from an interactive online 

experiment, we were able to test different combinations. 

Participants in the experiment were randomly assigned to one of ten 

groups. The first two groups received either no stimulus or a placebo. The remaining 

respondents either watched a positive or a negative or movie clip 

(entertainment prime), watched a positive or a negative TV news story (TV 

news prime), listened to a positive or a negative radio clip (radio prime), or 

read a positive or a negative print article (print prime).24 Following the prime, 

respondents answered questions on their views about Latinos, immigrants, 

and the media. We focus on comparing those who received positive primes 

and negative primes below. 

Positive Stereotypes 

Looking first at media and positive stereotypes, respondents who were exposed 

to positive primes were more likely to agree that positive stereotypes 

applied to Latinos than those who were exposed to negative primes. The pattern 

held across the positive stereotypes. In Figure 8, we present the percentage 

point difference between those given the positive prime who agree with 

the stereotype and those given the negative prime who agree. We see that the 

primes have large effects on respondents’ perceptions of Latinos as honest, 

neighborly/welcoming, and patriotic. 

Negative Stereotypes 

We find that media-message primes have an equally large and consistent effect 

on beliefs in negative stereotypes. As Figure 9 shows, the negative prime effectively 

heightens beliefs in negative stereotypes across every media type for every 

stereotype. As with the positive stereotypes above, we see that television news 

has the strongest effect in priming attitudes about Latinos and immigrants followed 

by talk radio. We also notice that even non-authoritative popular entertainment 

has the power to color attitudes towards Latinos and immigrants. 

24 Because the NHMC/Latino Decisions study used actual media clips, the positive/negative 

treatments for each media type are somewhat different, not a simple manipulation of 

language or frame across each media type. Thus, we are comparing how subjects respond 

to real-world media clips, not laboratory-controlled experimental manipulations. What 

internal validity we lose from the lack of a perfectly controlled environment we gain back 

through the use of real-world stimuli. 




15 

Television News Print Movie/TV 

Radio 

Treatment 

Positive – Negative 

10 

5 

0 

Honest 

Neighborly 

PatrioticW 

Note: Bars indicate difference in percentage point agreement with each stereotype for respondents 

exposed to the positive prime and respondents exposed to the negative prime. 

Fig. 8. Treatment Effect of Positive and Negative Primes on Positive Stereotypes 

Television News Radio Print 

Movie/TV 

15 

Treatment 

Negative – Positive 

10 

5 

0 

Have too many 

children 

Use welfare 

Culture crime/gangs 

Takes jobs 

Note: Bars indicate difference in percentage point agreement with each stereotype for respondents 

exposed to the positive prime and respondents exposed to the negative prime. 

Fig. 9. Treatment Effect of Positive and Negative Primes on Negative Stereotypes 



208 


Television News Radio Print 

Movie/TV 

15 

14 

Treatment 

Negative – Positive 

10 

5 

6 

12 

0 

1 2 3 4 

2 

Note: Bars indicate difference between percentage who agree with each Latino stereotype 

for respondents exposed to the negative prime and percentage who agree for respondents 

exposed to the positive prime. 

Fig. 10. Association of Latinos with “Illegal Immigrants” across Experimental Conditions 

We also see, however, the power of positive primes to decrease belief in negative 

stereotypes about Latinos. Less than half of those in each positively 

primed group agreed with negative stereotypes. 

Finally, we tested how much respondents associated Latinos with undocumented 

immigrants across experimental conditions. Figure 10 shows that, 

regardless of positive priming, either a plurality or a majority of respondents 

still cling to the belief that most Latinos are “illegal” immigrants. The negative 

primes, particularly the TV news and entertainment treatments, had a 

sizable effect. It may be that the “illegal” narrative has been so deeply engrained 

in the popular discourse about Latino immigrants25 that it would 

take significantly more exposure to positive primes to disabuse respondents 

of this characterization of Latino immigrants. Our findings highlight the 

importance of positive depictions of Latinos and immigrants in the media, especially 

the press, in decreasing belief in negative stereotypes and increasing 

belief in positive stereotypes. 

While compelling, our experimental findings face a few limitations. In particular, 

we do not have the ability with these data to assess the duration of the 

priming effect. Research on campaign advertising has found that the persua- 

25 Leo Chavez, The Latino Threat: Construction Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation (Palo 

Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013). 




sive effects of advertisements decay quickly after exposure.26 Two important 

differences exist between these primes and campaign advertising, however. 

First, individuals tend to minimize cognitive dissonance by avoiding exposure 

to ideologically conflicting messages, constructing “echo chambers.”27 

Thus, we expect that respondents would tend to minimize their contact with 

conflicting stories and images of Latinos and immigrants. Second, as noted 

above, Latinos and immigrants in the United States have traditionally been 

portrayed negatively by political and media elites, limiting audience’s exposure 

to positive frames. Media, then, has helped to create and maintain the 

stereotypes through which Americans evaluate Latinos and immigrants. 

Conclusion 

This chapter highlights the role that stereotypes play in common perceptions 

of Latinos and immigrants and the role that the media play in crafting attitudes 

and opinions about the fastest growing segment of the population. More 

specifically, we have leveraged two unique datasets to examine public attitudes 

about Latinos and immigrants and the effect of media in shaping those 

attitudes. We found that respondents held a variety of contrasting positive 

and negative stereotypes about Latinos and immigrants and that their belief 

in these stereotypes, as well as their general attitudes towards Latinos, were 

correlated with their media choices. In particular, those who consume and 

trust conservative media are more likely to agree with negative stereotypes 

and hold less favorable views about Latinos and immigrants while those who 

consume and trust liberal media are slightly more likely to reject those negative 

stereotypes and hold more favorable views of Latinos and immigrants. 

While the observational data allowed us to establish correlations between 

media consumption and attitudes, we were unable to determine the causal 

effects of positive and negative primes on attitudes. Our experimental data, 

however, offered some insight into the power of positive and negative primes 

across a variety of media sources. In particular, we found that different forms 

of media can increase or decrease agreement with both positive and negative 

stereotypes about Latinos. In particular, authoritative sources, like television 

news, had the largest effects. 

26 Seth Hill, James Lo, John Zaller, and Lynn Vavreck, “How Quickly We Forget: The Duration 

of Persuasion Effects from Mass Communication,” Political Communication 30, 

no. 4 (2013): 521–47. 

27 Cass Sunstein, Republic.com 2.0. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007). 



210 


References 

Print Sources 

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News Source: The Case of Latinos and Immigration Reform.” Political Behavior 31 (2009): 

1–30. 

Akdenizli, Banu, E. J. Dionne, Jr., Martin Kaplan, Tom Rosenstiel, and Robert Suro. “A Report 

on the Media and the Immigration Debate.” Brookings Institution Report, 2008. 

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Sons, 1967. 

Brader, Ted, Nicholas Valentino, and Elizabeth Suhay. “What Triggers Public Opposition to 

Immigration? Anxiety, Group Cues, and Immigration Threat.” American Journal of Political 

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Branton, Regina, and Johanna Dunaway. “English and Spanish-Language Media Coverage of 

Immigration: A Comparative Analysis.” Social Science Quarterly. 89, no. 4 (2008): 1006–22. 

Branton, Regina, and Johanna Dunaway. “Spatial Proximity to the U. S.-Mexican Border and 

Local News Coverage of Immigration Issues.” Political Research Quarterly 62, no. 2 (2009): 

289–302. 

Chavez, Leo. Covering Immigration: Popular Images and the Politics of the Nation. Berkeley, 

CA: University of California Press, 2001. 

Chavez, Leo. The Latino Threat: Construction Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. Palo Alto, 

CA: Stanford University Press, 2013. 

Hill, Seth, James Lo, John Zaller, and Lynn Vavreck. “How Quickly We Forget: The Duration 

of Persuasion Effects from Mass Communication.” Political Communication 30, no. 4 

(2013): 521–47. 

Hopkins, Daniel J. “Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke 

Local Opposition.” American Political Science Review 104, no. 1 (2010): 40–60. 

HoSang, Daniel. Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California. 

Berkeley, : University of California Press, 2010. 

Huntington, Samuel. Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity. New York: 

Simon and Schuster, 2005. 

Key, V. O. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Knopf, 1949. 

Newman, Benjamin. “Acculturating Contexts and Anglo Opposition to Immigration in the 

United States.” American Journal of Political Science 57, no. 2 (2012): 374–90. 

Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 2005. 

Nill, Andrea Christina. “Latinos and S. B. 1070: Demonization, Dehumanization, and Disenfranchisement.” 

Harvard Latino Law Review 14 (2011): 35–66. 

Rocha, Rene, and Rodolfo Espino. “Racial Threat, Residential Segregation, and the Policy 

Attitudes of Anglos.” Political Research Quarterly 62, no. 2 (2009): 415–26. 

Rocha, Rene, and Rodolfo Espino. “Segregation, Immigration, and Latino Participation in 

Ethnic Politics.” American Political Research 38, no. 4 (2010): 614–35. 

Rosenblum, Marc R. “US Immigration Policy Since 9/11: Understanding the Stalemate 

Over Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” Migration Policy Institute, 2011. http://www. 

migrationpolicy.org/pubs/RMSG-post-9-11policy.pdf. 

Santa Ana, Otto. Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public 

Discourse. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. 




Sides, John, and Jack Citrin. “How Large the Huddled Masses? The Causes and Consequences 

of Public Misperceptions about Immigrant Populations.” Paper presented at the annual 

meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 2007. 

Sunstein, Cass. Republic.com 2.0. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. 

Voss, Stephen D. “Beyond Racial Threat: Failure of an Old Hypothesis in the New South.” The 

Journal of Politics 58, no. 4 (1996): 1156–70. 

Internet sources 

Latino Decisions. “The Impact of Media Stereotypes on Opinions and Attitudes towards Latinos.” 

Study commissioned by The National Hispanic Media Coalition, 2012. http://www. 

latinodecisions.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/RevisedNHMC.Aug2012.pdf. 

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Stage in Coverage.” Pew Research Center, 2007. http://www.journalism.org/2007/08/20/ 

campaign-for-president-takes-center-stage-in-coverage/. 

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/american-border-patrol/ 

american-patrol. 

Abstract 

Trotz der zunehmenden Bedeutung von Latinas und Latinos sowie Migrant*innen 

für das U. S.-amerikanische soziale, ökonomische und politische Leben 

sind diese nach wie vor mit Stereotypisierungen und Diskriminierung in der 

Gesellschaft und durch die Medien konfrontiert. Wenig ist jedoch darüber 

bekannt, mit welchen Stereotypen diese Gruppen sich am häufigsten auseinandersetzen 

müssen, oder darüber, ob die Medien diese Bilder eher verstärken 

oder abschwächen. Die Auswertung einer repräsentativen Telefonumfrage 

unter Nicht-Latinos in den USA zeigte, dass die Befragten auf eine 

große Bandbreite teils widersprüchlicher, positiver und negativer, Stereotypen 

zurückgriffen, und dass ihre Ansichten mit ihrer Medienwahl und -nutzung 

korrelierten. Vor diesem Hintergrund machen wir von einer experimentellen 

Online-Umfrage Gebrauch, um die Auswirkung verschiedener Arten 

medialer Botschaften auf die individuelle Haltung zu untersuchen. Die Daten 

zeigen klar, dass verschiedene mediale Botschaften den Glauben an negative 

Stereotype über Latinas und Latinos sowie Migrant*innen verstärken 

können. Unsere Ergebnisse heben die wichtige Rolle hervor, die Nachrichtenund 

Unterhaltungsmedien bei der Herausbildung von Haltungen gegenüber 

dem am schnellsten wachsenden Segment der U. S.-amerikanischen Bevölkerung 

spielen. 



212 


Tyler Reny is a Ph.D. student in the department of Political Science at University of 

- 

nority representation, campaigns, and public opinion. Specifically, his research examines 

how and why candidates use anti-immigrant or pro-immigrant campaign appeals 

when running for office, and how voters respond. He was formerly a research associate 

to the New Americans Leaders Project which helped recruit, train and promote 

more immigrants into public office and elected positions. 

Sylvia Manzano, Ph.D., is a Principal at the polling and research firm Latino Decisions, 

and was the lead researcher on the project “The Impact of Media Stereotypes on Opinions 

and Attitudes Towards Latinos” in partnership with the National Hispanic Media 

Coalition. Manzano holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Arizona 

and is a leading expert on Latino public opinion, electoral behavior and immigration 

policy reform. Manzano has published numerous academic journal articles and book 

chapters on Latino political and civic engagement and has been widely quoted in the 

press as an expert on Latino voting patterns. 



Media Use and Strategies 

for a More Inclusive Media Landscape 





Shion Kumai 

Paths to Greater Diversity in the Media 

Obstacles and Opportunities for Journalistic Practice in 

Reporting on Migration Themes 

“Whatever we know about our society, or indeed about the world in which 

we live, we know through the mass media.”1 This famous quote of the sociologist 

Niklas Luhmann implies that the mass media have a social responsibility 

to transmit knowledge. Human beings can collectively integrate into their 

worldviews only what the media publicize and thereby make accessible to 

everyone. The media are important sources of information because they describe 

events and convey those messages to a broad audience. Journalists, who 

choose subjects, select information, and contextualize events, thereby interpret 

events on the basis of common patterns. In other words, events are not 

meaningful in themselves but acquire meaning through the explanatory contexts 

that the media produce. 

In this way, the media shape public opinion and construct social reality. 

And they make a significant contribution to the way people conceive 

the world. This means that the media should be mirrors of society reflecting 

its diversity. However, a variety of studies have shown2 that the diversity 

of Germany as an immigrant society is not evident in its media’s current coverage 

or on their editorial staffs. The only exceptions are the editorial staffs 

of publishers and broadcasters based in large cities. What do these findings 

mean for journalistic practice? More generally, what interactions are there between 

theory and practice, and what impact can they have? 

1 Niklas Luhmann, The Reality of the Mass Media (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2000), 1. 

2 See, for example, Christoph Butterwegge, “Migrationsberichterstattung, Medienpädago gik 

und politische Bildung.” In Massenmedien, Migration und Integration, ed. Christoph 

Butterwegge and Gudrun Hentges (Wiesbaden: Springer-Verlag, 2006.) Rainer Geißler 

and Horst Pöttker, Massenmedien und die Integration ethnischer Minderheiten (Bielefeld: 

transcript Verlag, 2009); Siegfried Jäger, Medien und Straftaten: Vorschläge zur Vermeidung 

diskriminierender Berichterstattung über Einwanderer und Flüchtlinge (Duisburg: 

Ph. D. diss 1998); Joachim Trebbe, Ethnische Minderheiten, Massenmedien und Integra- 

(Wiesbaden: 

Springer VS, 2009); Kai Hafez, “Mediengesellschaft-Wissensgesellschaft?,” in Islamfeindlichkeit: 

Wenn die Grenzen der Kritik verschwimmen, ed. Thorsten Gerald Schneiders 

(Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2009). 



216 

Shion Kumai 

In November 2014, journalists working in different media discussed these 

questions on the panel “Strategies for an Inclusive Media Landscape,” which 

was part of the international conference “Media and Minorities: Questions on 

Representation from an International Perspective.” The conference was organized 

by the Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin in collaboration with 

the Rat für Migration [Council for Migration] and took place in Berlin on 

27–28 November 2014. In the first part of the discussion, “Agenda Setting as 

Regards Minority Issues,” Kübra Gümüşay and Jamie C. Schaerer introduced 

participants to their hash tag campaign #SchauHin (“don’t look away”), and 

Ekrem Şenol informed them about the online journal MiGAZIN. The second 

half, entitled “A Look at Editorial Teams: from Theory to Practice” and 

hosted by Ferda Ataman, featured the journalists Samantha Asumadu, René 

Aguigah, Daniel Bax, and Rainer Munz. 

Presenters provided participants a glimpse into media practice and the associated 

challenges that determine journalists’ actions. Furthermore, they 

discussed strategies, some of which organizations are already using, to promote 

inclusive reporting and an inclusive media landscape. The following 

summarizes the most important points of these discussions. 

Reporting Routines: 

Questioning Things We Normally Take for Granted 

Although journalists are obligated to report on social change accurately, and 

insightfully, they often fall into commonly heard, well-established patterns of 

representation when covering migration themes. Due to its linking of certain 

subjects, like crime and minorities, its repetitive use of stereotypical images, 

and the lack of minority representativeness in its treatment of non-minority 

issues, current reporting tends to distort, rather than accurately represent, reality. 

Rainer Munz, head of the Berlin studios of RTL/n-tv, described the problem 

as follows: “When was the last time we showed a Muslim woman wearing 

a headscarf in a report about intellectuals? I don’t think we ever have in 

any of our news programs. But we’re quick to use an image of a street scene 

in [the Berlin district] Neukölln showing women in headscarves when we’re 

looking for a photo to illustrate a story.” Sometimes time pressure in the editorial 

departments is to blame, he said. “On this point those of us on the editorial 

teams need to rethink our reporting routines!” 

Media reports disproportionately link people from immigrant backgrounds 

to negative issues. At the same time, such individuals are rarely the fo 

cus of reports that are not about migration. In this way, stereotypes emerge 

or are reinforced. Combinations of text and images establish connections 



Paths to Greater Diversity in the Media 217 

that are based on simplistic stereotypes and taken to be self-evident. It is a 

fairly common practice to illustrate stories about integration with images of 

women in headscarves, which draws attention to Muslims. In this connection, 

Daniel Bax, political editor of taz and a board member of the Neue deutsche 

Medienmacher, a group of journalists committed to greater diversity in the 

media, explained the importance of news value: “It has to be something unusual. 

Most media outlets focus on negative events — violence, conflicts, war. 

These are the topics they find interesting. In most cases, unspectacular everyday 

lives are unimportant. These are the daily media mechanisms we’re dealing 

with.” 

However, as René Aguigah, head of the Culture and Society Department 

at Deutschlandradio Kultur, argued, people from immigrant backgrounds 

should not be reduced to one aspect of their perceived or real identities. It is 

important for other narratives to be employed: “I think it would be desirable 

for many journalists and authors to come up with different stories.” Rainer 

Munz, for his part, cited a report on the minimum wage as an example of how 

the population’s diversity can be represented as a normal state of affairs. In 

this report, a person from an immigrant background was questioned about 

his attitudes and everyday working life without any mention of his family’s 

origins. People should be viewed not from the perspective of their differences 

but as members of society and as competent individuals. 

To this end, the Neue deutsche Medienmacher have developed an online 

data base of experts with migrant backgrounds who can be contacted for interviews 

on various topics. On their flier, they are quoted as saying, “We’re 

experts not on Islam, integration, or the green grocery trade, but on dike construction, 

the German language, and tenancy law.”3 

Careful Research, Nuanced Descriptions, Inclusive Language 

The discourse on migration, which is often emotionally charged, should become 

“more objective,” explains Ferda Ataman, head of Mediendienst Integration, 

an information platform for journalists. Facts and figures are important 

for informing people and supporting arguments, but it is also essential 

to understand these facts properly and to research their different contexts 

carefully. For this reason, Mediendienst Integration has compiled important 

information on topics such as immigration. On the basis of specific articles, 

it regularly points out where the problems in current media coverage lie. 

3 Vielfaltfinder [Diversity Finder], Neue deutsche Medienmacher, accessed 28 July 2015, 

https://www.vielfaltfinder.de/. 



218 

Shion Kumai 

In addition, with its fact checks, it performs a kind of control function, drawing 

attention to erroneous or missing research. 

In addition, language should be used sensitively in the coverage of migration 

issues. Nuanced descriptions are crucial here as in other fields. Neue 

deutsche Medienmacher has published a glossary of phrases for this purpose 

that contains not only definitions, alternative terms, and differentiated descriptions 

(all developed on the basis of journalistic practice) but also suggestions 

for how journalists’ work can thematically and linguistically reflect 

human diversity and, thus, counter the idea, and representations, of homogeneous 

groups. The nuanced use of language can contribute to a nuanced 

view of the world. 

For example, referring to a person’s origins is often unnecessary. Nevertheless, 

crime reporters often mention the actual or supposed origins of nonwhite 

Germans, even when this information is irrelevant to the crime. In this 

way, they repeat and reinforce the prejudice that foreigners are criminals. On 

the other hand, the ethnicity of the victims of crime often goes unmentioned. 

This results in facts being concealed, as was evident in the initial coverage of 

the murder of Marwa El-Sherbini in a Dresden courtroom.4 Several days 

passed before the perpetrator’s anti-Islamic motives were revealed. Only after 

voices on Internet blogs and forums were raised did the established media 

take notice. “The mass media’s perspective does not include the minority perspective,” 

says Daniel Bax. 

In the case of the racially motivated murders committed between 2000 and 

2006 by the National Socialist Underground (NSU), the media uncritically accepted 

the “findings” of the investigating authorities. Until 2011, the authorities 

presumed that the motive for the murders involved extortion or drugdealing. 

The expression “döner kebab murders,” coined and frequently used 

by journalists, confirmed this prejudicial presumption. It also subjected the 

victims to the worst sort of discrimination by reducing their humanity to a 

fast-food meal because of their origins. 

Such expressions show the dangers of stereotypical patterns of thought. 

They make clear that one-sided perspectives limit one’s view of problems. 

Even before the link to the NSU was uncovered, the Turkish-language media 

and the Turkish community voiced their suspicion that right-wing extremists 

had committed the murders. According to Daniel Bax, the degree to which 

racism is an issue for editorial teams depends on how “diverse the editorial 

staff is.” 

4 See Sabine Schiffer, “Zum medialen Umgang mit dem antiislamisch motivierten Mord 

an Marwa El-Sherbini in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz.” Institut für Medienverantwortung, 

15 December 2009. Accessed 20 July 2015. http://www.medienverant 

wortung.de/wpcontent/uploads/2009/12/20091215_Medien-MordAnMarwa.pdf. 




Greater Diversity in Media Production 

Although around 20 percent of Germany’s population has an immigrant 

background, studies show that currently only between 2 and 3 percent of media 

professionals are non-white Germans.5 In order to correct this imbalance, 

Neue deutsche Medienmacher offers a mentoring program for aspiring journalists 

from immigrant families to help them establish the contacts that are 

crucial in the field. A variety of media companies, with WDR leading the way, 

have also begun promoting such young professionals. As a result of WDR’s 

staff development program, 20 percent of new hires now have an immigrant 

background, and an integration officer is working at the broadcaster as well. 

RTL also has a program for young journalists from immigrant families. At 

Deutschlandradio Kultur, though, the staff is still not very “colorful.” Given 

the presence of only a few non-White interns, René Aguigah says that he feels 

“rather lonely there with his skin color.” 

But hiring people from immigrant backgrounds does not necessarily make 

content more diverse, especially since the point is not to limit their responsibilities 

to migration issues. The scholar Anamik Saha has examined the conditions 

of media production that lead to stereotypical representations and 

found that journalists from immigrant backgrounds often adapt to production 

cultures and thus reproduce stereotypes.6 This means that staff diversity 

is not enough; the production culture must also change. 

What Can Be Done and What is Being Done 

in the Mainstream Media? 

Editorial meetings can provide a framework for rethinking ways of representing 

diversity. For example, during editorial meetings at the taz, the staff began 

to consider the topic of gender equality and to examine sexist language and 

the representation of women in their articles. As a result, the taz became the 

first newspaper in Germany to introduce gender-inclusive language. Employment 

of this form of gender inclusivity is an active process that makes other 

- 

rately portraying reality through language. German has various gender-neutral 

5 “Journalisten mit Migrationshintergrund,” Medien in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft, 

accessed 20 July 2015, http://mediendienst-integration.de/integration/medien.html. 

6 Anamik Saha, “Wir brauchen andere Geschichten in den Medien,” accessed 20 July 2015, 

http://mediendienst-integration.de/artikel/anamik-saha-kommentar-ueber-medien-undvielfalt-in-grossbritannien.html. 



220 

Shion Kumai 

forms, such as the use of an asterisk, an underline, and the capital “I” within a 

word. Each of these forms does away with an exclusively male word and puts an 

inclusive word in its place. The asterisk and the underline include other genders 

besides the female. Thus, the various models of gender-sensitive language are 

quite different. According to Daniel Bax, journalists need to consider whether 

they merely want to reach readers or to educate them as well. In many cases, 

linguistic changes continue to meet with public resistance, which means that 

the media and society as a whole must continue to discuss this issue. 

But editorial conferences alone are not comprehensive enough to include 

discussion of all of the complex problems. It is crucial continually to offer 

workshops and training programs in which participants are taught to question 

what they have always taken for granted. René Aguigah points out that 

such programs already exist. His editorial department at Deutschlandradio 

Kultur recently held a series of workshops in which participants examined the 

vocabulary of war and discussed, for example, the controversial self-designation 

“Islamic State,” which the media inevitably spreads through its coverage. 

As regards the visibility of both staff and program diversity, private broadcasters 

are one step ahead of their public counterparts. For example, on TV 

shows such as The Voice of Germany on Pro7 and Sat1, people from immigrant 

backgrounds are among the participants and winning contestants, and 

the shows are thus able to address a broad TV audience. Presenters such as 

Aiman Abdallah, who hosts the educational program Galileo on Pro7, have 

long been part of the lineup. But public broadcasters have now also become 

much more aware of the issue of diversity and are beginning to rethink their 

approaches to it. 

Germany: A Special Case? 

The problems described above, which concern both the media’s systematic 

structure and the contents they produce, are also evident in other European 

countries, like Great Britain. When reading a variety of British newspapers, 

Samantha Asumadu, a documentary filmmaker and journalist who works for 

media outlets such as CNN, Deutsche Welle, and Agence France Presse, found 

that around 95 percent of all front-page articles were written by white journalists 

and did not present any minority perspective. The front page is the 

newspaper’s most important page because it catches the eye, presents all the 

topics in the issue, and has the task of arousing the potential buyer’s interest. 

The issues selected for the front page, the images displayed there, the advertising 

— almost everything — was determined by whites for the consumption 

of whites. A simple analysis of one daily paper revealed that non-whites were 




present in only four photos. Two portrayed internationally active American 

musicians and each of the other two showed someone selling curry on the 

street. Here, too, we find a lack of socially adequate representation and the 

use of clichés that reduce people to real or supposed aspects of their identity. 

Asumadu regards this practice as a serious problem, saying, “The media 

cannot reflect society if society is not reflected in the media.” In 2013, she responded 

by launching the successful social media campaign #AllWhiteFront- 

Pages on Twitter. Many of the people who joined the conversation explained 

that they had previously been unaware of the phenomenon. To continue to 

raise awareness, Asumadu founded the non-profit organization Media Diversified, 

an online platform that provides journalists of color an opportunity 

to publish their articles and contribute to the discourse. In March 2015, they 

launched their Experts Directory, a searchable database of professionals from 

diverse backgrounds and a variety of fields and all with experience in media 

settings.7 

Calling attention to issues and creating awareness 

via the Internet 

Similar platforms and campaigns in Germany are enabling people with an 

immigrant or a German background to make their voices heard via the Internet. 

“The debates on blackface, racial profiling, and everyday racism would 

probably not have been covered by the mainstream media if not for the initiatives 

that called attention to the topics,” explains Daniel Bax. “Agenda setting, 

which is traditionally the responsibility of the mainstream media, is in part 

being done on the Internet, and we are the ones who are benefiting. In this respect, 

it is worth looking at what is happening outside the mainstream media.” 

Agenda-setting theory in communication studies assumes that the media 

influence the formation of opinion by selecting the issues that are seen as relevant 

to society.8 Journalists serve as gatekeepers, communicating or ignoring 

information and, thus, regulating its flow. In this capacity, they determine 

whether, and how quickly, an issue enters the public’s awareness. However, minority 

members rarely assume the position of gatekeeper, which is why everyday 

issues affecting minorities are seldom covered in the mainstream media. 

7 Experts directory, Media Diversified, accessed 3 October 2015, http://directory.media 

diversified.org/. 

8 See Wolfgang Eichhorn, Agenda-Setting-Prozesse. Eine theoretische Analyse individueller 

und gesellschaftlicher Themenstrukturierung. 2nd edition. Munich: Verlag Reinhard 

Fischer, 2005. Accessed 4 August 2015. epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/734/1/AgendaSetting 

Prozesse.pdf. 



222 

Shion Kumai 

“That’s a problem that we’re also seeing at MiGAZIN. Many journalists — 

staff journalists — are approaching us because they can’t get their stories published 

in their own newspapers. The stories are “too specialized” or “not interesting 

enough.” The target audience of the mainstream media doesn’t have a 

migrant background,” says Ekrem Şenol, founder of MiGAZIN, an online 

magazine that has been reporting on migration and integration issues since 

2008. The magazine’s objective is “to address issues that rarely or never appear 

in the mainstream media or are distorted there.” The magazine enjoys great 

popularity and has even been cited by members of the German Bundestag. In 

2012, MiGAZIN received the Grimme Online Award9 for its work and, above 

all, its “high-quality texts.”10 Şenol’s personal incentive to pursue the project 

came from the “daily frustration, indignation, and anger” he felt when watching 

television news or reading the newspaper. “I often felt helpless because 

I couldn’t participate in the debate.” He decided that he would no longer be 

passive but finally take action. 

People from immigrant backgrounds are not the only readers of the magazine. 

As a recent survey showed, around 50 percent are of German origin. 

The editorial staff is also made up of professionals from various backgrounds. 

Their focus is on the individual. For example, authors on the platform are not 

only mentioned by name but also shown in photographs. They include female 

journalists in headscarves. “At first readers were surprised by the photos 

we showed. ‘Wow, she can speak German! And write it, too!’ At some point 

that stopped. At some point readers began thinking, ‘Wait a minute, it’s not 

an exception.’ In some ways, it’s just a matter of educating them,” says Ekrem 

Şenol. 

Social media provide another way to get around the gatekeepers of mainstream 

journalism and ensure that non-White topics gain visibility. In 2013, 

Kübra Gümüşay, a journalist, blogger, and Internet activist, and Jamie C. 

Schaerer, a political scientist and board member of the Initiative Schwarze 

Men schen in Deutschland [Initiative Black People in Germany] and the European 

Network Against Racism, launched the campaign #SchauHin on Twitter 

in order to draw attention to everyday experiences of racism. Their model was 

#Aufschrei (“outcry”), which focused on everyday sexism. Like sexism, everyday 

racism is an elusive phenomenon that cannot easily be quantified and, 

thus, is rarely discussed in public. As Gümüşay explains, “We wanted to talk 

about an everyday experience without reducing it to a single situation. After 

all, racism in daily life is topical and relevant every single day.” 

been presented annually since 2001 by the Grimme Institute. See http://www.grimmeinstitut.de/html/index.php?id=33. 

10 Grimme Online Award, recipients 2012, accessed 20 July 2015, http://www.grimmeinstitut.de/html/index.php?id=1430. 




Several thousand people soon shared their stories, and the hash tag remained 

on the trending topic11 list in Germany for three days — unusual for a 

social issue. According to Gümüşay, “as a result of being shared, these experiences 

were raised from the individual level to the societal level. The responsibility 

for dealing with racism no longer lay only with the people who 

experienced it on a daily basis, but with all of society.” The campaign thus 

made the racist structures in society visible to the public. Journalists were 

tagged and thus made aware of the topic’s relevance. In this way, the initiators 

succeeded in getting the mainstream media to cover an issue that is usually 

difficult to spotlight. Through the coverage, it became part of a public debate. 

However, the primary goal was to make people aware of racism in everyday 

life because extreme right-wing expressions of racism are not its only 

forms. Subtle manifestations are often not recognized or identified as racism, 

not even by the people who are targeted. The initiators also reported that 

the stories posted under #SchauHin made people who were not directly affected 

by everyday racism aware that they sometimes spoke in unconsciously 

racist ways themselves. 

The Limits of Online Social Media Campaigns 

Although use of the Internet to circumvent the gatekeepers of the press, radio, 

and television enables minorities to be seen and heard, it also gives other 

users access to the public. For example, the #SchauHin campaign was temporarily 

hijacked by users who spewed racist slogans or presented themselves 

as victims of reverse racism. Anti-Muslim racists, antisemites, and immigration 

opponents are also active in forums and blogs and network on social 

media platforms such as Facebook, which they use to disseminate racist and 

discriminatory content. In its reports, the Council of Europe has expressed 

concern about the increasing number of calls to violence and the hate speech 

directed against various groups on the Internet. The 2014 Annual Report of 

the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) confirms 

that there is growing sympathy for extreme right-wing groups.12 

Although racist movements meet with vocal opposition in the public, such 

problems point to the limits of the Internet. There is a need to create more 

awareness of right-wing racism, everyday racism, and marginalization in and 

11 Trending topics is a list on Twitter that identifies important topics on the basis of the 

12 See Annual Report on ECRI’s Activities, 7, accessed 20 July 2015, http://www.coe.int/t/ 

dghl/monitoring/ecri/activities/Annual_Reports/Annual%20report%202014.pdf. 



224 

Shion Kumai 

through the mainstream media. At the same time, it is important to question 

such social structures and provide information about them in all spheres of 

life, especially in the education system. 

Conclusion 

Samantha Asumadu provided an accurate summary of the most important 

paths leading to greater diversity. Newspapers need to pay greater attention 

to how they use language when reporting on people from immigrant backgrounds. 

They need to hire more women and individuals from immigrant 

families and appoint them to higher positions. Furthermore, there should be 

more roles in films and TV series for men and women with immigrant biographies 

that portray these members of society as active, independent individuals 

who develop and grow, rather than as static characters who are caught 

in stereotypes. At school, children need to be taught about race and gender 

from a broad sociological perspective and learn to question critically how minorities 

are viewed and discussed. Children as well as adults need to be better 

informed about the use of media so that they do not merely consume media 

content but are able to analyze it critically. 

The various initiatives and projects here mentioned have started an important 

discussion. They have shown ways to give people from immigrant backgrounds 

greater visibility in media productions as members of society. But 

there is still a long way to go before it becomes perfectly natural for all of the 

citizens of an immigration society to be addressed and portrayed in appropriate 

ways. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary not only to create awareness 

in the media industry but also to ensure that we have fertile soil in all of 

society for a critical discourse and a peaceful coexistence. 

References 

Print Sources 

Butterwegge, Christoph. “Migrationsberichterstattung, Medienpädagogik und politische Bildung.” 

In Massenmedien, Migration und Integration, edited by C. Butterwegge and G. Hentges, 

187–238. Wiesbaden: Springer-Verlag, 2006. 

Eichhorn, Wolfgang. Agenda-Setting-Prozesse, eine theoretische Analyse individueller und gesellschaftlicher 

Themenstrukturierung. 2nd edition. Munich: Verlag Reinhard Fischer, 2005. 

Accessed 4 August 2015. epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/734/1/AgendaSettingProzesse.pdf. 

Geißler, Rainer, and Horst Pöttker, eds. Massenmedien und die Integration ethnischer Minderheiten. 

Bielefeld: transcript, 2009. 




Hafez, Kai. “Mediengesellschaft-Wissensgesellschaft?” In Islamfeindlichkeit: Wenn die Grenzen 

der Kritik verschwimmen, edited by Thorsten Gerald Schneiders, 101–120. Wiesbaden: 

Springer-Verlag, 2009. 

Jäger, Siegfried. “Medien und Straftaten. Vorschläge zur Vermeidung diskriminierender Berichterstattung 

über Einwanderer und Flüchtlinge.” Ph.D. diss., University of Duisburg- 

Essen, 1998. 

Luhmann, Niklas. The Reality of the Mass Media. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2000. 

Schiffer, Sabine. “Zum medialen Umgang mit dem antiislamisch motivierten Mord an Marwa 

El-Sherbini in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz.” Institut für Medienverantwortung, 

15 December 2009. Accessed 20 July 2015. http://www.medienverantwortung.de/wpcontent/uploads/2009/12/20091215_Medien-MordAnMarwa.pdf. 

Trebbe, Joachim. Ethnische Minderheiten, Massenmedien und Integration: Eine Untersuchung 

massenmedialer Repräsentation und Medienwirkungen. Wiesbaden: Springer-Verlag, 2009. 


ECRI. “Annual Report on ECRI’s Activities.” Accessed 20 July 2015. http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/ 

monitoring/ecri/activities/Annual_Reports/Annual%20report%202014.pdf. 

Grimme Online Award. Accessed 29 July 2015. http://www.grimme-institut.de/html/index. 

php?id=33. 

Grimme Online Award. Recipients 2012. Accessed 20 July 2015. http://www.grimme-institut. 

de/html/index.php?id=1430. 

Media Diversified. Accessed 20 July 2015. http://mediadiversified.org/. 

Media Diversified. Experts directory. Accessed 3 October 2015. http://directory.mediadiver 

sified.org/. 

Mediendienst und Integration. “Journalisten mit Migrationshintergrund.” Accessed 20 July 

2015. http://mediendienst-integration.de/integration/medien.html. 

Medienkommission der Landesanstalt für Medien Nordrhein-Westfalen. “Wo die Medien sein 

sollten.” Accessed 20 July 2015. http://medienpolitik.eu/cms/media/pdf/MedienGesellschaft 

Medien5.pdf. 

MiGAZIN. http://www.migazin.de/. 

Neue deutsche Medienmacher. http://www.neuemedienmacher.de/. 

finder.de/. 

Saha, Anamik. “Wir brauchen andere Geschichten in den Medien.” Accessed 20 July 2015. 

http://mediendienst-integration.de/artikel/anamik-saha-kommentar-ueber-medien-undvielfalt-in-grossbritannien.html. 

#SchauHin. Accessed 20 July 2015. http://schauhin.tumblr.com/about. 

Shion Kumai has been pursuing her master’s degree in sociocultural studies at Viadrina 

European University since 2014. For her bachelor’s degree in cultural studies, she specialized 

in media, migration, and the discourse analysis of print media and the press 

coverage of Islam. In 2014, seeking to move beyond theory, she joined Neue deutsche 

Medienmacher, an initiative that promotes greater diversity in the media. There she 

has been involved in developing and regularly updating a glossary of terms with detailed 

explanations for journalists to use in covering news events in Germany. 



Shion Kumai 

Wege zu mehr Vielfalt in den Medien 

Hindernisse und Möglichkeiten für 

die journalistische Praxis in der Berichterstattung 

über Migrationsthemen 

»Was wir über unsere Gesellschaft, ja über die Welt, in der wir leben, wissen, 

wissen wir durch die Massenmedien.«1 Dieses berühmte Zitat des Soziologen 

Niklas Luhmann impliziert, dass Medien eine gesellschaftliche Verantwortung 

für unser Wissen tragen. Erst was mithilfe der Medien sicht- und hörbar 

in die Öffentlichkeit gelangt und damit allen zugänglich wird, kann von 

den Rezipient*innen in ihr Weltbild integriert werden. Medien sind also eine 

wichtige Informations- und Wissensquelle, weil sie als Vermittler von Ereignissen 

und Nachrichten für ein breites Publikum dienen. Journalist*innen 

wählen Themen aus, selektieren Informationen und ordnen Ereignisse in 

Kontexte ein. Reale Geschehnisse werden interpretierend vermittelt, basierend 

auf gängigen Deutungsmustern. Ereignisse haben also zunächst nicht 

von sich aus eine Bedeutung, sondern erhalten ihren Sinn erst durch einen erklärenden 

Kontext, der von Medienschaffenden hergestellt wird. 

Auf diese Weise prägen Medien die öffentliche Meinungsbildung und konstruieren 

unsere gesellschaftliche Realität. Sie sind in einem hohen Maße an 

der Wahrnehmung verschiedener Menschen und Gruppen beteiligt. Dementsprechend 

sollten Medien ein Spiegel der Gesellschaft sein, in dem sich die 

Vielfalt der Bevölkerung wiederfinden muss. Wie jedoch verschiedene Studien2 

belegen, ist die Diversität der Einwanderungsgesellschaft weder in der 

1 Niklas Luhmann, Die Realität der Massenmedien, Opladen 1996, S. 9. 

2 Siehe bspw. Christoph Butterwegge, Migrationsberichterstattung, Medienpädagogik und 

politische Bildung, in: Christoph Butterwegge/Gudrun Hentges (Hrsg.), Massenmedien, 

Migration und Integration, Wiesbaden 2006; Rainer Geißler/Horst Pöttker, Massenmedien 

und die Integration ethnischer Minderheiten, Bielefeld 2009; Siegfried Jäger, Medien 

und Straftaten. Vorschläge zur Vermeidung diskriminierender Berichterstattung über 

Einwanderer und Flüchtlinge, Duisburg 1998; Joachim Trebbe, Ethnische Minderheiten, 

Massenmedien und Integration. Eine Untersuchung massenmedialer Repräsentation 

und Medienwirkungen, Wiesbaden 2009; Kai Hafez, Mediengesellschaft-Wissensgesellschaft?, 

in: Thorsten Gerald Schneiders (Hrsg.), Islamfeindlichkeit. Wenn die Grenzen 

der Kritik verschwimmen, Wiesbaden 2009, S. 101–120. 



Wege zu mehr Vielfalt in den Medien 227 

aktuellen Berichterstattung noch in den Redaktionen angekommen; Ausnahmen 

existieren in einzelnen Redaktionen von Sendern und Verlagen in deutschen 

Großstädten. Was bedeuten diese Befunde für die journalistische Praxis? 

Welche Interaktionen finden zwischen Theorie und Praxis statt und was 

können sie bewirken? 

Darüber diskutierten Journalist*innen verschiedener Medienformate im 

November 2014 auf der Veranstaltung »Medien und Minderheiten. Fragen der 

Repräsentativität im internationalen Vergleich« auf einem Panel zum Thema 

»Strategien für eine inklusive Medienlandschaft«. Die internationale Konferenz 

wurde von der Akademie des Jüdischen Museums Berlin in Kooperation 

mit dem Rat für Migration am 27. und 28. November 2014 in Berlin veranstaltet. 

Im ersten Teil des Panels zum Thema »Agenda-Setting für Minderheitenthemen« 

stellten Kübra Gümüşay und Jamie C. Schaerer ihre Hashtag- 

Kampagne #SchauHin und Ekrem Şenol das Online-Fachmagazin MiGAZIN 

vor. Die anschließende Diskussionsrunde im zweiten Teil »Blick in die Redaktionen, 

von der Theorie zur Praxis« bestand aus den Journalist*innen 

Samantha Asumadu, René Aguigah, Daniel Bax und Rainer Munz. Moderiert 

wurde das Panel von Ferda Ataman. 

Die Teilnehmer*innen eröffneten Einblicke in die Medienpraxis und die damit 

verbundenen Herausforderungen, die das Handeln von Journalist*innen 

bestimmen und einschränken können. Außerdem wurden bereits angewandte 

Strategien und Ideen durch Organisationen und Initiativen für eine inklusive 

Berichterstattung und Medienlandschaft erläutert und diskutiert. Die folgenden 

Inhalte orientieren sich an diesen Diskussionen und bieten eine Zusammenfassung 

der wichtigsten Aussagen. 

Routinen der Berichterstattung – 

Selbstverständliches hinterfragen 

Obwohl Journalist*innen sich ständig mit gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen 

auseinandersetzen, folgen sie bei den Themen Migration und Integration 

häufig gängigen Mustern. So entwirft die aktuelle Berichterstattung durch 

bestimmte Themenverknüpfungen, Bebilderungen, aber auch durch fehlende 

- 

gemessene Darstellungen. Dieses Problem schilderte Rainer Munz, Leiter 

des Hauptstadtstudios von RTL und n-tv: »Wann haben wir das letzte Mal in 

einem Beitrag, wenn es um Intellektuelle ging, eine Frau mit einem muslimischen 

Hintergrund, mit Kopftuch gezeigt? Ich würde mal sagen, in keiner 

unserer Nachrichtensendungen haben wir das gemacht. Umgekehrt aber 

greift man schnell mal nach einem Straßenbild von Neukölln mit Kopftuch, 



228 

Shion Kumai 

wenn wir versuchen, Dinge zu bebildern.« Dabei spiele manchmal auch der 

redaktionelle Zeitdruck eine Rolle. »Das sind Punkte, wo wir selber uns in 

den Redaktionen oft an die eigene Nase fassen müssen!« 

Menschen mit Migrationsgeschichte werden in der Berichterstattung überproportional 

häufig mit negativen Themen in Zusammenhang gebracht. 

Gleichzeitig sind sie selten Protagonisten in Berichten, in denen es nicht um 

Migration geht. So entstehen Stereotype oder werden verstärkt. Sogenannte 

Text-Bild-Kombinationen stellen Zusammenhänge her, die auf verkürzten 

Klischees beruhen und als selbstverständlich vorausgesetzt werden. So ist 

es Routine geworden, Themen über »Integration« mit Kopftuch tragenden 

Frauen zu bebildern, wodurch bestimmte Gruppen wie Muslim*innen in den 

Vordergrund gerückt werden. Daniel Bax, Politikredakteur bei der taz und 

Mitglied im Vorstand der »Neuen deutschen Medienmacher« – ein Zusammenschluss 

von Journalist*innen, die sich für mehr Vielfalt in den Medien 

einsetzen – erklärt in diesem Zusammenhang die Bedeutung von Nachrichtenwerten: 

»Es muss außergewöhnlich sein. Die meisten Medien richten sich 

nach Negativereignissen, Gewalt, Krieg, Konflikt, das sind Themen, die für 

Medien interessant sind. Der normale Alltag, der unspektakulär ist, spielt 

meistens keine Rolle. Das sind so die alltäglichen Medienmechanismen, mit 

denen man zu tun hat.« 

Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund sollten allerdings nicht nur auf einen 

Teil ihrer vermeintlichen oder tatsächlichen Identität reduziert werden, argumentiert 

auch René Aguigah, Leiter der Abteilung »Kultur und Gesellschaft« 

bei Deutschlandradio Kultur. Es sei wichtig, dass andere Narrative verwendet 

würden: »Ich glaube, dass es wünschenswert wäre, für viele Journalisten, 

Autoren und Autorinnen, sich mal andere Geschichten auszudenken.« Als 

Beispiel, wie die Vielfalt in der Bevölkerung als Normalität dargestellt werden 

kann, nennt Rainer Munz einen Beitrag zum Thema Mindestlohn, bei dem 

eine Person mit Migrationshintergrund zu ihrer Einstellung und ihrem Berufsalltag 

befragt wird, ohne dass explizit auf die Herkunft eingegangen wird. 

Die Menschen sollten nicht über Differenzen betrachtet, sondern als Teil der 

Gesellschaft sowie als aktiv handelnde und kompetente Individuen wahrgenommen 

werden. 

In diesem Sinne haben die Neuen deutschen Medienmacher eine Online- 

Expertendatenbank entwickelt, in der Fachleute mit Migrationsgeschichte 

be züglich verschiedener Themenbereiche angefragt werden können. So heißt 

es auf ihrem Flyer: »Wir sind keine Experten für Islam, Integration und 

Gemüse handel, sondern für Deichbau, deutsche Sprache und Mietrecht.«3 

3 Vielfaltfinder, Neue deutsche Medienmacher, https://www.vielfaltfinder.de/ (letzter Zugriff 

28.7.2015). 




Sorgfältige Recherche, differenzierte Bezeichnungen und 

eine inklusive Sprache 

In den meist emotional geführten Diskursen über Migration ist eine »Versachlichung 

der Debatten« notwendig, erklärt Ferda Ataman, Leiterin der 

Informations-Plattform Mediendienst Integration für Journalist*innen. Fakten 

und Zahlen sind wichtig, um zu informieren oder Argumentationen zu 

untermauern. Erforderlich ist jedoch die korrekte Einordnung von Zahlen, 

außerdem müssen Zusammenhänge sorgfältig recherchiert werden. Daher 

hat der Mediendienst wichtige Informationen zu Themen wie Einwanderung 

zusammengestellt und macht anhand von konkreten Artikeln regelmäßig 

deutlich, wo die Probleme in der Berichterstattung liegen. Durch Faktenchecks 

übernehmen sie eine Art Kontrollfunktion und machen auf falsche 

oder versäumte Recherche aufmerksam. 

Bei der Berichterstattung in Migrationskontexten ist außerdem der Gebrauch 

einer sensiblen Sprache notwendig. Wie in allen anderen Themenbereichen 

müssen präzise und differenzierte Bezeichnungen verwendet werden. 

Die Neuen deutschen Medienmacher haben für diesen Zweck ein Glossar 

mit Formulierungshilfen veröffentlicht. Dort findet man auf der Basis journa 

listischer Erfahrungen herausgearbeitete Definitionen, Alternativbegriffe, 

differenzierte Bezeichnungen, aber auch Vorschläge, wie man sowohl inhaltlich 

als auch sprachlich die Diversität der Menschen widerspiegeln und damit 

den Vorstellungen bzw. Darstellungen von homogenen Gruppen entgegenwirken 

kann. Eine differenzierte Sprache kann auch zu einer differenzierten 

Betrachtung beitragen. 

So ist in vielen Fällen zum Beispiel die Nennung der Herkunft gar nicht 

notwendig. In der Kriminalitätsberichterstattung wird die tatsächliche oder 

vermeintliche Herkunft von nicht-weißen Deutschen jedoch häufig genannt, 

selbst wenn diese Information für den Tathergang irrelevant ist. Auf diese 

Weise wird das Vorurteil »Ausländer sind kriminell« immer wieder bestärkt 

und wiederholt. Die ethnische Zugehörigkeit der Opfer von Straf taten wird 

dagegen selten erwähnt. Das führt zu verschleiernden Momenten wie bei der 

anfänglichen Berichterstattung über den Mord an Marwa El-Sherbini im Gerichtssaal 

in Dresden.4 Es dauerte mehrere Tage, bis das anti-islamische Motiv 

des Täters thematisiert und deutlich wurde. Erst als Stimmen im Netz 

auf Blogs und Foren laut wurden, reagierten die etablierten Medien. »Die 

4 Vgl. Sabine Schiffer, Zum medialen Umgang mit dem antiislamisch motivierten Mord an 

Marwa El-Sherbini in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz, Institut für Medienverantwortung, 

15.12.2009, http://www.medienverantwortung.de/wpcontent/uploads/2009/ 

12/20091215_Medien-MordAnMarwa.pdf (letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 



230 

Shion Kumai 

Perspektive der Massenmedien ist eine, die die Minderheitenperspektive 

nicht einschließt«, diagnostiziert Daniel Bax. 

Bei der rassistisch motivierten Mordserie des NSU übernahmen die Medien 

die »Erkenntnisse« der Ermittlungsbehörden unkritisch und verstärkten 

spekulative Mutmaßungen: Der von Journalist*innen geprägte und häufig 

verwendete Begriff »Döner-Morde« ist in hohem Maße ausgrenzend und diskriminierend. 

Solche Begrifflichkeiten machen die Gefahr von stereotypen 

Denkstrukturen deutlich. Hier zeigt sich, dass einseitige Perspektiven den 

Blick auf Probleme einschränken. So äußerten türkischsprachige Medien und 

Communities schon vor der Selbstenttarnung des NSU den Verdacht, dass es 

sich um Morde mit rechtsradikalem Hintergrund handeln könnte. Ob Rassismus 

also ein Thema in den Redaktionen ist, hängt nach Daniel Bax auch damit 

zusammen, wie »vielfältig die Redaktion aufgestellt ist«. 

Mehr Diversität in der Medienproduktion 

Obwohl rund 20 Prozent der Bevölkerung eine Einwanderungsbiografie aufweisen, 

sind laut Untersuchungen zurzeit nur circa zwei bis drei Prozent 

der Medienschaffenden nicht-weiße Deutsche.5 Um diesem Ungleichgewicht 

entgegenzuwirken, bieten die Neuen deutschen Medienmacher ein Mentoring-Programm, 

das angehende Journalist*innen mit Migrationsgeschichte 

fördert und Kontakte vermittelt, die in diesem Berufsfeld wichtig sind. Nachwuchsförderung 

findet mittlerweile auch in den verschiedenen Medienanstalten 

statt: Der WDR geht mit gutem Beispiel voran und hat mit seinem Förderprogramm 

bereits erreicht, dass 20 Prozent der Neueinstellungen Menschen 

mit Migrationshintergrund sind. Außerdem ist dort ein Integrationsbeauftragter 

tätig. Auch RTL verfügt über ein Nachwuchsförderprogramm für angehende 

Journalist*innen mit Einwanderungsgeschichte. Bei Deutschlandradio 

Kultur sieht es jedoch noch ziemlich »grau« aus. Zwar gibt es ein paar 

Volontäre, doch ansonsten fühlt sich René Aguigah dort »mit seiner Hautfarbe 

recht einsam«. 

Inhalte werden aber nicht zwangsweise diverser, nur weil mehr Menschen 

mit Migrationshintergrund eingestellt werden, zumal es nicht darum geht, deren 

Zuständigkeit auf Migrationsthemen festzuschreiben. Der Wissenschaftler 

Anamik Saha beschäftigt sich mit den Produktionsbedingungen in Medien, 

die zu stereotypen Darstellungen führen, und stellt fest, dass Journalist*innen 

5 Mediendienst und Integration, Medien in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft, Journalisten 

mit Migrationshintergrund, 2014 http://mediendienst-integration.de/integration/medien. 

html (letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 




mit Einwanderungsgeschichte häufig dazu tendieren, sich an die Produktionskultur 

anzupassen und somit ebenfalls Stereotype zu reproduzieren.6 Das 

heißt, es reicht nicht, nur eine personelle Vielfalt anzustreben, gleichzeitig 

muss ein Umdenken die Produktionskultur betreffend stattfinden. 

Was kann und wird in Mainstream-Medien getan? 

Redaktionskonferenzen schaffen einen Rahmen, um Darstellungsformen von 

Vielfalt zu diskutieren und zu überdenken. Die taz hat sich z. B. schon früh 

in Redaktionssitzungen mit dem Thema Frauen beschäftigt und sich mit sexistischer 

Sprache und der Repräsentanz von Frauen in den Artikeln auseinandergesetzt. 

Als Konsequenz hat die taz als erste Zeitung das Gendern 

eingeführt. Gendern ist ein aktiver Prozess, Menschen mit einzubeziehen 

und über die Sprache Realitäten sichtbar zu machen. Im Deutschen gibt es 

verschiedene Formen und Schreibweisen wie bspw. das Binnen-I, mit Sternchen 

oder dem gender-gap, je nach Variante wird auf die exklusiv männliche 

Schreibweise im Deutschen verzichtet und eine inklusive Schreibweise verwendet, 

die beim Sternchen und der Schreibweise mit dem Unterstrich nicht 

nur Frauen mit einbezieht. Die verschiedenen Modelle der geschlechtersensiblen 

Sprache verfolgen also unterschiedliche Ansätze. Als Journalist*in ist 

man Daniel Bax zufolge gezwungen abzuwägen, ob man die Leser*innen erreichen 

oder aufklären bzw. weiterbilden will. Sprachliche Veränderungen 

stoßen immer noch häufig auf Ablehnung in der Bevölkerung. Diese Diskussion 

muss also sowohl in den Medien als auch gesamtgesellschaftlich weiter 

geführt werden. 

Doch Konferenzen allein bieten nicht genügend Raum, um jedes Bild und 

all die komplexen Problematiken zu besprechen. Es müssen also immer wieder 

Workshops oder Weiterbildungsmöglichkeiten angeboten werden, in denen 

man lernt, vermeintlich Selbstverständliches zu hinterfragen. Wie René 

Aguigah berichtet, gibt es solche Angebote bereits: Kürzlich wurde in seiner 

Redaktion im Deutschlandradio Kultur eine Serie gestartet, die sich mit 

Kriegsvokabular auseinandersetzt und z. B. über die umstrittene Eigenbezeichnung 

»Islamischer Staat« diskutiert, welche durch die Medienberichterstattung 

unweigerlich verbreitet wird. 

Was die Sichtbarkeit der Vielfalt beim Personal und beim Programm betrifft, 

sind private Sender den öffentlich-rechtlichen voraus. So sprechen 

6 Vgl. Anamik Saha, Wir brauchen andere Geschichten in den Medien, 2015 Mediendienst und 

Integration, http://mediendienst-integration.de/artikel/anamik-saha-kommentar-uebermedien-und-vielfalt-in-grossbritannien.html 

(letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 



232 

Shion Kumai 

Formate wie »The Voice of Germany« auf Pro7 und Sat1, in denen die Teilnehmer*innen 

und Gewinner*innen nicht nur Herkunftsdeutsche sind, ein 

breiteres Publikum an. Moderator*innen wie Aiman Abdallah, der Gallileo, 

eine Wissenssendung auf Pro7 moderiert, waren schon früh keine Ausnahme 

mehr. Aber auch die öffentlich-rechtlichen Sender haben mittlerweile ein Bewusstsein 

für Diversity entwickelt und beginnen umzudenken. 

Deutschland, ein Einzelfall? 

Die beschriebenen Probleme, die sowohl die inhaltliche als auch die strukturelle 

Ebene betreffen, gibt es in anderen europäischen Ländern wie Großbritannien 

ebenfalls. Samantha Asumadu, Dokumentarfilmerin und Journalistin 

u. a. bei CNN, Deutsche Welle und Agence France Presse, stellte bei der 

Lektüre verschiedener britischer Zeitungen fest, dass rund 95 Prozent aller 

Titelseiten von weißen Journalist*innen verfasst werden und die Minderheitenperspektive 

thematisch nicht einschließen. Die Titelseite ist die wichtigste 

Seite, da sie als Eyecatcher fungiert, die Themen der Gesamtausgabe ankündigt 

und damit das Interesse der potenziellen Käufer*innen wecken soll. Von 

der Titelseite, den ausgewählten Themen, den Bebilderungen bis hin zur Werbung 

ist fast alles von Weißen für und über Weiße. Eine einfache Analyse 

einer Tageszeitung ergab, dass nur vier Bilder nicht-weiße Menschen abbildeten. 

Auf zwei wurden international auftretende amerikanische Musiker gezeigt 

und auf den anderen beiden Fotos wurde Curry verkauft. Auch hier wird 

deutlich, dass es auf der einen Seite an Repräsentativität fehlt und auf der anderen 

Seite Klischees bedient werden, welche die Menschen auf einen tatsächlichen 

oder vermeintlichen Teilaspekt ihrer Identität reduzieren. 

Asumadu sieht darin ein großes Problem: »Medien können die Gesellschaft 

nicht reflektieren, wenn die Gesellschaft nicht in den Medien widergespiegelt 

wird.« So startete sie 2013 die erfolgreiche Social-media-Kampagne 

#AllWhiteFrontPages auf Twitter. Viele schrieben unter dem Hashtag, dass 

ihnen diese Tatsache vorher nie aufgefallen war. Um weiter ein Bewusstsein 

dafür zu schaffen, gründete sie außerdem die gemeinnützige Organisation 

Media Diversified. Ihre Online-Plattform bietet Journalist*innen of Color die 

Möglichkeit, ihre Artikel zu veröffentlichen und einen Beitrag zum Diskurs 

zu leisten. Außerdem können diese über eine Datenbank angefragt werden.7 

7 Experts directory, Media Diversified, http://directory.mediadiversified.org/ (letzter Zugriff 

3.10.2015). 




Themen platzieren und Bewusstsein schaffen 

über das Internet 

Auch in Deutschland gibt es ähnliche Plattformen und Kampagnen, auf denen 

Menschen mit oder ohne Einwanderungsgeschichte über das Internet ihrer 

Stimme Gehör verleihen. »Die ganzen Debatten um Blackfacing, Racial Profiling 

und Alltagsrassismus wären wahrscheinlich nicht von den Mainstream- 

Medien aufgenommen worden, wenn es nicht Initiativen gegeben hätte, die 

das auf die Tapete gebracht haben«, erklärt Daniel Bax. »Agenda-Setting, eine 

klassische Aufgabe der Massenmedien, wird teilweise aus dem Netz übernommen 

und wir sind diejenigen, die davon profitieren. Insofern lohnt es sich, sich 

anzuschauen, was jenseits der etablierten Medien passiert.« 

Die Theorie des Agenda-Settings aus der Kommunikationswissenschaft 

geht davon aus, dass Medien die Meinungsbildung beeinflussen, indem sie 

vorgeben, welche Themen in der Gesellschaft relevant sind.8 Journalist*innen 

fungieren auch als eine Art Torwächter*innen, die Informationen an die Öffentlichkeit 

bringen oder ignorieren, wodurch sie den Informationsfluss regulieren. 

Als sogenannte Gate-keeper*innen beeinflussen sie, ob und wie aktuell 

ein Thema öffentlich werden kann. Vertreter*innen von Minderheiten sind 

aber selten in der Position von Gate-keeper*innen. In etablierten Medien finden 

auch deshalb alltägliche Themen, die Minderheiten betreffen, kaum Raum. 

»Das ist ein Problem, das wir auch im MiGAZIN beobachten. Viele Journalisten 

treten an uns heran, festangestellte Journalisten, weil sie ihre Themen 

in ihren eigenen Blättern nicht unterkriegen. ›Zu speziell‹, ›interessiert 

nicht‹, heißt es. Die Zielgruppe in den Mainstream-Medien hat immer noch 

keinen Migrationshintergrund«, erklärt Ekrem Şenol. Er ist Gründer des 

Online-Fachmagazins MiGAZIN, das seit 2008 über Themen rund um Migration 

und Integration berichtet. Ziel ist es, »Themen anzusprechen, die im 

Mainstream selten oder gar nicht vorkommen bzw. verzerrt dargestellt werden«. 

Das Magazin erfreut sich großer Beliebtheit und wird sogar von Politiker*innen 

im Bundestag zitiert. 2012 erhielt MiGAZIN für seine Leistungen 

und »qualitativ hochwertigen Texte«9 den Grimme-Online-Award. Şenols 

8 Vgl. Wolfgang Eichhorn, Agenda-Setting-Prozesse: Eine theoretische Analyse individueller 

und gesellschaftlicher Themenstrukturierung, München 2005 2 (digitale Ausgabe) 

URL:http://equb.ub.uni-nuenchen.de/archive/00000734/ (letzter Zugriff 18.7.2015). 

9 Grimme Online Award, Preisträger 2012, http://www.grimme-institut.de/html/index. 

php?id=1430 (letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 

10 Der Grimme Online Award ist eine renommierte Auszeichnung für herausragende publizistische 

Online-Angebote, die seit 2001 jährlich vom Grimme-Institut vergeben 

wird. Siehe auch: http://www.grimme-institut.de/html/index.php?id=33 (letzter Zugriff 

29.7.2015). 



234 

Shion Kumai 

persönlicher Antrieb für das Projekt war »der tägliche Frust, die Empörung, 

der Ärger«, wenn er Nachrichten sah oder Zeitung las. »Ich habe mich oftmals 

hilflos gefühlt, weil ich nicht teilhaben konnte an dieser Debatte.« So 

entschloss er sich, die Debatten nicht mehr nur passiv hinzunehmen, sondern 

aktiv zu werden. 

Das Magazin erreicht nicht nur Menschen mit Einwanderungsgeschichte; 

etwa 50 Prozent der Leser sind Herkunftsdeutsche, wie sich in einer Leserbefragung 

herausstellte. Auch die Redaktion setzt sich aus Menschen mit und 

ohne Migrationshintergrund zusammen. Sie machen die Menschen bestmöglich 

sichtbar. Auf der Plattform werden Autoren bspw. nicht nur namentlich 

genannt, sondern auch mit einem Foto gezeigt. Oft sind Journalistinnen 

darunter, die ein Kopftuch tragen. »Bei den ersten Fotos, die wir präsentiert 

haben, haben sich die Leser noch überrascht gezeigt: ›Wow, die kann ja 

Deutsch! Und auch noch Schreiben!‹ Irgendwann hat sich das auch gelegt. Irgendwann 

haben die Leser gemerkt, ›Moment mal! Das ist gar keine Ausnahme!‹ 

– Das ist also irgendwo auch eine Erziehungssache«, berichtet Ekrem 

Şenol. 

Einen anderen Weg, Gate-keeper*innen des Mainstream-Journalismus zu 

umgehen und Themen öffentlichkeitswirksam zu platzieren, bieten soziale 

Medien. Kübra Gümüşay, Journalistin, Bloggerin und Netz-Aktivistin, und 

Jamie C. Schaerer, Politikwissenschaftlerin und Vorstandsmitglied der Initiative 

Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland und des Europäischen Netzwerks 

gegen Rassismus, starteten 2013 auf Twitter die Kampagne #SchauHin mit 

dem Ziel, Erfahrungen des Alltagsrassismus sichtbar zu machen, ähnlich wie 

der #Aufschrei den alltäglichen Sexismus. Alltagsrassismus ist genau wie Sexismus 

ein schwer greifbares Phänomen, das sich nicht einfach in Zahlen erfassen 

lässt, weswegen selten in der Öffentlichkeit darüber gesprochen wird. 

Gümüşay erläutert: »Wir wollten über eine alltägliche Erfahrung sprechen, 

ohne dass man das reduzieren kann auf eine einzelne Situation, denn dieser 

alltägliche Rassismus ist etwas, was jeden Tag aktuell ist, jeden Tag relevant 

ist.« 

Innerhalb kürzester Zeit teilten mehrere Tausend Menschen ihre Geschichten, 

und der Hashtag blieb drei Tage lang »Trending Topic«11 in Deutschland, 

was bei sozialen Themen ganz selten vorkommt. »Durch das Teilen dieser Erfahrungen 

wurde die Erfahrung von der singulären, individuellen Ebene auf 

eine gesamtgesellschaftliche Ebene gehoben, und die Verantwortung damit 

umzugehen lag nicht mehr nur bei den Menschen, die das täglich erfahren haben, 

sondern bei der Gesamtgesellschaft.« So wurden rassistische Strukturen 

in der Gesellschaft öffentlich sichtbar gemacht. 

11 »Trending Topics« ist eine Liste von Twitter, die anhand der Tweets aktuelle und wichtige 

Themen ermittelt.


Durch das »Taggen« von Journalist*innen wurden sie auf die Relevanz des 

Themas aufmerksam gemacht. Auf diese Weise ist es den Initiatorinnen gelungen, 

ein Thema, das normalerweise nur schwer Zugang findet, in den Mainstream-Medien 

zu platzieren, sodass es über die Berichterstattung Teil einer 

öffentlichen Debatte geworden ist. Es geht aber vor allem auch um Sensibilisierung 

für Alltagsrassismus, denn Rassismus äußert sich nicht nur in rechtsradikalen 

Formen. Subtile Formen werden häufig nicht als Rassismus benannt 

oder erkannt, auch manchmal von den Betroffenen nicht. Auf der anderen 

Seite, berichten die Initiator*innen, gab es auch Menschen, die selbst nicht 

von Alltagsrassismus betroffen waren, denen aber durch die Erzählung unter 

dem #SchauHin bewusst wurde, dass sie sich gelegentlich unbewusst rassistisch 

äußern. 

Grenzen von Online-Kampagnen in sozialen Medien 

Gate-Keeper von Presse und Rundfunk über das Internet zu umgehen, ermöglicht 

zwar Hör- und Sichtbarkeit für Minderheiten, aber auch Zugang zur Öffentlichkeit 

für andere Nutzer. So wurde die Hashtag-Kampagne #SchauHin 

kurzzeitig von Usern »gehijacked«, die mit rassistischen Sprüchen herumpöbelten 

und sich selbst als Opfer eines umgekehrten Rassismus darstellten. 

Antimuslimische Rassist*innen, Antisemit*innen und Einwanderungsgegner*innen 

formieren sich im Netz auf Foren oder Blogs und vernetzen sich 

über soziale Medien wie Facebook, über die diskriminierende und rassistische 

Botschaften verbreitet werden. Mit Sorge berichtet der Europarat von steigenden 

Gewaltaufrufen im Netz und Hasstiraden gegen verschiedene Gruppen: 

Im Jahresbericht 2014 der Europäischen Kommission gegen Rassismus und 

Intoleranz (ECRI) wird die steigende Sympathie für rechtsradikale Gruppen 

bestätigt.12 

Zwar wird rassistischen Bewegungen lautstark widersprochen, dennoch 

zeigt diese Problematik die Grenzen des Internets auf. Es besteht somit die 

Notwendigkeit, mehr Bewusstsein in und durch die etablierten Medien zu 

schaffen für Rassismus, Alltagsrassismus und Ausgrenzung. Gleichzeitig gilt 

es, auf allen Ebenen, insbesondere auch im Bildungsbereich derartige gesellschaftliche 

Strukturen zu hinterfragen und darüber aufzuklären. 

12 Vgl. Annual Report on ECRI’s activities, Straßburg 2015, S. 7 ff., http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/ 

monitoring/ecri/activities/Annual_Reports/Annual%20report%202014.pdf (letzter Zugriff 

20.7.2015).

236 

Shion Kumai 

Fazit 

Samantha Asumadu hat die wichtigsten Ansatzpunkte für Wege zu mehr 

Vielfalt treffend zusammengefasst: Zeitungen müssen auf den Gebrauch der 

Sprache achten, wenn sie über Menschen mit Einwanderungsgeschichte berichten 

sowie mehr Frauen und Menschen aus Einwandererfamilien anstellen 

und auch in höheren Positionen besetzen. In Filmen und TV-Serien muss es 

mehr Rollen für Männer und Frauen mit Einwanderungsbiografie geben, in 

denen sie als eigenständige aktive Charaktere porträtiert werden, die wachsen 

und sich entwickeln, statt als statische Charaktere, die in Stereotypen gefangen 

sind. In der Gesellschaft müssen Kinder in der Schule über breite soziologische 

Perspektiven zu Fragen von race and gender aufgeklärt werden und 

zu hinterfragen lernen, wie über Minderheiten gedacht und gesprochen wird. 

Kinder, aber auch Erwachsene müssen besser über die Mediennutzung informiert 

werden, damit sie Medieninhalte nicht nur konsumieren, sondern in 

der Lage sind, sie kritisch einzuordnen. 

Den Initiativen und verschiedenen Projekten ist es bereits gelungen, eine 

wichtige Diskussion in Gang zu bringen. Sie zeigen die Möglichkeiten, Menschen 

mit Einwanderungsgeschichte sowohl in der Berichterstattung als auch 

in der Medienproduktion als Teil dieser Gesellschaft sichtbar zu machen. Aber 

es ist noch ein weiter Weg bis zur Selbstverständlichkeit, alle Bürger*innen 

der Einwanderungsgesellschaft anzusprechen und angemessen darzustellen. 

Um dieses Ziel zu erreichen, ist es notwendig, nicht nur ein Bewusstsein im 

Medienbereich zu schaffen, sondern gesamtgesellschaftlich einen fruchtbaren 

Boden zu bereiten, der einen kritischen Diskurs und zugleich aber auch ein 

friedliches und bereicherndes Zusammenleben ermöglicht. 

Bibliografie 

Butterwegge, Christoph: Migrationsberichterstattung, Medienpädagogik und politische Bildung. 

In: Christoph Butterwegge/Gudrun Hentges (Hrsg.), Massenmedien, Migration und 

Integration, Springer-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006. 

Eichhorn, Wolfgang: Agenda-Setting-Prozesse. Eine theoretische Analyse individueller und gesellschaftlicher 

Themenstrukturierung, Verlag Reinhard Fischer, München 2005 2 (digitale 

Ausgabe) URL: http://equb.ub.uni-muenchen.de/archive/00000734/ (letzter Zugriff 18.7.2015). 

Geißler, Rainer/Pöttker, Horst (Hrsg.): Massenmedien und die Integration ethnischer Minderheiten, 

transcript, Bielefeld 2009. 

Hafez, Kai: Mediengesellschaft-Wissensgesellschaft? In: Thorsten Gerald Schneiders (Hrsg.), 

Islamfeindlichkeit. Wenn die Grenzen der Kritik verschwimmen, Springer-Verlag, Wiesbaden 

2009, S. 101–120. 

Jäger, Siegfried: Medien und Straftaten. Vorschläge zur Vermeidung diskriminierender Be 

richterstattung über Einwanderer und Flüchtlinge, Diss., Duisburg 1998. 




Luhmann, Niklas: Die Realität der Massenmedien, Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1996. 

Saha, Anamik: Wir brauchen andere Geschichten in den Medien, 2015 Mediendienst und 

Integration, http://mediendienst-integration.de/artikel/anamik-saha-kommentar-uebermedien-und-vielfalt-in-grossbritannien.html 


Schiffer, Sabine: Zum medialen Umgang mit dem antiislamisch motivierten Mord an Marwa 

El-Sherbini in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz, Institut für Medienverantwortung, 

15.12.2009, http://www.medienverantwortung.de/wpcontent/uploads/2009/12/20091215_ 

Medien-MordAnMarwa.pdf (letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 

Trebbe, Joachim: Ethnische Minderheiten, Massenmedien und Integration. Eine Untersuchung 

massenmedialer Repräsentation und Medienwirkungen, Springer-Verlag, Wiesbaden 

2009. 

Webseiten 

ECRI, Annual Report on ECRI’s activities, Straßburg 2015, http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/ 

monitoring/ecri/activities/Annual_Reports/Annual%20report%202014.pdf (letzter Zugriff 

20.7.2015). 

Grimme Online Award, http://www.grimme-institut.de/html/index.php?id=33 (letzter Zugriff 

29.7.2015). 

Grimme Online Award, Preisträger 2012, http://www.grimme-institut.de/html/index.php?id= 

1430 (letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 

Media diversified, http://mediadiversified.org/ (letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 

Mediendienst und Integration, Medien in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft, Journalisten mit 

Migrationshintergrund, 2014 http://mediendienst-integration.de/integration/medien.html 


Medienkommission der Landesanstalt für Medien Nordrhein-Westfalen, Wo die Medien 

sein sollten, 2010, http://medienpolitik.eu/cms/media/pdf/MedienGesellschaftMedien5. 

pdf (letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 

MiGAZIN, http://www.migazin.de/ (letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 

Neue Deutsche Medienmacher, http://www.neuemedienmacher.de/ (letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 

#SchauHin, http://schauhin.tumblr.com/about (letzter Zugriff 20.7.2015). 

Vielfaltfinder, Neue deutsche Medienmacher, https://www.vielfaltfinder.de/ (letzter Zugriff 

28.7.2015). 

Shion Kumai ist seit 2014 Masterstudentin der Europa-Universität Viadrina im Studiengang 

Soziokulturelle Studien. Während ihres Bachelors in Kulturwissenschaften 

hat sie sich auf den Themenschwerpunkt Medien und Migration spezialisiert und 

beschäftigt sich mit Diskursanalysen in Printmedien und der Berichterstattung über 

Islam. Um nicht nur bei theoretischen Erkenntnissen zu bleiben, ist sie seit 2014 auch 

Mitarbeiterin bei den Neuen deutschen Medienmachern, einer Initiative, die sich 

für mehr Vielfalt in den Medien einsetzt. Dort ist sie an der Ausarbeitung und regelmäßigen 

Aktualisierung eines Glossars beteiligt, das Formulierungshilfen für die Berichterstattung 

im Einwanderungsland und differenzierte Begriffserklärungen bietet.

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