Media and Minorities

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.
© 2016, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
ISBN Print: 9783525300886 — ISBN E-Book: 9783666300882