In our recent ASTU classes, we have been studying about the representation of vulnerable subjects, in which we looked at the media treatment of marginalized groups, such as sex workers and disabled people. In reading the article When The Media Treats White Suspects And Killers Better Than Black Victims, I noticed that the underlying racism is very apparent in these news report. The headlines are presented in ways which say that black victims are to blame for their own deaths. Compared with the portrayal of white suspects and accused murderers, in which the media tends to focus on the positive characteristics, and the differences are very striking. In their article Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse, Jiwani & Young studied the missing women cases in Vancouver and looked at the gendered and racialized problems of media coverage. They mention that “black women are victims of crime, their stories rarely make it to the front page” and “yet when Black men are perpetrators of crime, their stories splash the front pages of news”, and suggest that some bodies have the propensity to commit crime and that is “directly tied to race” (901).
After the CAP Global Citizens group lecture on Monday, in which our class discussed the recent issue of race, justice and police violence, I came across a BBC article, Viewpoint: Why Eric Garner was blamed for dying, which reported that many news articles have been blaming blacks for their own killings. This idea is similar to Jiwani & Young’s discussion of the marginalized groups are often “regarded as society’s “others””, and are blamed for “being in the wrong place and doing the wrong kind of work” (901). The media has powerful political potential in shaping our perspectives on society and I found that media treatment that follows the dominant view to marginalized groups to be particular problematic. It tends to discriminate, devalue the victims and minimize the violence that these people are experiencing (Jiwani & Young 901). The question I want to pose is that why and how does mass media determine whose lives or deaths matters?
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Work Cited:
Jiwani, Y., and M. L. Young. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31.4 (2006): 895-917. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.
Patton, Stacey, and David J Leonard. ‘Viewpoint: Black Victims Unfairly Blamed’. BBC Magazine 8 Dec. 2014. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.
Wing, Nick. ‘When The Media Treats White Suspects And Killers Better Than Black Victims’. The Huffington Post Canada 8 Aug 2014. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.
Image: http://yalibnan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/black-lives-matter.jpg