Today in the year 2015, by watching both local and network news it is clear that racial profiling is still a major issue. When you watch your local news, or read the news online one can recall seeing or reading about multiple reports of crime, drug-use, vandalism, violence and terrorism committed by African Americans or those of Muslim descent. The news is becoming the place to look to find negative information concerning minorities. Rarely are there are any positive reports of the actions minorities are involved in. The mass media plays a crucial role in racial profiling within our local and global communities by falsely targeting African Americans and Arabs for crimes they have not and would not commit. The mass media must begin to objectively report news showing both sides of the stories and also begin to report the positive contributions African Americans and those of Arab descent make to society.
People depend on their local news communications and media to report news occurring in their areas and around the world. It is important to be aware that mass media is currently contributing to the worldwide growth of racial profiling; therefore, we cannot always take what we read and watch on our local news to be factual without conducting our own thorough research. By reporting just one side of the story, the media is shaping the minds of the communities and creating false images of what a minority from African American or Muslim descent is. This one sided view is causing viewers to becoming narrow minded and subconsciously take part in racial profiling, all due to fear.
The media must acknowledge the influence they have over both local and global communities and commit to making a change and begin a new era of news reporting that will shift the world into a positive direction. News reports and articles must be evaluated critically and not be merely based on the emotions and impulses felt by reporters and writers covering the stories or topics. When a crime is committed, the mass media must dig deeper and research the why and how the crime occurred in addition to who, what, where and when. By merely sharing what crime took place, who is presumed to have committed the crime and where it took place, viewers are being trained to fear the suspected offenders and as a result are developing biases toward minorities.
For example, in a study conducted to analyze the relationship between local news viewing and perceptions of African Americans and crime found that local television news does create depictions of race. The study found that, “overrepresentation of Blacks’ as criminals was positively related to perception of Blacks as violent” (Dixon, 2008). Dixon’s study also found that people who watch the news seek out programs with information that supports their views while filtering out other news that opposes their views (Dixon, 2008). Dixon’s study was successful in proving that local television news programs are over representing blacks as criminal suspects and negatively displaying the African American race, thereby, contributing to the rise of racial profiling and leaving viewers with false perceptions of African Americans. So even when African Americans are not behind the crimes, they are being assumed to be the offender time and time again just because of their skin color.
In comparison to local news programming, network news programs have more resources to cover stories, cover news nationally and are more prestigious than local stations. A study analysis was conducted by Dixon, Azocar, & Casas (2001) on the portrayal of race and crime on television network news versus local news programs to address the issue on why African Americans are overrepresented as criminals and underrepresented in sympathy roles such as victims and officers. The study was done to find whether African Americans are associated with crime on network news as often they are on local news. Results of the study showed that network news programs tend to over represent White Americans to be the victims of crime news and African Americans as the criminals and also showed that White Americans are also over represented as officers while African Americans were under-represented (Dixon, Azocar, & Casas, 2001). Since network news is covered nationally, these finding support why African Americans are likely profiled to be criminals before they are viewed to hold officer positions who stand against crime.
While segregation is now illegal and blacks have their freedom, many feel that there is a modern racism growing today. Entman (1990), found that 76% of all local TV stories covering blacks were about crime or politics. Modern racism is said to be reinforced by the media when they cover stories which leave viewers with the impression that blacks are, “threatening, overly demanding and undeserving” and when the presence of black anchors covers the fact that old fashioned racism issues are still present (Entman, 1990). TV news contributes to the stimulation of white animosity toward blacks unintentionally by seeking to over-come old-fashioned racism by airing stories that show blacks categories of crime, resisting to the political demands of blacks, and failure to acknowledge that racism still exists. TV news is contributing to modern rasism which believes that discrimination is a thing of the past and that blacks have equal opportunity to compete in the marketplace, but in actuality they do not.
African Americans are not the only race that are victims of racial profiling. After the 9/11 terror attacks on America occurred back in 2001, those of Muslim descent also became targets of racial profiling. The graphic media coverages and thousands of innocent lives lost instilled both anger and fear in America and worldwide. Americans were left pondering on so many questions, the main one being: How could this happen in America when we are known as the land of the free and most diverse country in the world? Due to fear moral panic began to develop.
In August 2003, the Canadian and international mass media reported the arrest of 19 individuals by Canadian state security agents as part of Operation Thread which targeted a “possible Al-Qaeda sleeper cell” (Odartey-Wellington, 2009). Canada’s two nationally circulated newspapers, The Globe and Mail and the National Post, covered the story falsely resulting in a case of racial profiling that took place due to moral panic of terrorism (Odartey-Wellington, 2009). It was found that the suspects were apprehended because they fit the profile of potential terrorists due to their ethnic and religious backgrounds and were falsely targeting. Operation Thread is an excellent example of how the media can instill moral panic in society and ruin the lives of innocent Muslims by falsely targeting those terrorists to the public. The mass media aims at reporting the story and keeping the public up to date on the largest stories, so much so that they forget to ensure that the information they are sharing is factual. This example, shows how powerful the mass media’s influence in the world and how quickly the media is able to spread instill fear into its viewers.
Acts of terror are occurring on a global scale across the nation. Due to fear, many Arab Americans are becoming innocent victims of racial profiling. “Racial profiling describes the reliance of law enforcement officials and agencies on race or ethnicity, as opposed to behavior, when considering whether or not an individual is likely to commit a crime or illegal act, or in deciding whether or not to engage in enforcement of the law” (Jadallah & el-Khowy, 2010). According to a study by Jadallah & el-Khowy (2010), which interviewed 25 Arab-Americans it was found that 68% of their racial profiling encounters occurred while traveling and discriminatory encounters occurred in education and in their workplaces.
One interesting point of view is from respondent #17 in their study who states, “Muslims and Arabs are not a race. This country is built on racism against everything non-European. It's much bigger than racial profiling or racism. It's political. I am against this focus on racial discrimination” (Jadallah & el-Khowy, 2010). Another respondent stated if they were a terrorist, they did not need to board a plane to do something bad, so racial profiling is really a waste of time. While this statement is obviously accurate, yet many Americans still profile those of Arab descent to be a possible terrorist when they board a plane.
Brinson & Stohl (2012) conducted a study on the impact of media framing of the 2005 London bombings which included 371 American participants. The results of their study suggested that media framing in relations to terrorism has an influence over the way the public will receive, react and form judgements in relation to an event. Framing can have different impacts when events are framed domestically versus internationally. Domestic threats tend to create greater anxiety and fear levels, perhaps because a threat within one’s own country is frankly too close to home. Overall, media coverage has a significant impact on public perception on the threat of terrorism (Brinson & Stohl, 2012).
News writers and reporters (the media) choose the manner in which they will organize a story, this is known as” media framing – the manner in which information is presented to audiences at its most basic form (Bowen, 2015). Bowen (2015) conducted a study to perform a comparative analysis on the media framing between the Rodney King incidents and the Ferguson, MI conflicts each racially sensitive news stories. She aimed at analyzing how mainstream news media progressed and found that all media covering both stories focused on conflict between public and authority and the print and broadcast segments used framing to show black disadvantage. In her conclusion she found that the consolidation and commercialization of the media message does have an impact on the message the public receives. News is framed to cater to specific viewers, which can result in the public being persuaded or them relating to moral aspects of the story. Media framing will never tell the entire story and will result in local communities being fed information, but it will be up to the individuals to ensure that they considering the other side to the story in order to be well-rounded and unbiased.
Mainstream media is extremely influential in roweling up the public. Since the media frames all stories to suit their viewer’s interests, could it be possible that the media reports crimes in such a manner as to incite racial profiling? That suggestion that should be discussed because if it were the case, it would not be ethical to influence the public to be biased, hold animosity or even participate in violence solely on the basis of race. Just as racial profiling is becoming a conditioned responses for some, it may also becoming a conditioned assumption for others. When an African American becomes a victim of racial profiling or becomes conditioned to believing that they are being targeted by Caucasians, they too can become biased or have clouded judgement.
For example, an African American in the state of New Jersey who believes white officers and state troopers in the state are pulled over they may assume that it is due to their race when in actuality there could be other reasons they are stopped. Although Rev. Al Sharpten accused the state troopers in NJ of racial profiling after an biased study on the New Jersey Turnpike was released, a new study conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Public Services Research Institute yielded the conclusion that state troopers are in fact not guilty of racial profiling (Farmer, 2014). The study new study investigated speeds of over 40,000 drivers and found that, “while blacks made up 25% of all speeders, only 23% of the drivers stopped for speeding were black”; the study also found that, “blacks were found to speed at abut twice the rate of white drivers” (Farmer, 2014). This study proves that whites are also victims of racial profiling by being falsely accused of being racist. The issue at hand appears to be that the media does not perform proper due diligence and research and instead prefers to jump in when racial conflicts or incidents arise even when they do not have all the facts which contributes to an even greater issues.
According to Nakagawa & Arzubiaga (2014), social media provides context for people to learn about, challenge and address issues of race. Social media is highly used by young adults today to interact and keep up to date with what is going on in the world around them. Even when they are not seeking to, people on social media are constantly learning; therefore, social media mediums can be used an exploratory tool for racial literacy. The well-known site YouTube has over 800 million visitors per year and is made up of mainstream media and user created content (Nakagawa & Arzubiaga, 2014). Nakagawa & Arzubiaga (2014) analyzed how quickly a video post is viewed all around the world; for example a video titled, “UCLA Student racist rant on Asians in the Library for phoning Tsunami victims in Japan” was reposted and viewed over 100,000 times within one week, over 500,000 five months later and viewed over 2 million times 2 years after the original posting.
Students can analyze video posts that are considered racist to become racially literate. Through analysis as they watch multiple videos posted by a user students are able learn more about the user’s interests and background, can post their own comments sharing personal views, and students can engage in conversation with the users and other viewers regarding the videos. YouTube can ultimately help students learn more about why racism exists and why users produce or become a consumers of media for this purpose. Social media can be used to educate the public about race and also discuss racism issues that currently exist.
A study on Race and Ethnicity in Local Television news found that local television news reports from a mostly white perspective and fails to report on the activities and concerns of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans (Poindexter, Smith, & Heider, 2003). The study found that very little progress has been made in employing people of color as news anchors and reporters of the media and that African Americans were the only minorities that were newsworthy and it is when they’ve committed a crime. Story assignments were also found to be segregated; 54% of news stories had a white focus, 28% had no focus on race, 10% had a black focus, 3% Latino, 1% Asian and 1% Native-American (Poindexter, Smith, & Heider, 2003). The media is not diverse and therefore clearly contributes to the rising issue of racial profiling.
There is one magazine, The New Republic, which has become aware of the media’s diversity problem and its own personal contributions to the issue so are implementing changes toward a more diverse staff and story coverages. “The range of non-white voices in the magazine needs to expand, not just by having more nonwhite writers, but by having writers who aren’t just talking to an imaginary white audience but are addressing readers who look like the world” (Heer, 2015). It is great to see the magazine take responsibility for its actions and make a commitment to implement changes in order to avoid racial profiling and embrace diversity.
The news media has an impact on the messages received by the public. “News media serve as powerful mode of communication and have incredible power in influencing public opinion on controversial topics” (Bowen, 2015). Racial profiling seems to be on the rise due to America’s inability to accept difference. Change is inevitable in the U.S. due to growing diversity; therefore the mass media must begin to make a shift toward covering positive news and covering stories which show social unity between people from different races and cultures. People depend on their local news communications and media to report news occurring in their areas and around the world from an objective point of view. When Mass Media must begin to objectively report and communicate on positive contributions that African Americans and Muslim are making in their communities that is when their role in racial profiling will shift from negative to positive.
People depend on their local news communications and media to report news occurring in their areas and around the world. It is important to be aware that mass media is currently contributing to the worldwide growth of racial profiling; therefore, we cannot always take what we read and watch on our local news to be factual without conducting our own thorough research. By reporting just one side of the story, the media is shaping the minds of the communities and creating false images of what a minority from African American or Muslim descent is. This one sided view is causing viewers to becoming narrow minded and subconsciously take part in racial profiling, all due to fear.
The media must acknowledge the influence they have over both local and global communities and commit to making a change and begin a new era of news reporting that will shift the world into a positive direction. News reports and articles must be evaluated critically and not be merely based on the emotions and impulses felt by reporters and writers covering the stories or topics. When a crime is committed, the mass media must dig deeper and research the why and how the crime occurred in addition to who, what, where and when. By merely sharing what crime took place, who is presumed to have committed the crime and where it took place, viewers are being trained to fear the suspected offenders and as a result are developing biases toward minorities.
For example, in a study conducted to analyze the relationship between local news viewing and perceptions of African Americans and crime found that local television news does create depictions of race. The study found that, “overrepresentation of Blacks’ as criminals was positively related to perception of Blacks as violent” (Dixon, 2008). Dixon’s study also found that people who watch the news seek out programs with information that supports their views while filtering out other news that opposes their views (Dixon, 2008). Dixon’s study was successful in proving that local television news programs are over representing blacks as criminal suspects and negatively displaying the African American race, thereby, contributing to the rise of racial profiling and leaving viewers with false perceptions of African Americans. So even when African Americans are not behind the crimes, they are being assumed to be the offender time and time again just because of their skin color.
In comparison to local news programming, network news programs have more resources to cover stories, cover news nationally and are more prestigious than local stations. A study analysis was conducted by Dixon, Azocar, & Casas (2001) on the portrayal of race and crime on television network news versus local news programs to address the issue on why African Americans are overrepresented as criminals and underrepresented in sympathy roles such as victims and officers. The study was done to find whether African Americans are associated with crime on network news as often they are on local news. Results of the study showed that network news programs tend to over represent White Americans to be the victims of crime news and African Americans as the criminals and also showed that White Americans are also over represented as officers while African Americans were under-represented (Dixon, Azocar, & Casas, 2001). Since network news is covered nationally, these finding support why African Americans are likely profiled to be criminals before they are viewed to hold officer positions who stand against crime.
While segregation is now illegal and blacks have their freedom, many feel that there is a modern racism growing today. Entman (1990), found that 76% of all local TV stories covering blacks were about crime or politics. Modern racism is said to be reinforced by the media when they cover stories which leave viewers with the impression that blacks are, “threatening, overly demanding and undeserving” and when the presence of black anchors covers the fact that old fashioned racism issues are still present (Entman, 1990). TV news contributes to the stimulation of white animosity toward blacks unintentionally by seeking to over-come old-fashioned racism by airing stories that show blacks categories of crime, resisting to the political demands of blacks, and failure to acknowledge that racism still exists. TV news is contributing to modern rasism which believes that discrimination is a thing of the past and that blacks have equal opportunity to compete in the marketplace, but in actuality they do not.
African Americans are not the only race that are victims of racial profiling. After the 9/11 terror attacks on America occurred back in 2001, those of Muslim descent also became targets of racial profiling. The graphic media coverages and thousands of innocent lives lost instilled both anger and fear in America and worldwide. Americans were left pondering on so many questions, the main one being: How could this happen in America when we are known as the land of the free and most diverse country in the world? Due to fear moral panic began to develop.
In August 2003, the Canadian and international mass media reported the arrest of 19 individuals by Canadian state security agents as part of Operation Thread which targeted a “possible Al-Qaeda sleeper cell” (Odartey-Wellington, 2009). Canada’s two nationally circulated newspapers, The Globe and Mail and the National Post, covered the story falsely resulting in a case of racial profiling that took place due to moral panic of terrorism (Odartey-Wellington, 2009). It was found that the suspects were apprehended because they fit the profile of potential terrorists due to their ethnic and religious backgrounds and were falsely targeting. Operation Thread is an excellent example of how the media can instill moral panic in society and ruin the lives of innocent Muslims by falsely targeting those terrorists to the public. The mass media aims at reporting the story and keeping the public up to date on the largest stories, so much so that they forget to ensure that the information they are sharing is factual. This example, shows how powerful the mass media’s influence in the world and how quickly the media is able to spread instill fear into its viewers.
Acts of terror are occurring on a global scale across the nation. Due to fear, many Arab Americans are becoming innocent victims of racial profiling. “Racial profiling describes the reliance of law enforcement officials and agencies on race or ethnicity, as opposed to behavior, when considering whether or not an individual is likely to commit a crime or illegal act, or in deciding whether or not to engage in enforcement of the law” (Jadallah & el-Khowy, 2010). According to a study by Jadallah & el-Khowy (2010), which interviewed 25 Arab-Americans it was found that 68% of their racial profiling encounters occurred while traveling and discriminatory encounters occurred in education and in their workplaces.
One interesting point of view is from respondent #17 in their study who states, “Muslims and Arabs are not a race. This country is built on racism against everything non-European. It's much bigger than racial profiling or racism. It's political. I am against this focus on racial discrimination” (Jadallah & el-Khowy, 2010). Another respondent stated if they were a terrorist, they did not need to board a plane to do something bad, so racial profiling is really a waste of time. While this statement is obviously accurate, yet many Americans still profile those of Arab descent to be a possible terrorist when they board a plane.
Brinson & Stohl (2012) conducted a study on the impact of media framing of the 2005 London bombings which included 371 American participants. The results of their study suggested that media framing in relations to terrorism has an influence over the way the public will receive, react and form judgements in relation to an event. Framing can have different impacts when events are framed domestically versus internationally. Domestic threats tend to create greater anxiety and fear levels, perhaps because a threat within one’s own country is frankly too close to home. Overall, media coverage has a significant impact on public perception on the threat of terrorism (Brinson & Stohl, 2012).
News writers and reporters (the media) choose the manner in which they will organize a story, this is known as” media framing – the manner in which information is presented to audiences at its most basic form (Bowen, 2015). Bowen (2015) conducted a study to perform a comparative analysis on the media framing between the Rodney King incidents and the Ferguson, MI conflicts each racially sensitive news stories. She aimed at analyzing how mainstream news media progressed and found that all media covering both stories focused on conflict between public and authority and the print and broadcast segments used framing to show black disadvantage. In her conclusion she found that the consolidation and commercialization of the media message does have an impact on the message the public receives. News is framed to cater to specific viewers, which can result in the public being persuaded or them relating to moral aspects of the story. Media framing will never tell the entire story and will result in local communities being fed information, but it will be up to the individuals to ensure that they considering the other side to the story in order to be well-rounded and unbiased.
Mainstream media is extremely influential in roweling up the public. Since the media frames all stories to suit their viewer’s interests, could it be possible that the media reports crimes in such a manner as to incite racial profiling? That suggestion that should be discussed because if it were the case, it would not be ethical to influence the public to be biased, hold animosity or even participate in violence solely on the basis of race. Just as racial profiling is becoming a conditioned responses for some, it may also becoming a conditioned assumption for others. When an African American becomes a victim of racial profiling or becomes conditioned to believing that they are being targeted by Caucasians, they too can become biased or have clouded judgement.
For example, an African American in the state of New Jersey who believes white officers and state troopers in the state are pulled over they may assume that it is due to their race when in actuality there could be other reasons they are stopped. Although Rev. Al Sharpten accused the state troopers in NJ of racial profiling after an biased study on the New Jersey Turnpike was released, a new study conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Public Services Research Institute yielded the conclusion that state troopers are in fact not guilty of racial profiling (Farmer, 2014). The study new study investigated speeds of over 40,000 drivers and found that, “while blacks made up 25% of all speeders, only 23% of the drivers stopped for speeding were black”; the study also found that, “blacks were found to speed at abut twice the rate of white drivers” (Farmer, 2014). This study proves that whites are also victims of racial profiling by being falsely accused of being racist. The issue at hand appears to be that the media does not perform proper due diligence and research and instead prefers to jump in when racial conflicts or incidents arise even when they do not have all the facts which contributes to an even greater issues.
According to Nakagawa & Arzubiaga (2014), social media provides context for people to learn about, challenge and address issues of race. Social media is highly used by young adults today to interact and keep up to date with what is going on in the world around them. Even when they are not seeking to, people on social media are constantly learning; therefore, social media mediums can be used an exploratory tool for racial literacy. The well-known site YouTube has over 800 million visitors per year and is made up of mainstream media and user created content (Nakagawa & Arzubiaga, 2014). Nakagawa & Arzubiaga (2014) analyzed how quickly a video post is viewed all around the world; for example a video titled, “UCLA Student racist rant on Asians in the Library for phoning Tsunami victims in Japan” was reposted and viewed over 100,000 times within one week, over 500,000 five months later and viewed over 2 million times 2 years after the original posting.
Students can analyze video posts that are considered racist to become racially literate. Through analysis as they watch multiple videos posted by a user students are able learn more about the user’s interests and background, can post their own comments sharing personal views, and students can engage in conversation with the users and other viewers regarding the videos. YouTube can ultimately help students learn more about why racism exists and why users produce or become a consumers of media for this purpose. Social media can be used to educate the public about race and also discuss racism issues that currently exist.
A study on Race and Ethnicity in Local Television news found that local television news reports from a mostly white perspective and fails to report on the activities and concerns of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans (Poindexter, Smith, & Heider, 2003). The study found that very little progress has been made in employing people of color as news anchors and reporters of the media and that African Americans were the only minorities that were newsworthy and it is when they’ve committed a crime. Story assignments were also found to be segregated; 54% of news stories had a white focus, 28% had no focus on race, 10% had a black focus, 3% Latino, 1% Asian and 1% Native-American (Poindexter, Smith, & Heider, 2003). The media is not diverse and therefore clearly contributes to the rising issue of racial profiling.
There is one magazine, The New Republic, which has become aware of the media’s diversity problem and its own personal contributions to the issue so are implementing changes toward a more diverse staff and story coverages. “The range of non-white voices in the magazine needs to expand, not just by having more nonwhite writers, but by having writers who aren’t just talking to an imaginary white audience but are addressing readers who look like the world” (Heer, 2015). It is great to see the magazine take responsibility for its actions and make a commitment to implement changes in order to avoid racial profiling and embrace diversity.
The news media has an impact on the messages received by the public. “News media serve as powerful mode of communication and have incredible power in influencing public opinion on controversial topics” (Bowen, 2015). Racial profiling seems to be on the rise due to America’s inability to accept difference. Change is inevitable in the U.S. due to growing diversity; therefore the mass media must begin to make a shift toward covering positive news and covering stories which show social unity between people from different races and cultures. People depend on their local news communications and media to report news occurring in their areas and around the world from an objective point of view. When Mass Media must begin to objectively report and communicate on positive contributions that African Americans and Muslim are making in their communities that is when their role in racial profiling will shift from negative to positive.
References
Bowen, S. (2015). A Framing Analysis of Media Coverage
of the Rodney King Incident and Ferguson, Missouri, Conflicts. The
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Retrieved from https://www.elon.edu/docs/eweb/academics/communications/research/vol6no1/11BowenEJSpring15.pdf
Brinson, M. E., & Stohl, M. (2012). Media Framing
of Terrorism: Implications for Public Opinion, Civil Liberties, and
Counterterrorism Policies. Journal of
International & Intercultural Communication, 5(4), 270-290.
doi:10.1080/17513057.2012.713973
Dixon, T. L. (2008). Crime News and
Racialized Beliefs: Understanding the Relationship
between
Local News Viewing and Perceptions of African Americans and Crime. Journal
of Communication,
58(1), 106-125. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00376.x
Dixon, T. L., Azocar, C. L., & Casas, M. (2003).
The portrayal of race and crime on television network news. Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media, (4). 498.
Entman, R. M. (1990). Modern Racism and the Images of
Blacks in Local Television News. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 7(4),
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Farmer, B.
(2014). Does the Mainstream Media Hate Blacks? A review of crime statistics
indicates that the major media reports crimes in such a way so as to incite
racial animosity and racial violence, which in the end can only hurt blacks. The New American, (24). 23.
Heer,
J. (2015). The New Republic’s Legacy on Race. New Republic, 246(1), 18.
Jadallah,
D., & el-Khowy, L. (2010). State power and the constitution of the
individual: Racial Profiling of Arab Americans. Arab Studies Quarterly, (4), 218.
Nakagawa,
K., & Arzubiaga, A. E. (2014). The Use of Social Media in Teaching Race. Adult Learning, 25(3), 103-110.
doi:10.1177/1045159514534190
Odartey-Wellington,
F. (2009). Racial Profiling and Moral Panic: Operation Thread and the Al
Qaeda
Sleeper Cell that Never Was. Global Media
Journal: Canadian Edition, 2(2), 25-40.
Poindexter, P. M.,
Smith, L., & Heider, D. (2003). Race and Ethnicity in Local Television
News: Framing, Story Assignments, and Source Selections. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, (4). 524.
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