Minority Groups As Shaped By Mass Media Analysis

There are several divergent studies which examine the media’s influence on the public. According to these studies, the mainstream’s perception of minority groups, discrimination and immigration are all shaped by mass media. A study by Howitt (1982) evaluated coloured people and immigrants as minority groups in Britain. Mass media’s approach towards minority groups was queried in that research. The research’s hypothesis was that minority groups have been bothered, tyrannised, and damaged throughout history and that this situation is now being continued by mass media (Howitt, 1982). Mass media tends to portray minority groups as being insignificant and outsiders. For example, blacks being frequently shown in menial work places prepares people’s

In this way, persons and groups can be depicted as social deviants (Thompson, 1998). Moral panics have started to spread to Britain by way of mass media, partly because media in Britain has a national, rather than local, feature. ‘Whereas in societies such as America and France the press is mainly regional and local rather than national, in Britain the reverse is the case – the London-based national newspaper[s] are dominant’ (Thompson, 1998, p. 27). Thus, the dissemination of distorted news and interpreted information seems to be considerably high. Thompson benefited from a study conducted by Cohem (1987) in order to defend the idea that mass media influences moral panics in society. Cohen (1987) claimed that exaggeration and symbolisation are used by mass media when news about social issues and problems are presented. Similarly, Howitt (1982) and McQuail (1979) share the idea that mass media tends to depict minority groups as insignificant and as the source of social ills. Here, the situation of Muslims in the West should be considered because Muslims are conveyed as being a minority group in