Media effects and ethnic relations in Britain and France

Abstract

The role of the mass media in shaping the incorporation of minority ethnic groups within different national contexts is a complex and in many ways controversial issue. The media are undoubtedly a powerful force in the creation and/or dissemination – the distinction is as important as it is problematic – of public images of the ‘imagined community’ that is the nation (Anderson 1983). The extent to which immigrants and their descendants are portrayed by broadcast and print media as part of – or apart from – the national community may significantly affect attitudes among the majority population towards minority groups. Access to information flows and to decision-making processes within the media may in turn affect the capacity of minorities to successfully mobilise in support of ethnically oriented goals. There has so far been very little comparative research on the influence of the media in shaping ethnic relations within different national contexts. This is perhaps hardly surprising in view of the many obstacles to productive research within this field. ‘Media effects’ are one of the most contested areas in media studies, with opposing camps advancing claims and counter-claims over the possible role of the media in inducing audiences to behave in particular ways. Controversy frequently rages, for example, over the role of television violence in allegedly stimulating violent behaviour among viewers (Barker and Petley 1997). When the methodological complexities and hazards of cross-national comparisons are added to such quarrels, it would be a bold researcher indeed who dared to advance a comprehensive theory for understanding the role of the media in shaping ethnic relations. The aims of the present chapter are more modest. It aims, first, to set out a typological framework for the analysis of media effects in the field of ethnic relations, second to explore the implications of this with particular reference to the rise of the Front National (FN) in France, third to consider whether any useful lessons can be learnt from the British media in their approach to minority ethnic groups, and finally to draw together my mainAlec G. Hargreavesfindings by way of some concluding remarks on the recent decline in support for the FN.