Abstract
Social scientists and Indigenous people have voiced concerns that media messages about genetics and race may increase the public's belief in genetic determinism and even increase levels of racism. The degree of genetic determinism in media messages has been examined as a determining factor. This study is the first to consider the implications of this area of scholarship for the indigenous minority in Australia. A search of the last two decades of major Australian newspapers was undertaken for articles that discussed Indigenous Australians and genetics. The review found 212 articles, of which 58 concerned traits or conditions that were presented in a genetically deterministic or antideterministic fashion. These 58 articles were analysed by topic, slant, and time period. Overall, 23 articles were anti-deterministic, 18 were deterministic, 14 presented both sides and three were ambiguous. There was a spike in anti-deterministic articles in the years after the Human Genome Diversity Project, and a parallel increase in deterministic articles since the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2000. Potential implications of the nature of media coverage of genetics for Indigenous Australians is discussed. Further research is required to test directly the impact of these messages on Australians.
Highlights
Social scientists and Indigenous people have voiced concerns that media messages about genetics and race may increase the public’s belief in genetic determinism and even increase levels of racism
As there have yet to be any Australian studies conducted on the subject, we draw on existing international literature to analyse the Australian print media coverage of genetics in relation to Indigenous Australians, and to consider what effect this coverage may have on the attitude of the Australian public towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who make up 2.5 per cent of the population.[35]
The search looked for articles that had both (i) words related to Indigenous Australians (‘Aboriginal’ or ‘indigenous’ and ‘Australia’, or ‘Torres Strait Islander’) and (ii) words related to genetics
Summary
“New Zealand Maori carry a ‘warrior’ gene which makes them more prone to violence, criminal acts and risky behaviour, a scientist has controversially claimed.” So began an Australian Associated Press article[2] that rapidly spread throughout the English-speaking media in August 2006. Given the empirical evidence concerning the links between exposure to genetic discourse and levels of racial prejudice, one would expect even more pronounced effects when genetic discourse in the media is deterministic, but discussed in connection with traits or behaviours of racialised populations.[30] Researchers have measured significant increases in overall levels of general racism in response to exposure to racialised genetic discourse.[31] Of the few studies that have examined the impact of racialised messages about genetics on lay audiences, Condit et al’s pioneering study found that race-specific messages about genetics and health increased overall levels of racism, genetically based racism, and one dimension of genetic discrimination. As there have yet to be any Australian studies conducted on the subject, we draw on existing international literature to analyse the Australian print media coverage of genetics in relation to Indigenous Australians, and to consider what effect this coverage may have on the attitude of the Australian public towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who make up 2.5 per cent of the population.[35]
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