Attacking ethnic minority groups.

Attacking ethnic minority groups.

In this blog I would like to discuss how white privilege and eurocentrism are incorporated in the news, and how the burden of representation occurs as a result of the way news companies report on certain events.

Part of me feels like eurocentrism is now commonplace in many newsrooms, and can be seen in a lot of news stories today. The problem with eurocentrism-that it treats cultures and ethnicities outside of Europe as unimportant or irrelevant, and enforces a western view point upon cultures outside of Europe, often portraying them incorrectly as a result- can be seen in the way that favourable news coverage is given to European- based events. Events, such as the 2016 Brussels Bombings and the 2015 Paris Attacks created such a massive global stir, and lead to media movements like ‘Je suis Paris’ and ‘Je suis Brussels’ which thousands got behind all across the world. Whereas on the other hand, Middle Eastern terrorist attacks and events that occur outside of Europe, such as the Zilten truck bombing in Libya (which left over 50 dead and more than 100 wounded) for example, are not made as much of a fuss of and are not given favourable coverage. What's more, they do not seem to receive the same level of global support that events in the Western World receive either. This form of eurocentrism, I think, is responsible for the sense of lack of importance that surrounds Middle Eastern events, and is responsible for creating the attitude that one attack is more significant than another due to its location in the world and the people involved. To me this gives off a message that says that one human life is more important than another, which is ridiculous, and contributes significantly to the inequality that exists in society. 

Secondly, I have come to notice that the way news companies report on certain events usually has negative implications for the minority group involved. This is where I believe the burden of representation comes in. The way the Brussels Bombings, for example, was covered focused largely on the victims of the attacks and ISIS, and other issues such as foreign policy and security problems (which are all extremely significant aspects of the event without a doubt), however, how does this impact the Muslim community and affect Muslim stereotypes? The entire Muslim community is paying the price because of the actions of a handful of individuals. People who identify as Muslim are all being labelled as terrorists and ‘bad people’ and are being treated differently to people of other ethnicities (especially ‘white’ people) in a negative way, purely because of the behaviour of a few people. There is no question that the attacks and events caused by these individuals are horrific, but I feel that the way the news reports on events such as these, only enforces negative stereotypes by failing to cover these events from the perspective of the ethnic minority, in this case Muslim people.

What other messages are being conveyed because of this as well? The fact that favourable coverage is given to predominantly Western perspectives on events, suggests to me that white privilege also exists in the newsroom, as the stories we hear about are generally ones that affect 'white' people, or come from the perspective of  a‘white’ person. This raises another question; why is it being made to seem like a ‘white’ life matters more than any other life?  Is this the message that news companies want to give off?

What does everyone think about this?