Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Bc. Eva Klepárníková Ethnicity in the Media Master‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: PhDr. Jitka Vlčková, Ph.D. 2012 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author‟s signature 2 Acknowledgement I would like to express many thanks to my supervisor PhDr. Jitka Vlčková, Ph.D. for her valuable advice and kind support and to all my friends who helped me with the survey. 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction...........................................................................................................5 2. Ethnicity................................................................................................................6 3. Ethnicity and Religion...........................................................................................9 4. Ethnicity in the USA............................................................................................11 5. Media...................................................................................................................16 6. Ethnicity in the Media in the U.S. ......................................................................18 6.1 U.S. Media Policy................................................................................................21 6.2 Role of the Media................................................................................................23 6.2.1 Role of the Media in 9/11 and the Start of Anti-Muslim Rhetoric...................26 6.2.2 Arab Americans and Muslim Americans and the New York Times.................29 6.2.3 Arab Americans and Muslim Americans and the CNN...................................38 6.2.4. Ethnic Media…………………………………………………………………40 7. Movies in the U.S. ……………………………………………………………....45 7.1 Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in the Movies……………………….47 8. Research………………………………………………………………………….53 8.1 First Group……………………………………………………………………...55 8.2 Second Group…………………………………………………………………..57 8.3 Third Group…………………………………………………………………….60 8.4 Second Fake Article…………………………………………………………….62 9. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….64 10. Abstract…………………………………………………………………………68 11. Resumé…………………………………………………………………………69 12. Citations………………………………………………………………………...71 4 1. Introduction The objectives of my thesis are to analyze the depiction of different ethnic groups in the media and to prove the influence of the structure of the news on the perception of different ethnic groups. The main attention is focused on the depiction of the Arab Americans and Muslim Americans and Arabs and Muslims in general in the media. I have analyzed the tendencies in the depiction of the life attitude, character and behaviour of these ethnic groups. Both present and past situation in the United States of America and especially the situation before and after 11 September, 2001 have been analyzed. I have covered mainly newspapers and films, but I also examples from TV news are included. The major idea of my thesis as well as of my research is to demonstrate the way news is structured and what images are shown to us in the movies and how these things influence our everyday perception of ethnicity and how they support common stereotypes connected with race and religion. My thesis attempts to prove that our understanding of different ethnicities is not only influenced, but even created by the image given by the media. Therefore, we tend to associate different ethnic groups with what we know from the media and, if a certain ethnic group is presented in a restricted way, then our perception is limited as well. There were many investigations conducted in the field of media and ethnicity but most of them only analyze the way media depict ethnic groups but not the influence of these images on our own perception of different ethnic groups. I have divided my thesis into two parts. First, theoretical part is dealing mainly with the general idea of ethnicity, several theoretical approaches on this topic, policies of the broadcasting networks and newspapers and also the importance of religion as one of the basic elements of ethnicity. I am comparing the role of media in past decades and nowadays. My research has been focused on the situation in the media before and after 5 the terrorist attacks on 11 September, 2001. These terrorist attacks seem to be one of the most documented events in the history and the way they were documented (words and images used) greatly influenced the general attitude towards Arab and Muslim Americans and Arabs and Muslims in general. I am also analyzing major ethnic clashes in the USA in the 20th and 21st century and their reflection in the media. Second, practical part is based both on examples of articles from the New York Times and also on my survey among 300 native speakers, all students of Northeastern University in Boston. Apart from these, I am also analyzing the way U.S. cinema portrays Arabs and Muslims and show real factual examples. For my survey, I have created a questionnaire containing two fake news stories and asked the respondents to describe their reaction to them. From their answers, I analyzed the way the structure and words used in the news stories influenced respondents‟ perception of ethnicity, race and religion. The analysis of major Hollywood films, depicting Muslims and Arabs living in the United States, discusses both the examples of stereotypical and inaccurate depiction as well as realistic movies. Similarly, several articles from the New York Times concerning the situation among Arab and Muslim Americans after the 11 September, 2001 were studied. 2. Ethnicity The term ethnicity should be discussed preferentially, because it is the main element of my thesis. In this chapter, I explore mainly the history of ethnic groups and also conflicts connected with ethnicity. The importance of understanding the term ethnicity is crucial for my research, because we learn about the problems of ethnic communities mainly from media and this image might not be completely accurate. 6 Therefore, I want to outline the general problems of ethnic groups which should be taken into account whenever we deal with ethnicity in connection with media. Although the term „ethnicity‟ is recent, the sense of kinship, group solidarity, and common culture to which it refers is as old as the historical record. Ethnic communities have been presented in every period and continent, and have played an important role in all societies. The sense of a common ethnicity remains a major focus of identification by individuals. Ethnic community and identity are often associated with conflict, particularly with political struggles in various parts of the world. However, there is no essential connection between ethnicity and conflict, and relations may in fact be peaceful and cooperative. Unfortunately, the role of media strengthens the idea of conflict (Hutchinson 4). In history, ethnic groups remained passive – although they were recognized communities they were of no political importance but with the appearance of the modern bureaucratic state and capitalism, ethnic communities take on a new political significance. In the modern rational state there was no room for an ethnic autonomy that conflicted with the requirement for all citizens to integrate into the new national state. The new ideologies of political nationalism required all the members of a „nation-state‟ to be united and homogenous, and this produced new conflicts in most states which were composed of several ethnic communities (Hutchinson 11). Ethnicity has also become allied to issues of race especially in the so-called plural societies (e.g. USA). Some states and regimes have gone even further, and employed racist ideologies to harden cultural cleavages so as to exclude and dehumanize minorities on the basis of colour, culture, religion, and physical stereotypes. This has brought about a century of forced population transfers, mass murder, and genocide. Even without racist categorization, ethnicity in the context of the modern state frequently provides the basis 7 for conflicts over the distribution of resources, with grave regional and geopolitical consequences (Hutchinson 121). In the third millennium, the prospects for ethnicity are uncertain. On one hand, the homogenizing tendencies of advanced industrialism and nationalism leave little space for „sub-national‟ identities. Globalization, economic and cultural, tends to reduce ethnicity to the folkloristic margins of society; neither the multinationals nor mass electronic communications have any regard for ethnic or national boundaries (Fenton 134). Thus, globalization does have the power to contest and dislocate national identities, in that it has a pluralizing impact, opening up new possibilities and positions of identification. But its general impact is highly contradictory, as different groups, let alone individuals, respond in a range of different ways to the diversification and concomitant politicisation of identity. Identities are in transition, involved in a multiplicity of crossovers and mixes (Gillespie 190). There is the argument that post- industrial, polyethnic states, particularly in immigrant societies like the USA, must develop purely civic identities and symbols if they are to remain democratic and secure the loyal participation of all their members. On the other hand, advances in electronic communications and information

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