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Race, as a social and historical construct is inherent in the structure and institutions that govern the everyday lives of people from all races. The white race, which is often overlooked as the invisible race or norm, maintains the material and symbolic advantages of this dominant neutrality of race. The media in its whole as an institution laced with material and discursive white privilege reinforces these advantages for whites. Through representation and domination of whites, to the presentation of racialised news, the media plays a key role in not only shaping and contributing to attitudes towards races, but in reinforcing the concept of white privilege.
In a discussion on race, racial identities and the meanings that are attached to these concepts, it is essential to define the contemporary ideology of race itself. Today race as a biological, objective process of categorization of the human species has been rejected and anthropologists have redefined race as a social and historical construct. Race has become a part of the social reality of today’s world, with arguably no objective validity, the concept still plays an important role as a social construct that is experienced in everyday situations, (Gabard&Cooper1998). Race remains a legitimate concept for analysis because individuals and collective bodies or identities utilize it as a real basis for social differentiation. As a social construct race has permeated the structure and institutions of Western democratic societies, such as the media system, which has allowed the continuation, even strengthening, of ideologies including white privilege and ‘otherness’, (Burrows 2003). Race and racism manifests itself in a myriad of different ways, including within the media, which is essential in provoking unity or division of racial identities.
“Whiteness is a cultural space that is represented as amorphous and indescribable, in contrast with a range of other identities marked by race, ethnicity, region, and class,”(Frankenberg). When looking at the concept of race, white privilege and the media it is important to understand that it is an, “…unspoken assumption, that race deals with non-whites,” (Burrows 2003). ... Being white is the assumed norm within racial theories therefore being of non-white race is the ‘other’ of which is acknowledged in discourses of race. ... The invisibility of whiteness as a race means that the status and ‘privileges’ of being white as an individual or collective identity or the institutionalized whiteness within society is often not questioned as a factor of racism. Studies of the invisibility of whiteness have shaped the contemporary theories of white privilege that is institutionalized in social, political and economic structures, such as the media.
Race is learned as being something that puts individuals or collective identities at a disadvantage in social, political or economic situations not as something that puts others at an advantage in the same situations, (McIntosh 1990).
Approximate Word count = 2216
Approximate Pages = 8.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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