Modern racism in the media: constructions of `the possibility of change' in accounts of two Australian `riots'
- Katie Simmons
- UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA, katherine.simmons@adelaide.edu.au
- Amanda Lecouteur
- UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA, amandalecouteur@adelaide.edu.au
Source
doi: 10.1177/0957926508092248 Discourse Society September 2008 vol. 19 no. 5 667-687
Abstract
Recent discursive research suggests that
contemporary racism is typically accomplished in terms of subtle,
flexibly managed
and locally contingent discussion of the `problems'
associated with minority groups. This study contributes to this work by
focusing on the ways in which a particular
formulation: `the possibility of change' was repeatedly implicated in
descriptions
of two `riots' that received widespread media
attention in Australia: one involving Indigenous, and the other
involving non-Indigenous,
community members. Data were drawn from a corpus of
newspaper articles, television and radio interviews, and parliamentary
debates. Analysis demonstrated how, in respect to
the event involving Indigenous Australians, `change' was repeatedly
represented
as an outcome that was not achievable. By contrast,
descriptions of problems within the non-Indigenous community regularly
represented `change' as an achievable outcome. We
discuss how discourses around `the possibility of change' can thus be
seen
as another identifiable practice in terms of which
`modern' forms of racism are regularly accomplished in media discourse.
Keywords
0 意見:
張貼留言