Television or Tunnelvision? Media Bias against Minorities In the past few years, a great deal of press has been devoted to the emergence of a more "multicultural" media. Pointing to TV shows such as Moesha and The Cosby Show, and the increasing presence of non-white reporters on the major networks and other media outlets, many people argue the media have finally begun to recognize and represent the racial and ethnic diversity of America. And while it is true that the representation of aboriginal peoples and visible minorities has improved a great deal in the last decade, the reality is that there is still a long way to go. High-profile shows like Cosby aside, when we consider the bulk of films, TV sitcoms, news and advertising that we encounter every day, the statistics show that minorities are still proportionally under-represented in the mass media, both on-air and off. In advertising, for example, aboriginal peoples and minorities remain virtually invisible. In a 1989 study on billboard advertising in Montreal subway stations, the researchers found that minorities were featured on only one billboard (a promotion by Ontario Tourism featuring the image of a black ballerina, repeated 10 times) from a total of 163 on display. The presence of diversity in advertising does appear to have improved, but only in certain areas. In a 1994 report titled Cover to Cover, Media Watch found that while 20 per cent of the ads in two recent issues of TIME contained people of color, there were entire issues of Reader's Digest and Good Housekeeping which had no ads with people of color. Entertainment programming is only marginally better. Like advertising, film and TV programs also tend to ignore minorities, particularly as "main" characters. Instead, minorities are used simply as "window dressing", seen in the role of "the cop", "the judge", or "the store clerk", but seldom in a role central to the story. A 1992 study by Media Watch confirms this observation. In a study of major network made-for TV movies, people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds accounted for about 16 per cent of the people on screen, but seldom as "main" characters. By comparison, white males accounted for over 50 per cent of "main" characters cast in each program. Similar trends were observed in George Gerbner's 1993 study of TV programming. So despite the presence of a few programs featuring people of color as the central characters the bulk of dramatic programming features few aboriginal peoples and minorities in central roles. Perhaps due to trying to attract specific audiences for advertisers, network television programming has taken an almost segregated approach to creating and promoting new shows. UPN and Fox have devoted entire evenings of programming specifically for black audiences, with shows that are as devoid of white actors and actresses as most of the major networks shows are devoid of blacks and minorities. This approach to entertainment echoes the segregated movie industry of the 1920‘s -1950‘s. During that period, movies were made and shown for either the larger white audience or the minority black audiences, who had to go to segregated theatres to watch their movies. The movies made for black audiences almost always had much lower budgets and got no attention from the news media or movie reviewers of the time. In the 1960‘s and 70‘s although less minorities overall appeared in television shows and movies, the shows and movies often had a mixed cast, with both minorities and whites appearing together in the same shows. Examples included All in the Family, the Jefferson‘s, Get Christy Love, Room 222, the Mod Squad and others. Today, there are still a few mixed race cast shows on television, Deep Space 9, ER and the Hughys are examples where both whites and minorities are major characters. It remains to be seen whether or not the current trends with more minority shows but at the same time segregation of many of the network shows will be a positive or negative development. In contrast to advertising and entertainment, news casting is often held up as the one area where minorities have made distinct gains, both as reporters and as editors and producers. Yet once again, the statistics tell a slightly different story. According to an industry survey of 2,620 professional journalists working at 41 larger daily papers surveyed, only 67 were non-white. In proportional terms that's 2.6 per cent of the newsroom - five times less than the percentage of minorities in the population. And it appears few moves are being made to improve the situation. Representation of people of color within the news, as a "source", is equally weak. After reviewing the photos and news stories published in six major Canadian dailies (Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, Winnipeg Free Press, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Montreal Gazette), a team of researchers at the Ryerson School of Journalism released a report entitled The Imperfect Mirror. It revealed, amongst other things, that of the 2,141 photographs appearing in the six papers (during one week) minorities were depicted in only 420 images. Of those, thirty-six per cent were pictures of athletes. Similarly, of the 895 local news stories published in the same six papers, only 14 per cent mentioned minorities or were about issues that directly affected minorities - far less than the 20 per cent share of the population minorities occupy in the combined population of these five cities. Clearly, these statistics show that minorities continue to be marginalized in the mainstream media. But what are the impacts of this constant under-representation? In his article, Please Adjust Your Set, Augie Fleras posits the following: In psychological terms, media "whitewashing" (especially advertising) intensifies the invisibility of minorities in society. Minorities are restricted in ways that "deny their existence, devalue their contribution to society, and trivialize their aspirations to participate, as full fledged members... "Whiteness" is conveyed not only as the norm from which all else deviates but also as a source of privilege - invisible and unearned - but real and at the expense of the nonwhite. One might conclude that what is not said by the media is as important as what is explicitly articulated. Progress continues to be made in trying to create a color blind and multicultural society, but it is still a journey with many miles yet to be traveled.

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