Discourses & Media
The media take up social conflicts and address them publicly. At the same time, they (re-)produce racism. This applies to both daily newspapers and social networks. As part of the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor (NaDiRa), we are empirically investigating how media coverage of racism is changing and what role racism plays in (social) media.
Guiding research questions
- How visible is the topic of racism in the media and how does it change over time?
- How and by whom is racism addressed in the media?
- What does racist content on social networks look like and what reach does it have?
- How do algorithmic recommendation logics influence online racism?
The NaDiRa media analyses provide empirical evidence on continuities and changes in racism in the media. We focus on two different areas:
We analyze debates about racism. In debates on racial profiling or the Black Lives Matter protests, racism is the subject of the discourse. For our analyses, we work out how leading editorial media in Germany report on racism and what changes have occurred over time. Our findings provide an indication of the significance of the topic of racism in the public debate and the extent to which racism is recognized as a social problem. One example of this research is the project "Continuities and change in the media discourse on racism".
We analyze racist debates. Time and again, people from racialized groups are belittled in media debates and/or incited to contempt, discrimination, hatred or violence against them. Examples of this are the media debates about the supposed intelligence of members of racialized groups in the cases of Thilo Sarrazin or James Watson, or the racist insults in social media during the 2021 European Football Championship final. The project "Online racism as an interaction catcher" examines racism in the media.
Selected literature
- Ecker, Alejandro; Imre, Michael; Müller, Samuel & Sältzer, Marius (2022): Racism in social media: Automated detection of racist hate speech in the virtual political public sphere. DeZIMinutes, Berlin: German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM).
- Tim Henrichsen, Florian Gilberg, Andreas Blätte, Moritz Sommer, Elias Steinhilper and Sabrina Zajak: The Politicization of Racism in Germany. A quantitative content analysis of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung between 2000 and 2020. DeZIM Working Papers.