The rights of people with homosexual orientation are restricted all over the world. In some countries, initiatives called for a change in the status quo and citizens were given an opportunity to vote on rights of homosexual people in referendums. The first time that a state legalised same-sex marriage through a popular vote happened in […]
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Change the channel to change your perspective!
Mass-media in post-conflict societies is often highly polarized along the ethnic lines, representing one-sided interpretations of war events and history. Rupar and Graf (2017) showed that Bosniaks and Croats who were following mass media in their own ethnic languages thought that their group has suffered more than other groups. People who believed that their own […]
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Can mass media bring about harmony in the aftermath of war?
Twenty-five years after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the two former adversaries, Bosniaks and Croats, live highly segregated lives despite formal peace agreements. While a peace agreement represents the first step toward ending conflict, reconciliation is necessary to enable coexistence between former adversaries. Reconciliation encompasses forgiveness to the former adversary for the transgressions during […]
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Why are stereotypical portrayals of minorities in the media problematic?
Media often depict stereotypical views on social minorities and their members. For instance, Roma are presented as criminal, Middle Eastern refugees as a threat to European values, Muslims as religious fundamentalists. But what effects do such stereotypical information have on their audiences? Dr. Srividya Ramasubramanian addressed exactly this question with her study dealing with African-American […]
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Language abstraction in news about immigrants
Research by Dana Mastro and colleagues examined the use of abstraction in language describing immigrants in US newspapers. Variations in the use of abstraction in language and their consequences were first systematically described by the linguistic category model (Semin & Fiedler, 1988). The linguistic category model proposes that abstract language (i.e., adjectives) encourages people to […]
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Negative reports about immigrants in the mass media associate with prejudice
Italian majority has scarce direct contact with immigrants. Consequently, the primary source of information about immigrants is the mass media. Unfortunately, the information about immigrants transmitted through TV news and newspaper is twice as often negative as positive. This way, TV news and newspaper represent an exception to different forms of intergroup contact that are […]
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Threat or benefit: How do social workers perceive asylum seekers?
Tartakovsky and Walsh suggest that past research about immigrants focused too much on negative perception of immigrants. They propose a new model that includes not only perception of threats from immigrants but also perception of benefits that immigrants may bring to host societies. In their model, threats relate to economy, physical aspects, social cohesion and […]
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Who is likely to demonstrate against refugees?
In Germany, men and people with right-wing political orientation were more likely to participate in demonstration against refugees. People following public broadcasting media are less likely to demonstrate against refugees, while people following commercial broadcasting media are more likely to demonstrate against refugees. Reading newspaper did not influence political participation, whereas active use of social […]
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Who is afraid of refugees?
In Germany, people who actively use of social media, commenting or sharing contents about refugees, held worse attitudes toward refugees, considering refugees as threat to economy, culture or own safety. Importantly, people who have had direct contact with refugees, speaking with them, held better attitudes toward refugees, considering refugees as benefit to economy, enrichment of […]
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