Simplifying complex representations of Arabs in TV fails to change audience perceptions

Evidence

Despite the range of representational strategies identified above, viewer responses suggest that for most the dominant message remains the same: the United States is at war against terrorism because Arabs and Muslims are a threat. There is a tension between writers and producers’ intentions on the one hand and critic and viewer responses on the other hand. Writers and producers create multiple representational strategies to circumvent accusations of racism and to maintain the largest viewership possible. Yet most critics dismiss such strategies for being too politically correct, preachy, or artless, and many viewers take away the message that Arabs/ Muslims are a threat to U.S. national security despite the multiple representational strategies that would seem to counter that hypothesis. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 280

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to cultivation theory and to the gap between producer intent and audience interpretation found in media-effects scholarship.
• SEED: Angle: ‘Why media representation reforms don’t move audiences’ — the finding that diversity efforts pay lip service because the frame message overrides the counter-exemplars.