TV networks’ profit motive perpetuates core ethnic stereotypes despite cosmetic diversity

Evidence

The primary objective of commercial television networks is not education, social justice, or social change. Rather, the goal is financial, to keep as many viewers watching for as long as possible. Television must therefore strike a balance between keeping its products as engaging as possible and not offending potential viewers. Writers thus seem to be constrained and influenced by two factors: viewers have been primed to assume that Arabs/Muslims are terrorists, and therefore writers create what viewers expect and what will sell; at the same time, some viewers are particularly sensitive and fed up with stereotypes, and therefore writers must create a more diverse world of characters. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 158

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to audience-economics explanations in media studies and to the commercial-pressure mechanisms seen in journalism studies.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race…, 158