Diversity Awareness – Annotated Bibliography & Media Representation – DUE Sun 10/17

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Media as Constructor of Ethnic Minority Identity: A Native American Case Study

Ritva Levo-Henriksson

Media representations and concepts of ethnic minorities on those representations become important if one tries to understand the media’s role as constructor of ethnic self-identity. Native Americans provide a classic example—synonymous here with “American Indian.” In Canada, the term “First Nations” is often used (Iverson, 1998, p. 4) along with “indigenous,” when referring to indigenous people of the world (cf. Alia, 1999). Their media representations have been quite one-sided and uniform, imitating the model of the nineteenth century Plains Indians as created by Hollywood (Hilger, 1995; Churchill, 1998; Kilpatrick, 1999; Bataille, 2001; Pearson, 2001; Rollins and O’Connor, 2003; Aleiss, 2005). Elizabeth Bird (1999) discusses how representations of American Indians are structured in predictable, gendered ways: Women are faceless, rather sexless squaws in minor roles, or sexy exotic princesses or maidens who desire white men. Men are either handsome young warriors, or safe, sexless wise elders.

This chapter describes representations of Native Americans created by mainstream media, and the concepts behind these representations. Following an overview, it focuses on media of American Indians themselves to promote their own ethnic identity. If ethnic identity is understood not only as con- sisting of subjective, symbolic, or emblematic uses of the culture of group of people, in order to differentiate themselves from other groups (e.g., De Vos, 1982), but also as socially and politically defined ethnic categories limiting possibilities of personal choices of ethnicity (e.g., Nagel, 1994); individual ethnic identification is also limited by external forces constructing ethnic boundaries. Mainstream media in particular are these kinds of important external forces in constructing ethnic categories and representing ethnic groups. This work is based on the concept that “We are all ethnic” (see Riggins, 1992a; Eriksen, 1997).

L. K. Fuller (ed.), Community Media © Linda K. Fuller 2007

Mainstream Media Practices

When mainstream media define the ethnicity of Native Americans, there is a certain form that is repeated over and over again. One part is that there is little coverage, if any, of Native Americans; then, when there is coverage, it is based mostly on lingering romantic, primitive, and negative stereotypes. Among typical examples of this phenomenon is Christopher Campbell’s (1995) example of a television news story presented on an NBC affiliate serving the Minneapolis-Saint Paul market.

Lasting 3 minutes and 15 seconds, it had a brief shot of silent American Indians spear-fishing in the dark, as a portrait presenting contemporary Native American way of life. Really about a fishing-rights controversy, pitting Minnesota’s sports fishermen against local Anishinabes or Ojibways, the role of Native Americans is that of being wallpaper—shown, but quiet, not asked anything, not even identified.

In some mythical way, the media have dressed the Native American in a heavy coat with the burden of the past, where she/he is a prisoner of silence, living a primitive life. Would it be too cruel an awakening from our daydreams of the romantic American Indian of the past to be shown a news film about a young Native American student working with a computer, reporting what she/he thinks about media images of his/her people? This is what is going on: media and new communication technologies have invaded Native Americans’ living sphere.

In spite of development, the Native American presence represented in media is both sad and lacking. When present life is depicted, the media focuses only on social problems, such as alcoholism, suicides, and violations. Representations of ethnic minorities are more common subjects in aca- demic literature than studies handling their comprehension concerning their representations in mainstream media. One such study is a survey by Bieber-Roberts, Brown, and Fuller (1995) that used both closed and open-ended questions in interviewing 215 Arapahos and Shoshones. The key question in the survey was non-native news media treatment; responses showed that native people believed that they were overwhelmingly negative. The main stereotypes pointed out were portrayals of natives as bad and violent people in a violent society, natives saying that the Anglo media represented them as alcoholics, stupid, violent, and second-class citizens.

Views on media coverage of Native Americans and Hopis in main- stream media was one of the central issues focused when I interviewed Hopis on a reservation in northern Arizona, where I lived for six weeks. In addition to personal interviews, I conducted a survey in the Hopi High School and noted participant observation. Besides Hopis, I also interviewed some Navajos in the neighborhood of the Hopi Reservation; furthermore, I visited many other reservations and Native American homes over the years. Much of the information here is based on my own research data.

56 Ritva Levo-Henriksson