The responsibilities of the media in racist propaganda

Of Oiza Q.Obasuyi

The narrative adopted by the main Italian information sources when talking about immigration, people of foreign origin and racism often tends to be divided into two typologies:the trivialization of systemic racism on the one hand, and the criminalization of people on the other.The latter occurs through buzzwords such as "emergency" and "security", which often emerge in mainstream newspapers, in particular when talking about landings or urban areas with a greater presence of foreign people.This way of telling the facts not only has a real impact on the audience, who in turn can adopt it hostile and discriminatory behavior towards anyone with a migratory background, but it is also a symptom of the lack of a plurality of voices of various origins within both the Italian media and editorial offices.

Between criminalization and emergency

Taking care of how a person's nationality or origin is inserted in the text does not mean polluting the truthfulness of a news event that actually happened and involved people of foreign origin.Rather, it means preventing traits such as a person's nationality, origin or skin color from becoming an integral part of a person's guilt, particularly when talking about a crime committed.The Rome Charter Association in its Guidelines has already highlighted this enormous problem in analyzing news coverage in Italian newspapers.For example, the Association writes:

While it would be useful to understand the story to write "Albanian citizen arrested at the station:was wanted by the Tirana police", the designation through nationality would be superfluous in a generic crime case such as "Albanian arrested:he hadn't stopped at a checkpoint."In fact, this way of reporting news would suggest that a person's nationality is relevant to explain the subject's actions and would favor the reader's automatic association between nationality and criminal act [...].

These measures are far from trivial, as they impact the perception, in everyday life, that people have of minorities, and therefore also have an impact on combating discrimination and generalizations.However, they are not taken into consideration, thus also fueling alarmist and racist propaganda.This type of generalizing narrative emerges especially when talking about sexual violence, rape and harassment against Italian women by foreign citizens.Being a foreign citizen becomes the real problem, and the main topic shifts to the landings from the Mediterranean rather than to the umpteenth proof that there is a systemic - and global - problem of machismo and gender violence and that above all there is no difference between an Italian or foreign rapist.In August 2018, for example, in Jesolo reporting a case of rape against a 15-year-old, the newspaper headlines were these:”He raped a minor on the beach of Jesolo.Senegalese sentenced to 3 years and 4 months” (The Messenger, 28 August 2019);”Jesolo, Senegalese arrested for the rape of a 15-year-old girl” (The Republic, 25 August 2018).More recently, the current Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni published the rape video of a Ukrainian woman which took place in Piacenza, in the middle of the election campaign, since the fact that the rapist was an asylum seeker would have been even more functional to his propaganda methods.

In addition to becoming an aid to racist discussions and political propaganda which then end up in the generalization of all people of foreign origin, especially if they come from a country in the global South, this way of providing information adds nothing really relevant to the systemic issue that concerns gender violence.On the contrary, it gives rise to thinking that the latter concerns only that part of society that is easily most condemnable and therefore criminalized - this is also made possible by frames of permanent "foreigner emergency" that many mainstream media adopt.In this case, for example, the newspaper The Truth, in the month of August, published an article on the front page entitled “Doors open to the next rapist”, and in the subtitle it was reported that 40% of rapes in Italy are committed by foreigners.Dissecting this statement, the editorial team of Political report card (editorial project that deals with fact-checking and analysis of current political events) he explained how this statement is false:

In Italy, rapes are committed in over three quarters of cases by people with whom the victim has an emotional or friendly relationship:to be precise, in 62.7% of cases from partners (current or previous), in 3.6% from relatives and in 9.4% from friends.Those suffered by Italian women were committed by Italians in over 80% of cases.

Going beyond the numbers, it is necessary to remember that the discussion cannot end here and that the involvement of racialized people, especially women of foreign origin, is necessary.As stated the Migrant Women Assembly (of the Migrant Coordination of Bologna) in relation to the sexual violence that occurred in Piacenza:

The rape of a woman in Piacenza was transformed into an opportunity to garner votes.Salvini and Meloni, as per tradition, took advantage of this to relaunch their racist policies.Both stressed that he was an asylum seeker, both promised to guarantee cities greater security when they are in government, implying that their security will affect all migrants.

And again:

Since we equally spit on racism and sexism, since we are interested in feminist politics and not in electoral crime news, in Piacenza we see a man who has raped a woman, as they do every day, in public or in the private family protected from the gaze and the smartphone cameras, many men of every colour, religion and culture, with documents from all countries in their pockets.[...] Let's say that racism fuels male violence by distinguishing between women who can be violated because of the color of their skin and women who 'deserve' protection due to the color of their skin, perhaps through other violence.We say that rape is rape, whoever commits it.

This type of narrative about a permanent emergency is also found in news relating to migratory flows, although, even in this case, the data unmasks a certain type of propaganda that continues to describe migratory phenomena in terms of "invasion".As explained by professors Pierluigi Musarò and Paola Parmiggiani of the Department of Sociology and Economic Law (University of Bologna) in book Media hospitality.Migrations in public discourse, foreigners regularly residing in Italy have settled in for 6 years now just over 5 million, equal to approximately 8.5% of the resident population, are slightly predominantly women (52%), mostly from European countries (51%, of which almost 2/3 from EU countries ) and predominantly confess a Christian religion (54%).

Added to these are the refugees who are just over 200 thousand and the undocumented immigrants, just over 500 thousand units, respectively equal to 5.7% and 8.7% of the total foreign population present in Italy.Furthermore, the emergency rhetoric and the debate that is created around yet another landing or blockade at sea of ​​NGO ships carrying people in need of a safe port, so established by current international laws, do not help address the issue of inequalities in international mobility.These are problems that range from the issue of continuous refusal to obtain visas, to passport discrimination (constantly made evident by the Global Passport Index) up to the contrast of violent repressive border policies in which, on a daily basis, rights are crushed due to systematic rejections.

The great absentee in public discourse is the person directly interested, i.e. the person of foreign origin - or with a migratory background - who due to their experience or studies should represent a valuable contribution to dealing with these issues.Yet, as is underlined in relationship News on the fringes (Associazione Carta di Roma, 2021), although a decline in news on immigration was detected in 2021, "the direct access of migrants and refugees to the news, i.e. their vocal presence in the services, remains limited [... ].In fact, by selecting all the services relating to immigration that contain interviews, the presence of migrants and refugees in the voice is detectable in 6% of cases".

Racism and media diversity

Those who talk about immigration (but more generally also about racism, culture, current events or religions) are predominantly white.The programs that host discussions on the topic are predominantly occupied by politicians or journalists, mostly men, who deal with issues that do not concern them personally.In fact, regarding the involvement of foreign professionals or of foreign origin in the information sector, in the article "Media and diversity, in Italy editorial offices without foreign journaliststhe” of the header Global Voices, it was underlined that, in many cases, not only are journalists of foreign origin not consulted in the construction of the news on immigration, but they are called into question "to support a stereotype" and "therefore do not feel taken seriously as serious as professionals."

As he stated the journalist Sabika Shah Povia, who due to her Pakistani origins and her religion has been called into question several times for the case of Saman Abbas, a young woman killed by her family:

Often a politician is invited who has an agenda to pursue and carries out propaganda, a girl with a veil or an imam is called to defend the religion, and someone from the Pakistani community who can act as a scapegoat.However, people who are experts in certain topics are not called.It would be important to give space to other professional figures, such as second generation psychologists, anti-violence center operators, sociologists, people involved in the third sector who try to bring about concrete change with their work every day.

Speaking precisely about the relationship between the Muslim religion and women, as can be seen from an interview by Radio Black Out Leila Belhadj Mohamed, a geopolitical expert, gives us a superficial narrative on "veil yes" or "veil no", based on paternalism and without real attention paid to the women who struggle, with and without the veil.A similar argument is in fact supported by Iranian women themselves who, also demonstrating in Italy following the murder of Mahsa Amini, have demonstrated that Muslim women's resistance to any patriarchal imposition has always existed, also adding that more than the veil itself, the protest was born - in addition to the profound economic-social crisis in which Iran finds itself and the repression of the dictatorship of Khamenei - to claim the right to choose what to wear.The protagonism of women (journalists, experts, activists) of foreign origin, of Muslim religion and therefore feminists, who through experience or studies know these issues in depth, in this type of debates, is crucial in the Italian mainstream media - but precisely their presence is not considered.

This absence also applies to the black people who are brought out - always as objects of debate and never as active subjects who speak up.The last case concerns that of volleyball player Paola Egonu, in particular of her outburst, filmed by a spectator, at the end of a match lost against the US national team in which she talks not only about the weight of being the one who brings home the victories and how heavy the loss also affects her, but also of the frustration of receiving discriminatory comments, even regarding his Italian citizenship.The reaction of mainstream journalism was to trivialize and belittle one of the many experiences that ordinary racialized people live every day, namely not being recognized as Italian.Rather than shifting the debate to systemic and institutional discrimination, especially if we think about the issue of citizenship reform and the non-recognition of over a million people born or raised in this country, in the Repubblica, for example, there was talk of "stress" to manage and how champions must "resist even insults".

Furthermore, considering that even Palazzo Chigi intervened in Egonu's defense by speaking of "national pride", it seems that in Italy a person has the right to be recognized as an integral part of society only when he becomes "prestigious for his country" - especially in sport, unless he then fails to score a decisive goal or lose an athletics competition, then, in that case, the racist insults start again from the stands.And although this topic goes beyond stadiums and arenas, the debate was born and died there, without, again, any involvement of the people directly involved who may not be Serie A champions or Olympic gold medalists, but who live and face a society that continues to ignore and discriminate against them.

How to change paradigm

It is therefore clear that the Italian mainstream media not only do not reflect the diversity that characterizes the society of this country, but continue to ignore the many subjectivities with different origins that have a thought, opinions, and above all represent the missing link to deconstruct the topics covered so far.Despite this absence in television programs where current affairs are discussed or in the most prominent journalistic editorial offices, social media have become the portal par excellence for ensuring that racialized people are protagonists, appropriating the narrative that is constantly made about them They.To name a few projects: Color*, born to "see a greater and better representation of Italian culture at ColorY* and be part of an increasingly inclusive and aware society";the countryside ChangeRAI, created by young Italian men and women of various origins to denounce racism on Italian television - from the use of blackface until the use of the N-word - like the actress Valeria Fabrizi who talking about himself as a young man on the program Freewheeling of Rai 1, in reference to her complexion she stated "Beautiful, no... I look like a black girl, a black girl";the newborn Dotz, a platform that deals with current affairs, politics, culture and economics born from the need to create, we read in the description, an alternative that combats the ethnic-cultural stereotypes that we can find in mainstream journalism; Africans United platform created to deconstruct stereotypes and prejudices on the African continent and to talk about African culture and diaspora in Europe and around the world.

Added to these platforms are other artistic and cultural contexts created by people (writers, activists, journalists, artists) of various origins such as Divercity Festival of Milan or the Black History Month Festival of Turin.So it's not that there aren't people to contact to talk about certain issues in a serious and informed way, the point is the systematic exclusion of these realities from the general narrative.We find ourselves faced with conservative journalism - one which, faced with this innovation of language and people, deals inappropriately with cancel culture or of "politically correct dictatorship" - clinging to a way of providing information that no longer responds to current needs.To change it, it is necessary not only to take note of the fact that a certain type of journalism will never change unless the editorial staff starts to change too, but that people of various origins who are reclaiming their own narrative already exist, you just need to listen, ask and involve.

This article was produced as part of the project INGRiD – Intersecting Grounds of discrimination in Italy, funded by the European Commission under the REC (Rights, Equality, Citizenship) program

Preview image via Luigi Einaudi Foundation