Elite Discourse And Racism

"This study of 'elite racism,' which can be subtle but is in fact pervasive and sometimes mundane, is an important contribution to the study of racism and a fine example of comparative race and ethnic studies. Intended for undergraduate and graduate students and scholars, it can also be profitably read by anyone interested in understanding the multiple manifestations of racism in U.S. and European societies." --Choice

Originally published in 1991. This book presents the results of an interdisciplinary study of the press coverage of ethnic affairs. Examples are drawn mainly from British and Dutch newspapers, but data from other countries are also reviewed. Besides providing the reader with a thorough content analysis of the material, the book is the first to introduce a detailed discourse analytical approach to the study of the ways in which ethnic minorities are portrayed in the press. The approach focuses on the topics, overall news report schemata, local meanings, style and rhetoric of news reports. Highly original, accomplished and penetrating, the book is the fruit of a decade of research into the question of racism and the press, important for ethnic studies, mass communication and media studies, sociology and linguistics.

Racism and Discourse in Latin America investigates how public discourse is involved in the daily reproduction of racism in Latin America. The essays examine political discourse, mass media discourse, textbooks and other forms of text, and talk by the white symbolic elites, looking at the ways these discourses express and confirm prejudices against indigenous people and against people from African descent. The essays show that ethnic and racial inequality in Latin America continue to exacerbate the chasm between the rich and the poor, despite formal progress in the rights of minorities during the last decades. Teun A. van Dijk brings together a multidisciplinary team of linguists and social scientists from eight Latin American countries (Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru), creating the first work in English that provides comprehensive insight into discursive racism across Latin America.

This new book extends Teun A. van Dijk’s earlier research on discursive racism to the Latin world. He presents a first inventory of elite discourse and racism in Spain and Latin America by examining discursive reactions in Spain to recent immigration, as well as age-old racism and ethnicism in text and talk in Latin America (especially Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile). Through careful analysis of the media, political discourse, textbooks and other public discourses in these countries he shows that discursive euro-racism is ubiquitous also in countries outside Europe. Spain reproduces, but as yet in a less radical way, the kind of racist discourse we find elsewhere in Western Europe. In Latin America, ethnicism and racism against the indigenous peoples and against Afrolatins has prevailed in elite discourse since colonialism and slavery. This is the first integrated study of discursive racism in the Latin world and provides a useful framework for similar research.

Racism and Discourse in Latin America investigates how public discourse is involved in the daily reproduction of racism in Latin America. The essays examine political discourse, mass media discourse, textbooks and other forms of text, and talk by the white symbolic elites, looking at the ways these discourses express and confirm prejudices against indigenous people and against people from African descent. The essays show that ethnic and racial inequality in Latin America continue to exacerbate the chasm between the rich and the poor, despite formal progress in the rights of minorities during the last decades. Teun A. van Dijk brings together a multidisciplinary team of linguists and social scientists from eight Latin American countries (Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru), creating the first work in English that provides comprehensive insight into discursive racism across Latin America.

Applying critical discourse analysis as their principal methodology, Frances Henry and Carol Tator investigate the way in which the media produce, reproduce, and disseminate racist thinking through language and discourse.

LC Number: 2005048399