Browsing by Author "Barnes AM"

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    "Feeding people's beliefs": Mass media representations of Māori and criminality
    (Routledge, 2023-07-03) Barnes AM; McCreanor T; Cunneen C; Deckert A; Porter A; Tauri J; Webb R
    This chapter examines media constructions of crime and criminalization, and the associated social harms. With a focus on Māori, it explores links between media narratives and how the other is socially constructed as criminal, promoting an entire ethnic group as suspect, to be feared and in need of surveillance. Media are a key pathway through which regimes of representation are enacted and society is polarized such that one group (law-abiding, deserving) requires protection from the criminal violent other. Racism and colonial practices surface, and the ‘threatened’ dominant group enacts a range of measures, including policies of crime control that can be violent in nature. We argue that, in pursuit of equity, justice, and sustainable social relations, media narratives must be challenged and transformed.
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    Imagining resistance: Māori audiences resist trauma and reimagine representations in television dramas
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2023-03-29) Barnes AM; Matheson D
    Television drama has implications beyond providing entertainment and beyond immediate audience reactions and responses. Māori focus group participants in my research on local television dramas were acutely aware of how they were represented on screen. As an audience they were deeply affected and worked hard to pre-empt and address what they saw or expected to see. Against a backdrop of colonisation and negative stereotypes that pervade Māori representations, they undertook multiple forms of meaning making and negotiated complex responses. Colonial trauma emerged as a deeply felt response to representations that reminded participants of the effects of colonisation; for example, the denigration of te reo Māori (Māori language) and issues of identity. When viewing troubling depictions, participants deployed strategies of resistance, including a response I termed ‘Imagining Resistance’ where, they created backstories and interpretations for characters’ motivations and behaviours.