"Feeding people's beliefs": Mass media representations of Māori and criminality

Abstract

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.