in'ner-cit'y: n. A general term for impoverished areas of large cities. The inner city is characterized by minimal educational opportunities, high unemployment and crime rates, broken families, and inadequate housing.
-American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy
As the definition above might suggests, most people have a negative view towards the condition of inner cities communities. In addition to being associated with poverty, crime, and deterioration, the term inner city is often defined as being located in central areas of a city, and to areas with a high population rate of minorities. In general they are often seen as undesirable places to live or visit. This negative view is not just seen in Winnipeg, but in cities throughout North America. One of the reasons why this is problematic is because it implies that, by comparison, outer cities, or suburbs are safe, rich, white, and desirable places to live. It can be argued that Winnipeg’s extensive amount of suburban sprawl can partly be contributed to not just the physical condition of Winnipeg’s inner city communities, but also to people’s distorted assumptions of them. Some think that the media has inappropriately caused this distortion, which is what I will discuss in this blog.
While statistically, Winnipeg’s, as well as the majority of other North American inner cities do experience a higher rate of crime, and other disturbances, the problems are not necessarily as sever as broadcast news programs would have us believe. It is no secret that the media tends to over sensationalize newscasts, a study conducted by the FBI helps to illustrate this point. They determined that, even though crime rates dropped 9.4% between 1991 and 1996, the amount of American’s that viewed crime as “the most important problem facing the nation...grew from only 1% in 1990 to 52% in 1994” (Green Leigh & Ross 2000). This was due to the increased amount of airtime devoted to the issue. The saying that if it bleeds, it leads has become a popular slogan for many broadcast journalists. This is done in order to gain more viewers, which in turn increases ad revenue.
The media in U.S. cities like Detroit have, in some cases even staged inner city conflicts. This was the case during the 1967 Detroit riots. In addition to staging filmed news segments, the Kerner Report, which was issued to explain the causes of the riots, found that, in many instances, the media reported unsubstantiated rumors as fact that added to the panicked and fearful atmosphere of the time, which added fuel to the rioting. The same study concluded, “that the disorders, as serious as they were, were less destructive, less widespread, and less a black-white confrontation than most people believed” (History Matters 2006). In my opinion, this negative, and distorted representation of the Detroit riots by the media has played a small, albeit relevant role in causing the current impoverished state of inner city Detroit neighborhoods that we see today. I base this partially on the fact that thousands of people began to flee Detroit shortly after the riots (Headlee 2007). For a modern account of the riots, click here.
In the book, In Urban Nightmares: The Media, The Right, and the Moral Panic, author Steve Macek states that the medias distorted communication of inner city crime has created an irrational fear of inner city environments (2006). While there is often disagreement about whether the media has a left or right wing political agenda, most critics do agree that the media is influenced by a deeply imbedded culture of racism, and discrimination against the poor. A 2003 report by Frances Henry, and Carol Tator found that the medias discussion of members of racial minority groups were restricted to a “limited number of themes (which were) immigration, crime (in particular racialized crimes such as rioting, drug busts, and violence-related offences), cultural differences as a function of “inner city decline,” unemployment, and poverty” (Henry & Tator 2003). In the U.S. African Americans, and Hispanics are more often the ones being marginalized, while in Winnipeg, and in Canada in general, I believe that it tends to be Aboriginals. This negative painting of minority racial groups, and to the impoverished as well, often effects peoples perception of the inner city because a large proportion of these groups reside within in. Adding to the problem is that racial minorities, and the poor living in the inner city typically do not have a voice, or any control over how the mass media portrays their communities. This means that images of inner cities are developed by outsiders that may not have a true understanding of the community.
Allowing over dramatized, and inaccurate perceptions of inner city communities to persist is dangerous because it encourages increased deterioration to occur. If people believe that an area is unsafe they will be less likely to invest, visit, or live within that community which will only compound existing problems. In order for Winnipeg’s inner city to experience long lasting improvements their needs to be a shift in the general publics opinion of it. In order for that to happen, local media will need to communicate a more positive depiction of the resources, and potential that exists within the city’s core communities.
Sources:
Deconstructing the “Rightness of Whiteness” in Television Commercials, News, and Programming by Dr. Frances Henry and Ms. Carol Tator (Retrieved February 26, 2008) http://pcerii.metropolis.net/generalinfo/info_content/Final Report - Henry, Frances.pdf
History Matters. “The Communications Media, Ironically, Have Failed to Communicate”: The Kerner Report Assesses Media Coverage of Riots and Race Relations (Retrieved March 17, 2008) http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6553
Planning, Urban Revitalization, and the Inner City: An Exploration of Structural Racism by Catherine L. Ross and Nancey Green Leigh (Retrieved February 26, 2008) http://www-md3.csa.com.proxy2.lib.umanitoba.ca/ids70/view_record.phpid=2&recnum=2& logm= 2&log=from_res&SID=b c61ee2b880cc25903032edd637b98e2&mark_id=search%3A 2%3A0%2C0%2C
Riots Rocked Detroit 40 Years Ago Today by Celeste Headlee (Retrieved March 17, 2008) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12257718
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (Retrieved February 26, 2008) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inner city
Urban Nightmares: The Media, The Right, and the Moral Panic Over the City by Steve Macek (February 26, 2008) http://www.popmatters.com/pm/books/reviews/5035/urban-nightmares-by-steve-macek/
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