Media coverage analysed through the lens of racialization

An overview of French research on the process of racialization in the media, especially insofar as it mirrors the spadework in the US literature, shows two main research thrusts.The first is an intersectional analysis of representations which, although in phase with conceptualizations of racialization running through cultural studies in many countries, is seldom given the means to extend its exploration of the process into the practices of the actors of mediatization. On the other hand, and in an almost complementary way, while investigations that are carried out very close to media organizations and staff avoid the pitfall of imputing racialization to individuals’ inherent characteristics (one that has been encountered in several countries), they seldom do more than scratch the surface of the process while subsuming it in a classist understanding of social relations.This fault line, which duplicates what is found on the broader national scene of social science when it comes to racialization, does not, however, exclude theoretical and methodological hybridizations from some of the most contemporary work on media.