Information and language in news impact prejudice against minorities

Researchers at the Institute of Psychology show how news about immigrants and language describing immigrants shape prejudice against immigrants and other social minorities, as part of the project «Immigrants in the Media». For instance, nouns used for describing the ethnicity of immigrants enhance prejudice against immigrants more than adjectives. Sylvie Graf and Sabine Sczesny from the Institute of Psychology at the University of Bern are investigating how positivity or negativity of news about immigrants and language that describes immigrants in mass media shape prejudice against them. Their project ' Immigrants in the Media ' is funded by the European Commission. The psychologists recently published the results of three experimental studies in the journal 'Media Psychology'. Positive news reduce prejudice. In the studies, the researchers examined prejudice against two negatively perceived groups - the Roma and Kosovo Albanians - and one positively perceived group - Italian immigrants.