On March 24, 2015, headlines flashed across all major
international newspapers reporting on the crash of a commercial flight in the
French Alps, just northwest of Nice, France. All 144 passengers and six crew members on Germanwings
Airbus A320 were killed.
Instantly, media reports began to fly, speculating the various causes of
how the flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, Germany mysteriously crashed. A wide range of explanations immediately
began to circulate, most of which centered around technical malfunctions or an
idea that the crew lost consciousness or became incapacitated by a sudden loss
of pressure on the aircraft.
The greatest of these theories was linked to a previous
crash involving an Airbus 321 operated by the airline Lufthansa in November of
2014. While these were all
seemingly viable explanations for the mysterious crash, they all proved to be
wrong. Ultimately, evidence
collected by investigators uncovered radio correspondence and recordings that
exposed the horrifying truth.
27-year-old co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, intentionally crashed the flight
into the mountains.
The media and the rest of the world tried to wrap their
heads around the tragedy, attempting to make sense of the deaths of 150
innocent civilians. Therefore,
mainstream journalists and their millions of readers delved into the puzzling
life of the young, marathon running co-pilot. Eventually, the world was able to “make sense” of the
tragedy, declaring Lubitz as mentally ill and suicidal, having previously been
declared unfit to work by a doctor.
Further investigations revealed that Lubitz hid this information from his
employer and reported to work, ultimately locking his co-pilot out of the
cockpit when he made a trip to the bathroom, seizing the moment and
intentionally crashing the plane.
But what ideological
work is the mainstream media trying to prove with this line of
reporting? The coverage
surrounding the crash proves how the media works as an Ideological State Apparatus, interpellating individuals all over
the world into ideologies that support the state, or in this case, the dominant discourse. So what is the media in this case
REALLY trying to support? Because Andreas Lubitz was a white man, it is clear
that the media has tried every means possible to avoid considering him to be a
terrorist. In order to support the
mainstream media’s task of avoiding the word “terrorist”, they have used words
like “suicidal” and “mentally-ill” to justify his actions as anything but
terrorism. Moreover, airline CEO’s
urged single pilots following this incident to get married, implicitly arguing
that he wasn’t a terrorist but a misguided bachelor, who may have been saved if
he was married.
In a counter-hegemonic
article posted online by Zak Cheney-Rice on mic.com, Cheney-Rice addresses
this major issue of the media’s reporting on the plane crash. As he eloquently puts it, “White people
can’t be terrorists. Disturbed?
Yes. Mentally ill? Probably. A
troubled outcast? Of course. But “terrorist”? That term is reserved for a
special type of person, someone with brown skin, a foreign-sounding name, roots
in the Middle East”.
The mainstream media’s reporting on this issue is a form of inferential racism. Although it does not outwardly call all
or any Arabs or Muslims “terrorists”, situations like this confuse and
complicate the dominant discourse. Therefore, by writing off Lubitz as
mentally-ill, it allows the dominant stereotype of the Arab or Muslim terrorist
to prevail. Indirectly justifying
and disregarding the actions of the white male covertly sends a message to
readers across the world – that white men are incapable of the horrendous and
incomprehensible actions of Arab terrorists.
If Andreas Lubitz had converted to Islam or had a long lost
aunt from the Middle East, the story may have been reported differently. However, the dominant discourse remains, whether the reader is aware of the
implications or not.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment