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  • Deadly Fever: Racism, Disease, and a Media Panic by Charles T. Adeyanju
  • Augie Fleras
Charles T. Adeyanju . Deadly Fever: Racism, Disease, and a Media Panic. Halifax-Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2010. 132 pp. $17.95 sc.

There are several things the audience should know before reading this book. First, a commitment to critical race theory provides a key reminder: References to race may not be real in the empirical/objective sense of the concept; nevertheless, the race concept is real because people act as if it was real, with sometimes catastrophic consequences, thus confirming W. I. Thomas's prescient notion that "unreal' ("symbolic") phenomena can yield real ("objective") effects. Second, mainstream newsmedia are racialized—not because of systematic ("deliberate") racism—but because this coverage is systemically ("unintended consequences") biasing, thanks to the predominantly negative framing of diversities and difference implicit in a prevailing media gaze. Third, the centrality of framing as a process for organizing information. [End Page 241] Framing as persuasion draws attention to some aspect of reality as normal and acceptable, yet away from other dimensions of reality as irrelevant and inferior, in the process encouraging a preferred reading without reader/viewer awareness of their complicity or of the biases at play ("hegemony"). Fourth, the concept of media hype and moral panic. Newsmedia are prone to exaggerate and sensationalize incidents or events because it's in their institutional nature to do so, often for self-serving reasons. This amplification of scare stories is not without consequences for "spooking" the general public into panic mode and politicians into hasty decisions.

Once equipped with this knowledge, Deadly Fever begins to take shape as an empirically informed and theoretically valuable book. Much of the content and argument can be gleaned from perusing the backcover and preface. In early February 2001, the Hamilton Spectator published an article linking (erroneously as it turns out) a hospitalized Congolese woman with the possibility of importing into Canada a deadly infectious disease known as Ebola. As the author and others note, there is a long history of associating disease with race and nationality (SARS or "bird flu" as Chinese diseases, HIV/AIDS with Haiti), in effect demonstrating the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which the intersection of race, nationality, and gender are played out in those contemporary societies espousing a code of "racism without race." Although the subsequent media frenzy was seemingly disproportionate to the threat, the author concludes, excessive media coverage of the "nonEbola" panic served as a proxy ("subtext") for expressing white Canadian anxieties over the growing presence (and perceived menace) of racialized minorities. Clearly, then, race remains a key organizational principle in framing reality along the lines of what is normal, acceptable, and desirable. After all, over-the-top reaction to the nonEbola case could resonate meaningfully only with a racialized audience already inured to/by race-logic for making sense of the world (13). The implications of this subliminal yet racialized coverage are consistent with what Frances Henry and Carole Tator call "democratic racism"—a uniquely Canadian racism that thrives on exploiting the contradiction between Canada's ideals of inequality and the reality of racialized inequality.

In terms of an explanatory framework, the author's methodology is qualitative in relying on the primacy of peoples' lived experiences in socially constructing reality. With respect to methods for a data base, the author synthesizes content/critical discourse analysis of four major papers, alongside interviews with journalists and medical practitioners. As well, Deadly Fever incorporates the voices of those usually silenced in decisions over newsworthiness. In contrast to media coverage which ignored Black voices because they lack institutional authority or oppose dominant frames, the book explores the experiences and reactions of the Black community in Hamilton, Ontario. Conversations with members of the Black community yield insights into the collective anguish and disruptive impact of coverage that conflated race and (anti-)immigration. [End Page 242] Media insensitivity—however inadvertent—proved pivotal in perpetuating racism and the othering of Blacks as troublesome constituents who have problems or who create problems. Moves by the Black/Congolese community to counteract this negativity are also discussed, followed by a plea to improve newsmedia coverage of racialized communities...

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