A genre that never stops entertaining, reality television has become particularly good at turning mundane human experiences into footage that is voyeuristically appealing.In New Zealand, the border security reality television show, Border patrol, has been continuously televised since the year 2002.This paper investigates whether the show promotes xenophobia and racial bias.It tests that risk in a study ofadolescents, a demographic that is particularly vulnerable to the genres claims of reality during acritical developmental stage of opinion formation and political socialisation.A group of 171 year 9 students (aged 14-15) was surveyed.Thematic analysis of responses revealed that students overwhelmingly saw Border patrol television as protecting New Zealand from foreign people.This paper uses cultivation theory to argue that border security reality television can promote racism amongst secondary school students, based on footage of stereotypes of immigrants as law breakers and, in theprocess, what I term, create a misinformed border security citizen-patriot.I argue that the show, by repeatedly stereotyping immigrants as risky lawbreakers, cultivates misinformed perceptions and conditions students to become citizen-patriots who view foreigners as inherent threats.These findings raise urgent ethical questions about the role of state-partnered media in manufacturing consent for discriminatory attitudes among the next generation of citizens.
Rajesh Ram (Thu,) studied this question.