Racialization

The concept of racialization is used to highlight the social processes that contribute to the production of hierarchized categorizations of human populations according to alleged racial attributes. Understanding racialization as bound to historically grown, institutionalized and contextual power structures, this entry first outlines the origins and use of the concept and gives an overview over debates around the concept. We then present historical and contemporary examples of how political communication can contribute to the racialization of social groups through essentializing, homogenizing and othering representations. Finally, we discuss different mechanisms by which racializing discourses are (re)produced and contested through political communication.