Representation works on two levels. Descriptive representation is about numbers: whether a city council, newsroom or faculty reflects the people it serves. Substantive representation is about influence: whether a group's interests actually shape decisions. A single token hire can raise the count without changing much else.
US history shows why it matters. The 1968 Kerner Commission faulted news media for reporting from a white perspective and for having very few Black journalists, which shaped how the country understood urban uprisings. Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to Congress in 1968. Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman on the Supreme Court in 2022, more than 230 years after the Court was created.
In media, repeated portrayals teach audiences who belongs and who is a threat. Studies of local TV news have found Black people overrepresented as criminal suspects relative to arrest data. Accurate representation, in front of and behind the camera, changes who gets to tell the story.