Download Muslim Media Essay

Stephanie Teal
Discuss whether news (print and television) representations of Muslims is prejudiced
The Islamic faith is the fastest growing religion in the West. Nevertheless, the West has many stereotypes and
misconceptions about Islam that are due to the media. Islam is often looked upon as an extremist religion, and
many people hate Islam and do not want to acknowledge its true teachings. In many cases, the media’s reports
about Islam are incorrect due to ignorance. This is one of the reasons why the West often hates Islam. In
contrast to what many Westerners think of Islam, Islam is a peaceful religion, which does not promote any
forms of uncalled fighting or terrorist actions.
A major factor which contributes to Islamic stereotyping in the West is down to the media’s ignorance of
selecting their words that describe Muslims. This is quite common within the print based media, for example
newspaper articles. Some common names seen in the news about Muslims are ‘extremist’ or ‘terrorist’. These
words are misleading and are mainly anti-Islamic. The media rarely uses more neutral terms such as ‘revivalist’
or ‘progressives’. Journalists may use such terms as these purposefully to create a negative image of Muslims
and persuade the public to an anti-Islamic view and general prejudice. The media has the power to do this as
the general Western public relies and bases their own opinions on that of what the media presents to them.
The Muslim people are poorly represented in the West in terms of print based coverage, such as the press. Not
only are there just a few handfuls of news agencies in Muslim countries; there is also the concern over the
number of inexperienced Western reporters. Many reporters don’t understand the local cultures in Islam and
don’t speak the language; consequently this then means that their representation is often a biased account of
the political and social events occurring. We can also pick up on the visual images presenting negative images
of Muslims, not just the language used. For example it could be said that these are also quite bias, that the
images seen are focused purposefully and solely on the negative side, e.g. – conflict. A very common image
associated with Muslims is protests; the Western public see only the aggressive protesting Muslims, what they
do not see is perhaps the Western people aggravating the Muslims to this point. Therefore then the media
shows the Western public only what it wants them to see, a falsehood on the truth, a negativity leading to
prejudice.
As well as creating inaccurate images about Islam, the Western media usually identifies Islam in Muslim
conflicts. The media hardly points out any other religions in their conflicts. The source of this could be pointed
back to the September 11 attacks, news coverage of the Muslim people degenerated after the attacks
compared to beforehand. The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were a series of suicide attacks
organised by al-Qaeda on the United States on September 11th 2001. Four jet airplanes were hijacked, two
crashed intentionally into the Twin Towers and two crashed unintentionally individually elsewhere. It can be
said that post 9/11 is where the news coverage of Muslims became more covered and more intense.
An article by Ahmed Versi on 17th June 2002 in ‘The Guardian’ claimed that Muslims made up more than 3% of
the UK population and were they under-represented in newspaper offices and television studios. An extract
from the article shows, “The media portray Muslims as objects of curiosity at best, vilification at worst.
Complaints about media representation of Islam and Muslims have been a constant, unifying factor, an agreed
given for all shades of opinion among British Muslims. As in other institutions, Muslims are grossly underrepresented in the media. A decade ago there were a handful of Muslims, both male and female, in
broadcasting media and a negligible number in the print media. Now, while there has been an improvement,
progress is slow.” This shows us that the concern for the misconception of Muslims within the print based
media is at large. Also this presents an idea of the prejudice as there is a lack of jobs for Muslims. It can also
give the Western public an inside view into the Muslim perspective, seeing as the writer is a Muslim.
A negative image of Islam is becoming more inherent in the Western culture from inaccurate media coverage.
The media helps to make an image of Islam to unsuspecting audiences. The Western public often is
misinformed about Muslims through the images on television and motion picture screens (films), which
promote strong messages among their audiences. An example of this could be the images seen in television
news reports, mainly they are horrific and depict such things as: - protestors, conflict, and general disaster. The
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negative stereotypical representation of Muslims as ‘terrorists’ are pushed forward and seen clearly through
complimentary visuals of bombings and disaster.
Although not all representations of Muslims through the television media is negative, some try to put forward
a more positive image. For example there was Channel 4’s ‘Dispatches’, they showed a specific documentary
called “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim” on 7th July 2008 at 8pm. On the third anniversary of the 7/7 London
Bombings, Peter Oborne investigated whether these attacks and the fear of terrorism had fuelled the rise of
violence, intolerance, and hatred against British Muslims. He discovered that for many in the Muslim
community, Britain had become a very frightening place. A range of British Muslims were met who lived in
daily fear, either because their homes were constantly vandalised or because they had suffered devastatingly
violent attacks. This is just another way of showing (like ‘The Guardian’ article) a Muslim’s own perspective,
and comparing the dramatic differences to how the media presents how their perspective should be. It is little
things like this which show that the media is not entirely prejudice, just the majority.
With the Western media’s focus and governmental attitudes, the West is a place where Islam is a name of
negativity. The Western media has contributed a great deal to this negative image of Islam. The media often
misrepresents Islam and its culture, it could almost be said that sometimes the media seems to be biased
against Islam. The media distorts the image of Islam, and the general public tend to believe this. This
manipulation is done purposely because of biased feelings, but also maybe accidentally because of ignorance.
Islam is actually a peaceful and fair religion that most often does not correspond to the media’s reports. As
Islam grows more and more in the West, Westerners will eventually learn the truth about Islam and find out
that these negative stereotypes are not all what they appear to be.
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