Demonization In America

After a horrible terroristic attack that shocked the whole world on September 11th in the center of New York City, Muslims in the Western world have been constantly fighting against prejudice. After September 11, media interest in Islam increased, where Islam was usually portrayed in a negative way. Before 9/11, many Muslims lived the normal, everyday life. However, the attack has changed lives of many people that belonged to the Muslim community, where they were the victims of guilt. Unfortunately, many Americans were introduced to Islam, after the 9/11 attack, thus even till today, Islam is associated with terrorism. For the past ten years, Muslims felt excluded from the American society by being rifled, attacked, discriminated, checked

After September 11, 2001, U.S. citizens were shocked that over 2,900 people were dead because of Islamic extremists (Kean, et al. "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States"). More deaths occurred in the Paris and San Bernardino attacks. Tensions between the U.S. and Islamic extremists have not yet subsided. Americans receive information regarding Islamic extremists through the media, from which they form opinions on what the U.S.’s foreign policy with the Middle East should be, which affects military spending. To what extent has the media’s portrayal of Islamic extremists affected U.S. military spending and relations with the Middle East?

On the covers of newspapers and on the screens of many, the story of the Boston marathon hits the ground. Twenty six thousand eight hundred thirty nine people from all over the world came to run in this awe-inspiring marathon. Until the tragedy strikes right in their faces. The explosions, injuring scores of people, effected the lives of innocent civilians. Cheers were replaced with screams, sirens, and the first responders providing aide to the citizens. This was a brutal event just like the one on September 11, 2001. Instead of using seclusion towards political and economical reasons for events, the mass medias perceptive towards incidents involving the religion Islam has created the stereotypical thought in society in which we live in today.

Muslim Americans are people whose religious belief is Islam, but they were born in America. Before September 11, 2001, Muslim Americans were rarely a discussion or a problem. However after September 11, 2001, Muslim Americans were the main topic. Even though Islam is a religious belief, people are fearful of anything associated with it. Some people discriminate against people who resemble those who are practice the religion. Even though it is not relevant to race, the difference between racism; and religious discrimination is often unclear to people. People believe that terrorists are Muslim activists, but that’s wrong because not all terrorists are Muslims.

One of the most widely discussed issues in the U.S. Muslim community is the negative image of Islam in the American media, an issue that was cause for concern even before 9/11. While appeals to the media for accuracy and fairness continue, newspaper headlines regularly print the words “Islam” and “Muslim” next to words like “fanatic,” “fundamentalist,” “militant,” “terrorist” and “violence.” Uses of the term “jihad” in television programs

The paper notes that in the pre-9/11 America, American Muslims enjoyed the same rights that other Americans did, engaging themselves in such activities as institution-building, public work, and integration. The process of integration, however, was severely disrupted by 9/11 because many Americans unfortunately began to hold all Muslims accountable for the terrorist attack, distrusting them, discriminating against them, and subjecting them to various forms of hatred. The media played a crucial role in this endeavor, as commentators began to draw a link between Islam and extremist political beliefs.

Attacks receive more coverage when they harm or kill victims, involve hijackings or aircraft, have known perpetrators, and select targets associated with Western countries. A study of transnational terrorism shows that attacks that inflict injuries are twice as likely to attract media attention as those that do not. The attacks in which the perpetrator can be identified are four times as likely to be reported in a newspaper and ten times as likely to be reported on television (The Media’s Role in International Terrorsim). Attacks in the Middle East or Europe are twice as likely to receive media attention as attacks perpetrated in Latin America (The Media’s Role in International Terrorism). There are very similar factors that influence media coverage of attacks that take place within the United States.

The news media amplifies terrorist events because quite simply put, that’s what gets the ratings. We often see terrorist attacks that occur in other countries. It’s not to say that those events don’t occur on our soil because they do. Just a few months ago a man from Miami who claimed allegiance to ISIS went into a nightclub and killed 50

The mass media selectively promotes racial profiling. The assumptions driving terrorism profiling are not any different than “street-level” profiling—in that, a particular crime (in this case, terrorism) is most expected to be committed by members of a particular religious, ethnic, or racial group and that the members of that group (in this case, Muslims) are, in general, likely to be implicated in that manner of criminal activity…These assumptions are highly defective. The assumption that terrorist acts are inevitably perpetrated by Arabs or that the architect, of a terrorist act, is likely to be Islamic is a faulty assumption. While all the men, believed to have been, involved in the September 11th hijackings were of Arabic nationality, Richard Reid, who on December 22, 2001, attempted to ignite a volatile device on a trans-Atlantic flight, was a British citizen of Jamaican ancestry. This furthermore coincides with my line of reasoning that extremists exist throughout all cultures. In fact, prior to September 11th the deadliest act of terrorism on United States soil was initiated by [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh. Even non-Arabs like John Walker Lindh, a Californian, can be linked to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and

Since Islam is a religion that promotes peace and kindness, one could ask where the stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists originated. Following the tragedies of September 11, 2001, Arabs and Muslims have been presented as potential terrorists. This idea stemmed from the theory that, “media bias increases when a specific ethnic, religious, or racial group is seen as a threat to national security.” (Stiffler, 2013). Since the attacks on September 11, 2001 Muslims and Arabs have been “hyper-visible” in the media as potential terrorists. Due to the negative media attention and failure of most media platforms to

How the has media poisoned peoples’ brains to think like this. Media has created this mental construct, in which all Muslims are the “bad guys”. Media plays a big role in a lot of different situations. Media mostly portrays African American as “thugs, and drug dealers”, media portrays Latinos as all being “illegal”. Media plays an essential role in the development of the young children, who’s brains are still developing. It really affects their world view.

“If the media were not there to report terrorist acts and to explain their political and social significance...terrorism as such would cease to exist” said John O'Sullivan, an editor of the Times of London.1 This is also the way many other people feel about the recent increase in terrorist activity; they feel that the media is causing it. The media is doing this by fulfilling the terrorists' need for publicity.2 Terrorists need media publicity in order to get their views spread to the public.3 Because of this need for publicity, terrorists are committing their acts of terrorism in areas where a lot of publicity will be gained; the United States and Western Europe are the most recent targets. The bombings of the federal building in

After 9/11 has induced negative attitudes towards Muslim peoples who tend to be strongly associated with any act of terrorism. The media has played a colossal role in developing such negative association wherein it constantly portrays Muslim people in combination with violent terrorist acts. It does so in a way that they both go hand-and-hand. In other words, it has made it as though the Islamic religion is synonymous with terrorism. The media has perpetuated Muslim stereotypes over the years that followed the 9/11 incident. Because of this, society has developed, and still has developed, this prejudiced mindset about the Islamic religion and the Muslim communities around the world. People immediately assume that any violent act being

"The US media has been clubbing together terrorism and Islam, influencing the American public to think that all Arab Muslims are "crazy and violent terrorists"… The American media has been a primary agent responsible for creating racist stereotypes, images and

This survey reveals that the problem with the Islam faith is not racial: The Muslim people are welcomed, the Islam faith is not. The violence that has been perpetrated against America, whether executed or planned, has brought to fruition religious persecution not seen since the persecution of the Jews in W.W.II. This “trust no Arab” attitude has brought shame to the Constitutional intentions of freedom of religion intended by our forefathers, and has set religious tolerance back 200 years. Looking at media representation of Muslim Americans prior to 9-11, it shows religious diversity in America, depicting Muslim America as just another religious community seeking to advance and protect their interests, not unlike other Americans. After 9-11 the media portrayed representations of threat and fear, creating boundaries between Muslims and other Americans. Such depiction transforms the identity of Muslims and American religious pluralism (Byng, M. pg. 3).