Media Portrays Terrorism

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.

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.

Terror attacks committed by Islamic extremists resulted in the dehumanization towards the Muslim community and gave rise to a Muslim terrorist frame. From the images media portrayed of

The media today is full of coverage about terrorism. From terrorist threats to both unsuccessful and successful terrorist acts.

The media portrays me as a terrorist. After 9/11, being Muslim in America meant that you had to live in fear, conceal your faith, or pay the price of retaliation by someone who reacted out of ignorance. It meant you had to constantly apologize for acts of terrorism committed by criminals that use Islam as a banner to progress their vendettas. However, being Muslim also meant that you could learn self-disciple through the five-daily prayers, patience, and tolerance as I tried to understand the reasons why so many Americans feared Muslims. Unfortunately, I did not see the benefit of expressing my faith until I was much older.

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

Coming from a suburban town filled with rich white people, I did not encounter much diversity, especially in the context of religion. To this day, I do not personally know anyone who practices the Islamic faith or identifies themselves as Muslim, leaving much of what I know about Muslims to be based on what the media portrays them to be. Growing up in a Post – 9/11 world, I often blindly followed the tediously long precautions of airport security and became increasingly fearful of the people around me that covered up their skin. I succumbed to the demonizing media portrayal of Muslims that only showed the Islamic faith in a negative light. Like many Americans, I thought Muslims were dirty Arabs whose sole purpose was to strike terror in our

Every time an attack on Western soil occurs, widespread outrage disseminates. Within seconds social media is flooded, tweets such as ‘prayforparis’ immediately start trending. Mainstream media outlets are quick to place the blame on Muslims, usually without evidence. Because of this, whenever there is a significant event developing, we as a society are conditioned to instantaneously connect certain words (bomb, armed gunman, etc.) with Islam. Despite the fact that in

    For decades, the media portrayal of the Arab culture and Islam has contributed to a skewed public opinion in America. Looking closely at the news coverage concerning the Middle East and the United States, there is an inherent media bias against Arabs and Muslims as foreign threats to domestic security. Stephen Franklin argues that "Islamic nations are often portrayed in news reports as uniformly intolerant and anti-democratic" (Franklin 17). Unfortunately, such coverage has contributed to the public and government misconceptions of all Arabs and Muslims as terrorists. According to Fawaz Gerges, "terrorism has emerged as one of the most important political issues in the United

Some people say don’t trust the media it’s a bunch of malarkey blown into proportion. I agree with that somewhat, and do understand that the media sometimes is malarkey but there is some truth in the media. In general the media is more negative than positive. Coming from a Muslim family life was good as a child with our community, our neighborhood and had no hatred toward the Muslim people. Then after a fate full day of 9-11-2001, tragic, and heartbreaking day many life changed. The media began to make the Muslim people a scapegoat. The media began to generalize and categorize the Muslim people with a terrorist organizations. The media in general has many other negative impacts on society but the generalization that was blowing up to proportion

Violence has become a serious problem in America. From Sandy Hook Elementary to the Aurora Colorado shootings, terrorism has crept deeper into the culture. From 1982-1992 there were eight incidences of terrorism. From 2002-2012 there have been seventeen (Geigner). The growth at which these events are spreading is exponential. Modern terrorism did not begin until approximately the 1950s when it changed from guerrilla tactics used by a nation to the to the type common today, non-state terrorism. These assailants fight for no flag, have no rules, and will do whatever they feel like at any given moment (Zalman). The violence these radicals produce is cataclysmic. However, instead of being distressed by this violence, citizens latch onto the offenders. They give the assailant the fame and popularity that he or she desires. For example, within hours of Boston Bombings, the faces of the two assassins were broadcasted everywhere in the media, and rightly so. The police needed the help of the public to find and capture these criminals. But constant media coverage three weeks after the event was unnecessary. Many say that sensationalist media, not gun control is the reason for attacks of violence. Those who terrorize the nation are held up almost as heroes. Their names are plastered on every news station around the world. Assailants will always find ways to kill even with the extreme control of guns. But, without the publicity and the fame, psychopaths would not need to kill innocent

“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

The connection between Islam and terrorism was not intensified until the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center that pushed the Islamic faith into the national and international spotlight (Smith, 2013). As Smith (2013) articulated, “Many Americans who had never given Islam a second thought before 9/11 now had to figure out how to make sense of these events and relate to the faith tradition that ostensibly inspired them” (p. 1). One way in which people made sense of these events was through the media channels that influenced their overall opinions by shaping a framework of censored ideas (Yusof, Hassan, Hassan & Osman, 2013). In a survey conducted by Pew Forum (2012), 32% of people reported that their opinions of Muslims were greatly influenced by the media’s portrayal of Islam that depicted violent pictorials and fundamentalist Muslims. Such constant negative depiction is likely to lead to the inevitable—prejudice and hate crime. For instance, in 2002 alone there were approximately 481 hate crimes that were carried out against Muslims (Smith, 2013). Ever since the 9/11 attacks Muslim people have been the target of “suspicion, harassment and discrimination” (Talal, n.d., p. 9).

"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