Media's Bad Image Of Islam

Captain John Smith and William Bradford were both american settlers that came from England. Both John Smith and William Bradford were looking for a better life in the New World yet with many different ideas and beliefs. For example Jamestown came for business and trade purposes and the Plymouth Colony came for religious reasons. Jamestown was founded in 1607 and was lead by captain John Smith.(Smith pg.73) The Plymouth Plantations were founded in 1620 and was lead by William Bradford.(Bradford pg. 5)

Negative portrayals of Muslims in the mainstream media have led to widespread islamophobia in society. The way the media have illustrated Islam and Muslims in the media has influenced citizens to be misinformed about the true nature of both Muslims and Islam. As a result of the negative representations of Muslims in the media, societies views of Muslims have been adversely rendered and caused an unnecessary fear of Muslims in society. Exacerbation of islamophobia in the media has also led to a number of hate crimes towards Muslims (McQueeney, 2014). Instead of focusing on real news, medias often narrate stories

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?

In the two speeches “I Have a Dream,” by Martin Luther King JR. and “Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth, there is a vast amount of similarities and differences. There are several examples that illustrate the analyzation by repetition and emotional appeal. Overall, the two speeches explain to us about the hardships us humans had been through.

Bad news travels faster and last longer than good news. Unfortunately this is a day-to-day reality of Islamic followers in America. The horror of 9/11, the native skin of the Boston bombers, and the endless horrific news from the Islamic State (IS) continue to regurgitate in the media year after year, month after month, week after week, and night after night leaving a listener with negative feelings toward the Islam religion and its followers, Muslims. Muslims bear the brunt of social construction because the United States continues to identify the Islamic religion as a whole verses excepting the different sects.

In resent media, they have also pushed their dogmatic opinions on us with the thought that all Muslims are terrorists. We in turn treat them as such. Even though we do not understand their culture, and that not all are like they are presumed to be. There are Muslim family’s that are just trying to live their lives, and are also great members of our community’s just as you and I are.

There is a lot of bad media that contributes to this every time there is a mass bombing first thing people think of is, Oh a Muslim did this but when it's not a Muslim and ends up being a white person they say he was a lone wolf a troubled child that had a dark past but when it's a black person they media blames the race and when it's a Muslim the media says blame the entire religion and destroy what it stands for.

As a result of the tragic events that took place on 9/11, Islamophobia was born. It has been over a decade and Islamophobia is not only still existent, but it’s unfortunately growing in the heart of the average American more and more each day. For this we can thank our lovely media. Muslims are being targeted at every corner. In this country, you are taught by society to fear Islam. You are led to think that it is a violent cult that preaches hate and teaches violence. The sad part is, whether Islam does any of this is still a question that is being debated. Only just recently, CNN attacked Reza Aslan during a live interview for not condemning the religion of Islam and its teachings. When he replied and defended Islam with supporting facts, they attacked him for being hostile. In this country, you are taught that Muslims hate your great American freedom, even though Muslim and American

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses,” were the words of Malcolm X during his famed 1963 speech. Many believe this quote has lost relevance in our contemporary society. However, on the contrary, it rings more true than ever. One popular topic that has had an extreme influence on our society due to the way the media portrays it is terrorism. Whether it is a tragic event such as 9/11 or simply the way it portrays Muslims, the media tends to sensationalize the fear and tragedy of such events to increase publicity while also depicting all terrorists as Muslim

Islam is portrayed and is commonly accepted as the most violent and largest direct threat to the West. This is a generalization made by most of the West, but it is not particularly the West or the Islamic people’s fault. There is constant turmoil in Islamic countries in the Middle East and these conflicts are what make the news in the West. The only representation in the media that the Islamic nation gets is that of war. Though most Islamic people are not violent, the select few that do participate in terrorist groups give the rest of the Islam nation a bad image.

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

With the bad reputation of Islam; I mean the terrorism carried out by Muslims because of the 9/11, the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, the Boston bombing, and even after San Bernardino or Orlando, peoples don't make the distinction between Islam, the religion, and Islamism, the political ideology that societies should be politically organized according to Islamic doctrine and law. Therefore many Muslim people feel personally attacked because Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, and primitive. It is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, and engaged in a clash of civilizations.In fact  Muslims consider Quran to be the unaltered and final revelation of God, and knowing that Islam is an Abrahamic religion that honors prophets like Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Mary is also an important figure in Islam, and there is an entire chapter bears her name—Surat Maryam.

Syed Soharwardy asserts that “Media always tried to portray Islam as a religion of terror and all the Muslims as terrorists. The way the talk-show programs and news are produced and presented, it seems that the media has already decided the guilty verdict, regardless what would be the outcome of an investigation” (Soharwardy). So too do members of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee recognize the media’s predisposition toward bias, as is pointed out in this statement, found on their website: “Key industries of American mass culture, Holllywood and television, for decades have been bastions of anti-Arab stereotyping, and have consistently resisted positive or realistic representations of Arabs and Arab Americans. (Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee).”

"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

Islam: suppressor of women, enemy of Western nations, and breeder of terrorists. The West has many stereotypes and misconceptions about Islam that are due to the media, prejudice, and ignorance. Islam is often seen as an "extremist" or "terrorist" religion. Often, the media's reports about Islam are incorrect due to ignorance or not wanting to acknowledge its true teachings. This is one of the reasons why Westerners are often wary of Muslims. In contrast to what the media portrays, Islam is a peaceful religion, which does not promote violence or terrorism.