Muslim Stereotypes

Although some fringe movements of other religions are quite radical and violent, extremists in the Muslim world receive a disproportionate amount of media coverage.

In this tedtalk, Melissa Boigon, who studies Islam and its relationship to the Arab-Israeli conflict, talks about how Islamophobia has become more of a fear of Arabs over the last 10 years. She thinks that has to do with the connotation to terrorists groups such as Al-Qaeda, and the way middle east conflict is portrayed in The United States today. She also discusses how American Entertainment portrays Arabs, saying that it's propaganda in the form of entertainment.

Today one does not even have to wait for a movie to be released. Simply click the “ON” button on a remote and suddenly, thousands of news and television shows are available for one to enjoy. Muslims are also the target of prejudice in these news broadcasts and programs. One such television program released was a drama titled “24.” Issues and Controversies reports: “The show, which deals with a counterterrorism unit based in Los Angeles, featured a group of Muslim terrorist characters who were plotting to detonate nuclear weapons in the U.S. At the end of one episode, the terrorists successfully detonated a small bomb in a Los Angeles suburb, killing about 12,000 people” (“Race and Ethnicity in Entertainment”). This fictional show wrongly spreads the stereotypical image of Muslims and their clichéd image of the fundamentalists on 9/11. By adding the title and image of “Muslim” to the phrase “terrorist” the program wrongly advertised that potentially every Muslim could be a terrorist. This stereotypical image is similarly expressed in news broadcasts through the use of terrorism news. By increasingly using terrorism and Muslims in top

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.

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

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, media approaches have altered. On Television shows and movies, in newspapers and on the radio, there has been an increase in hate crimes targeting Arabs and Muslims. Most coverage today follows a script that represents Arabs and Muslims only in the context of terrorism. Evelyn Alsultany wrote a book called Arabs and Muslims in the Media in 2012. The stories explained the new standards in racial and cultural representations after 9/11.

After several incidents that happened around the world, peoples view on Arabs changed. The media played a big role in “the stereotyping of Arabs”. It is one of the main reasons for people to think the way they are about Arabs. Many

One religion that contains bias from the media is the Amish. “Amish settlements have become a cliché for refusing technology. Tens of thousands of people wear identical, plain, homemade clothing, cultivate their rich fields with horse-drawn machinery, and live in houses lacking that basic modern spirt called electricity” (Rheingold 221). The media takes a very sophisticated belief into an assumption that suggests that Amish do not use technology at all. Another religion that contains bias from the media is Islam. According to the media, Islam is a religion associated with terrorism. This media assumption is based on the, “emergence of the self-proclaimed Islamic State group (ISIS) which allegedly shows videos of the beheadings of their prisoners who are most often journalists” (Espiritu). This has caused people to use the terms Muslim and Terrorist interchangeably. Not all Muslims who associate with Islam are terrorists. For example, Malala Yousafzai, a Muslim, is the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner and an education activist. Media also makes assumptions on the religion for Jews, Judaism. Jews are often interpreted as incredibly prosperous, cheap, and unkind. “In truth, Jewish people can be wealthy or poor, intelligent or less intelligent, kind or otherwise” (Media Portrayals of Religion:

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.

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.

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).”

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).