“The relationship between Occident and Orient is a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony.”
-Edward Said, Palestinian American Literary Theorist
-Edward Said, Palestinian American Literary Theorist
Institutionalized racism has been brought about not only as a result of a particular mindset that has been proliferated since the Spanish Inquisition in 1483, but also by subtle instances in media that portray other races in a negative light. As mentioned in the quote above from the esteemed scholar Edward Said, the tension between Orientalism (in this case referring to Islamic culture) and the Occident is not rooted in reality, but still manifested in the form of cultural domination. In particular, this website will explore the blatant instances of Islamophobia found in the American media. Islamophobia can be defined as a close-minded prejudice as well as a mix of xenophobia and irrational fear of Islamic people. The effects of Islamophobia include violent language created for the purposes of political leverage, the institutionalization of Islamophobia, negative stereotyping, and media misrepresentations. The skewed and biased presentation of Islamic people in films, television shows, and cartoons serve to dehumanize its targets by portraying them as inherently evil and dangerous. This strips Islamic people of their human sympathies and encourages the classification of Islamic people as “other”.
"In general, though not exclusively, the portrayal of Muslims in the mainstream media has been unsatisfactory... [including] sloppy and sometimes stereotypical reporting."
-Jason Beattie, political editor of the Daily Mirror
-Jason Beattie, political editor of the Daily Mirror
Islamophobia in the Media
Examples of this sort misrepresentation are evident throughout different types of media, including children’s cartoons such as Aladdin and Oscar-winning movies such as Argo. One study has shown that Muslims in media are repeatedly associated with terms such as "extremism and terrorism", "despotism", and "sexism". Evidence that such reporting has impacted public opinion can be seen in the fact that the number of non-Muslims who felt threatened by Islam rose by 21% from 2001 to 2006. This sort of fear mongering, which is the action of deliberately arousing public fear or alarm about a particular issue, has been proliferated by misrepresentation to a point where 72% of Muslims feel as though they do not belong, contributing to their otherization. As Said explains in his book, Covering Islam, so-called “Islamic experts” in journalism “derive their status from the notion that the Islamic world is a strategic area, with all sorts of possible (if not always actual) problems”. This website is dedicated to exposing the use of Islamophobia as a propaganda tool in media and uncovering stereotypes promoted by the media their contribution to institutionalized racism.
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"False and inaccurate stories about Muslims routinely put out by the press are, in turn, routinely used as tools by far right groups to legitimize their case and gain followers.”
-Richard Peppiatt, former Daily Star Reporter |