The headlines were the first thing I analysed with “The Sun” and “The Guardian”
The mirror had “War on the world” while the “Guardian” had “the declaration of war”. This shows a difference in how Tabloid and Broadsheet newspapers publish their stories. To me the difference in who reads the newspapers affected the type of headlines they used. The “Guardian” is a lot more intellectual in content so it focussed more on the political side to the attack, whereas the tabloid representation of the attack was more patriotic which caters for their target audience.
“They all sort to see what was geographically, and perhaps Evan culturally, distant within a standard conceit of inclusiveness, rhetorically extending the New York community to the UK by setting what had happened in Manhattan in a wider, but nevertheless simultaneously more intimate, context.( Conboy 2002: 161-5 180-1)”
(M , Bromley, S, Cushion, 2002)
“Broadsheet newspapers made no attempt to conflate a British “us” with a US “them” into one “world”.
(M, Bromley, S, Cushion, 2002)
This quote shows the difference between Tabloid and Broadsheet newspapers, and how they began to portray the issue.
“The media have become the primary focus of attention as they have superseded other institutions in the cultural production of knowledge. Though consensual, these theories on the global image of Islam are based on observations rather than systematic empirical evidence and tend to be measured in relation to some kind of “truth” about Islam, be that Islamic belief or Muslims” lived experience. This belies tendency to see coverage of Islam as “misrepresentation”, implying that there is a “reality” that could be presented accurately.”
Newspapers started to show a trend of negative portrayal and to further back up the effects of the negative portrayal I formed a group discussion of 20 young British Muslims from the ages of 19-21. I did this because the younger aged Muslims are out more than the older aged Muslims, thus being prone to more discrimination. I chose to start a group discussion instead of an online forum as I can get more of an open first natural response rather than getting an online typed, planned response. Having the group discussion also allowed for people to elaborate and bounce off each others points. This was a good form of primary research as it allowed me to gain first hand knowledge of what the target group felt. We looked through some front pages from the “Guardian” and ”The mirror” and analysed its contents. The representations of terrorism and terrorists by the media have contributed to unnecessary levels of panic and fear.
“Muslims are misrepresented by the media, negative words are always used to describe us: we get called terrorists, fundamentalists, fanatics, if only they understood that Islam forbids terrorism and that these terrorists are twisting the meaning of Jihad”
(Saira Tariq -21)
This is a prime example on how the Media create stereotypes, they have no background knowledge of what Islam says about violence, yet they still pin point Muslims and associate them with terrorism.
The group expressed how they felt that Islam is being discriminated and a stereo type has been created about Islam and how Muslims are associated with terrorism because of the negative portrayal in newspapers:
”You rarely hear these terms associated with any group other than Muslims. You will not hear the phrase Hindu fanatics, for instance, or Jewish terrorists - yet in each group there are bad people.”
(Shazia Naseer - 20)
Media portrayal of “Islamic violence” is influenced by the dominant cultural meanings attached to both “Islam” and “Violence”.
(H. Karim,2002)
“If a suspect of a crime is a Muslim, the media take the opportunity to bombard Muslims with all kinds of accusations. But when the suspect is not a Muslim, even if he or she belongs to a religious denomination, the action is associated only with the person and not the entire group to which he or she belongs.”
(Tanzeel khan – 21)
“Terrorism no longer means terrorism. It is not a definition; it is a political
contrivance”.
(H. Karim,2002)
We thought of examples in the past to prove that Islam is the only religion that gets pin pointed with terrorism during horrific attacks; no other religion is ever associated with terrorism when horrific incidences occur:
”Timothy McVeigh committed a horrific terrorist act on April 19, 1995, by blowing up a federal building in Oklahoma City, but this act was associated only with him. Why then do the media fail to use the same judgment when a suspect is a Muslim? Does that suspect represent all Muslims on the planet?”
(Abdul Malik – 19)
“A substantial body of literature and research has illustrated that on a whole the image sand discourses relating to Islam/Muslims in mainstream western media tend to be negative”
(S. Ahmed 2007)
Habermas stated:
“By ‘public sphere’ we mean first of all a domain in our social life in which such a thing as public opinion can be formed. Access to the public sphere is open in principle to all citizens.”
Newspapers are used by the public in different ways and forms. In view of the pubic sphere, newspapers act as a ‘domain’ where opinions can be formed, but the opinions of the journalists that create the articles and create the opinions that shape the publics views. The stereotypes about Islam that the audience get from reading these newspapers are encoded and imposed upon the public. These further back up a point a group member made about how other issues are represented.
The questions that arise in mind are that can we trust newspapers? And are the stories biased? I will further look into the works of Stuart Hall, as he conducted a study on encoding and decoding of media texts (Hall 1973). He states how there are three different ways of reading, dominant hegemonic, negotiated and oppositional reading. His research stated how everybody reads a text differently depending on their upbringing, e.g. class, religion social status etc. Therefore I will have to keep this in mind whilst conducting my primary research and my own analysis of the texts, as different audiences distinguish texts in different ways.
“Newspapers exist to make a profit the great majority of their income accrues from advertising, so a newspaper is really a series of stories designed to ensure that the adverts look good.”
(White, 1993)
“Newspapers in Britain are first and foremost businesses. They do not exist to report news, to act as watch dogs for the public, to be a check on the doing of government, to defend ordinary citizens against the abuses of power, to unearth scandals or do any of the fine and noble things that are sometimes claimed for the press. They exist to make money, just as any business does. To the extent that they discharge any of their public functions, they do so in order to succeed as businesses.”
(keeble, 2001)
These quotes suggest that articles may not even hold and credibility as they are designed to highlight adverts and make them stand out and look good, and that journalism is all about making money whether the content is the truth or not.
I asked the group whether tabloid or broadsheet newspapers showed a difference in how they portrayed Muslims and the group seemed to feel as if tabloid newspapers were very biased and harsh with how they worded their headlines compared to broadsheet.
After analysing this discussion it clearly showed that Muslims feel as if they are being discriminated through Media portrayal, they have relevant ideas to back up what they feel, as we analysed past issues that would have been pinned onto Muslims, such as the nail bombing and noticed it was never associated with their religion but always was dealt with as an individual case. The group felt they found a direct correlation between media portrayal and their social experiences of exclusion, hatred, discrimination and violence due to the portrayal through journalism. They felt as if the negative portrayal of Islam and Muslims in the newspapers is fuelling Islam-a-phobia
Newspapers created a fear about terrorism being associated with Muslims.
I feel it does not even matter which type of newspaper portrays Islam the worst. It’s the way the issues are portrayed that has caused the stereotypes. In Palestine on Feb. 25, 1994, a New York physician, Dr Baruch Goldstein, who belonged to a religious extremist group, opened fire on people praying at a Hebron mosque. He massacred 29 and injured many before he was killed. The crime was associated only with him and not the entire group to which he belonged. If he was a Muslim, would the case have been any different? Is this fair judgment from the media or a double standard?
On The Sun’s Website () on 15th September 2006, an article was posted where Pope Benedict said the prophet Mohammad (pbuh) had brought “things only evil and inhuman”. His comment was blatant discrimination yet he wasn’t accused of being a “racist Christian” or a “Christian fanatic”.
Another online article that was published on the mirror’s website on the 10th Sep 2007 was about how
“The Catholic Church in the US is to give nearly £100million in compensation to scores of victims of sex abuse by priests”.
“The huge payout to 144 men and women was decided at the weekend after two days of tense negotiations before a judge, ending a four-year court battle”.
If there were 144 different cases of a “non-Muslim” controversy, surely it’s a huge issue which begs the question, why was it only in the news for a short while and why weren’t all the 144 cases broadcasted separately like every bad issue surrounding Muslims?
"A condition, episode, person or group of persons [who] become defined as a threat to societal values and interests." [Cohen, 1987: 9]
Cohen goes on to examine the way in which the mass media fashions these episodes, or stylises them, magnifying the nature of the facts and consequently turning them into a national issue, when the matter could have been contained on a confined level.
According to Karl Marx ideas are routed and are related to the organisation of society. Seeing as all media texts represent, so the content of newspapers form ideologies about Islam because of the constant negative portrayal they contain.
This then affects the public sphere because it is:
“A domain in our social life in which such thing as public opinion can be formed”
Negative headlines would have an impact on the public sphere as the media aids in creating these “public opinions”.
This then brings up questions about what Vincent Mosco says about the liberal model of the public sphere and the political economy, the whole idea about who controls production, distribution and access to media consumptions.
“What does not appear in the news media can be more important than what does. Audiences cannot react to things they do not hear about”
(Lemert, 1989)
“Since many Americans learn about the world from watching television (larson,1984), a lack of balance in coverage may influence public opinion of nations and international affairs, as evident by several recent studies.”
(Golan, 2006)
Although this quote is based on Americans, we can apply this to a global audience, seeing how news can now reach any where across the world via televisions, newspapers, radio etc, due to globalisation, but is it a fair and truthful representation? This is the question that arises, thus unfair representation can be seen as a possible cause of moral panics.
“What ideas and what forms are killed before they reach the general public?”
(Lemert, 1989)
As Lemert mentioned, certain things are not shown or let loose to the public, so questions that arise in my head are “what are they not showing with certain sides of the issue and why?” and “Why is it always a negative side shown to Muslims?”
In conclusion ever since 9/11 attacks many issues have arisen for Muslims in newspapers. After the 7/7 bombings headlines were focussed yet again on Muslims and calling them “extremists”. A cartoon of the Holly Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) was disrespectfully drawn portraying him as a stereotype of what people think about Muslims. These attacks on Muslims seem to offend many within the community and can be seen through the outburst of racial attacks, especially on Mosques during the periods mentioned. Jack Straw also caused controversy by attacking the veil, thus creating a huge problem for Muslim women. Overall, via my analysis and focus group research, newspapers have shown trends of negative portrayal about Muslims.
Bibliography
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Chermak, S (2003) Conflict and the Media Marketing Fear: Representing Terrorism After September 11 , Journal for Crime, Conflict and the Media P. 5
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Cohen, S. (1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panics. London: MacGibbon and Kee.
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John L.E (1992). The Islamic threat Myth or Reality? Oxford university press,
New York
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Golan, G. (2006) Journalism Studies. London, Routledge
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Keeble, R. (2001) Ethics for journalists. London, Routledge
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Lemert, J,B. 1989. Criticising the media: Emperical Approaches. London, SAGE publications Ltd.
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Saied R, A (2007) The British Media and Muslim representation Wembley, Islamic human rights commission,
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Zelizer, B et al. (2002). Journalism after September 11, Routledge
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(last accessed 24th April 2:25 PM)
