Islam in the Media Traditionally,

Islam in the Media

Traditionally, the media has been viewed as impartial. Journalists are objective, while editorialists, essayists, and of course, writers of fiction, have subjective agendas or points-of-view. Yet, it is not always easy to divorce oneself from one's biases and preconceptions. Though journalists are supposed to set aside their personal beliefs when reporting a story, it has become increasingly apparent that much mass media coverage is actually skewed toward particular ideas. American mainstream media news outlets are not publicly owned, nor are they directly controlled by the government. Nevertheless, in recent years, many of these new outlets have found themselves in the position of backing official policies. Especially since September 11, 2001, the mainstream media has tended to tout the official line on policies toward the Islamic World. The media shape public opinion and, responding to that now created "majority view," further reinforce certain perceptions. In the United States, Islamic peoples and causes are commonly portrayed in a highly negative light. Islam is often directly linked to terrorism and other forms of presumably unprovoked violence against Americans and American interests. Islamic governments are portrayed as "regimes" ruling over "rogue states" or acting through means of organization the sole aim of which appears to being the sowing of death and destruction. The message is sent that Islam itself is illegitimate, or violent, or in need of extensive reform. Customs and traditions are misunderstood and described in ways guaranteed to elicit negative emotional reactions on the part of Americans, and Westerners in general. The media covers Islam from a largely American, and American-government point-of-view, one which is adversarial and meant to support invasive and transformative global campaigns.

A notable example of American media coverage of the Islamic World involves the stories regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The American mass media -- television, newspapers, and magazines -- tend to slant their stories to the official line of both the American and Israeli governments i.e. that the Palestinian cause is dominated by radical Islamic extremists with no regard for human life and suffering. As pointed out by Marda Dunsky, the media endlessly, and unquestioningly, repeat tales of a "Washington Consensus" that immediately creates the impression of a "good" world arrayed on the side of the United States, and a world of ever-recalcitrant "evil doers" represented first and foremost by Palestinian organizations, like Hezbollah.

Specifically, the term Washington Consensus is used to describe the neoliberalist philosophy of opening up nations and governments to global markets, a definition that automatically casts media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the light of a kind of culture war.

As the side that is subject to the negative coverage, the Palestinians come across as opposing modern ideas and thus in pressing need of social and cultural reorientation and reorganization. The violence of groups like Hezbollah is seen as the manifestation of anti-Western, and therefore, anti-modern ideas, in the Islamic World. In contrast, the United States is represented as the epitome of all that is modern. Modernity, in the sense of global markets and secular democracy is further equated with "good" as opposed to an "evil" that comes in the form of fundamentalist religion i.e. superstition, and jingoistic nationalism i.e. racial and ethnic bigotry.

On another level, the terrorism of Hezbollah, Hamas, bin Laden, and other individuals and groups, is literally seen as an attempt to use the American media to further extremist Islamist causes. James S. Albritton discusses a "New Terrorism" that thrives on the idea of mass violence as a form of theater or entertainment.

In various other contexts, graphic violence has been shown to be a ratings grabber in media offerings, study after study citing the high incidence of violence in popular television shows and cinematic films and establishing as accepted wisdom the notion that "violence sells." Placed into the Islamic context, it follows that terrorists promote their cause by keeping it before the public eye through the further commission of atrocities. In this case, too, it is the Islamic extremists who manipulate the media, and not the other way around. Again and again, experts depict the media as being evaluated by potential terrorists with terrorist plots being carefully calibrated according to how they will play on television. Blowing up buildings in an American city or detonating car bombs on an American street are good acts because it will obtain the maximum of media coverage, as opposed to say, attacks on water supplies that provide little or no graphic footage, or destruction of nuclear reactors that would prevent cameras from getting anywhere near the site because of the dangers of radiation -- terrorists are like media marketing executives.

Apparently, Islamic terrorists are the media marketing executives.

Once more, the tendency is to project American viewpoints and values on to supposed Islamist enemies. The same individuals and groups that are utterly alien to America's most cherished beliefs are also masters of manipulating Americans' views of themselves and of using the media to their own advantage. The idea that Islamist groups might possess some sort of legitimate grievance, or might be railing against actual conditions is dismissed in favor of complex marketing ploys. Terrorism is a product, just like everything else that is promoted on American television and in American newspapers and magazines. The only difference is that the Islamist product is a bad product. Other Western media too have taken up the general theme of Islamic terrorism as but the ultimate expression of Islamic failure to grasp the potentialities of the modern world. As presented in the French Canadian press, the modern Islamic world is an utter failure, still desperately trying to explain its fall from power and influence -- "The Arab-Muslim world, because this is primarily what we are talking about, has still not caught up with the military, economic, scientific, and technological progress the West has made during the last two centuries."

Islam's violent propensities constantly portrayed in the American media and in other Western nations as well are symbolic of Islam's lack of development. The Islamic World is backwards in comparison to the West. That terrorists can use the Western media while at the same time being incapable of adopting other modern Western ideas is never questioned. Merely, it fits the narrative that the West is wholly in the right, and that it is Islam that is at fault. The failings of Islam are inherently cultural failings. The message of the media is that if the Islamic World were to adopt Western ways, the violence would cease. The Islamic world would settle down and join the global marketplace, becoming peaceful partners with the United States and the rest of the "global community."