Academics are neutralized into status symbols by the coverage system
Evidence
Above all, it explains why it is that far from challenging the vulgar stereotypes circulated in the media. The academic experts on Islam are as a body neutralized in their isolated, immediately functional role as status symbols of relevant authority on Islam, and also dependent on the whole system constituting and legitimating their function within it; and it is this system which the media, in their reliance upon stereotypes based on fear and ignorance, reflect. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 337
Related
- Understanding Islam’s coverage requires demystifying the power-knowledge link (similarity 0.83)
- Islamic studies’ marginality lets media spread racist caricatures unchecked (similarity 0.83)
- Media coverage of Islam succeeds through political influence, not accuracy. (similarity 0.82)
- Media Islam images derive from geopolitical experts, not academic scholarship (similarity 0.82)
- Media coverage of Islam systematically obscures Western actions against Muslims (similarity 0.81)
- Every portrayal of Islam is an act of willed interpretation, not a description. (similarity 0.81)
- Media coverage reduces Arabs and Muslims to oil suppliers and potential terrorists (similarity 0.81)
- Islamic studies remains exempt from scholarly norms applied to other fields (similarity 0.81)
- Islamic doctrine has justified opposite political programs alike (similarity 0.80)
- The reified notion of Islam has hindered rather than helped understanding of Muslim societies (similarity 0.79)
- Neutral scholarship rhetoric often conceals worldly power connections (similarity 0.79)
- Islamophobic claims serve to positively define their speakers rather than describe Muslims (similarity 0.79)
- A small anti-Muslim expert clique dominates US media coverage of Islam (similarity 0.79)
- Western ideological camps all reduce Islam to a scapegoat (similarity 0.79)
- Western discourse reduces all Muslim societies to a single malevolent essence (similarity 0.78)