Among American Muslims who said it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in the U.S. in recent years, the second most-answered reason for this was ‘negative media portrayals.’ In addition, 53% of Americans think that coverage of Islam and Muslims by American news organizations is generally unfair to Muslims and Islam. However, it is not just the media that is guilty of this tainted image of jihad. Islamophobes also have a hand in the way jihad is portrayed to the American public. Prominent Islamophobes like Pamela Gellar, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson, and Frank Gaffney, as well as others, portray jihad as Muslims’ attempt to force non-Muslims to convert to Islam and eradicate those who refuse. They establish non-governmental organizations and carry out campaigns dedicated to the portrayal of Islam as a violent religion and use their own interpretation of jihad as proof.
Evidence
What Americans know—or think they know—about Islam is largely influenced by the media, especially for Americans who are not acquainted with a Muslim or who have little to no formal education about Islam. 66 This is because the media is right at our fingertips. However, when the media determines who is telling the story, what is included or excluded, and how the story is packaged and presented, there is an obvious bias in the information being presented. 67 Many Americans (politicians, Islamophobes, etc.) are afraid of the “Islamization of America,” in which shari’a would take precedence over the U.S. Constitution. They are afraid that armed jihad (violent extremism) is just one step of this elaborate plan to Islamize America, in which all Muslims will participate because that is what the Qur’an and Muhammad supposedly call for. For this reason, they oppose jihad, Islam, and Muslims as a whole. — Asena Karipek, Portrayals of Jihad, 75 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
- XREF: connects to: Among American Muslims who said it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in the U.S. in recent years, the second most-answered reason for this was ‘negative media portrayals.’ In addition, 53% of Americans think that coverage of Islam and Muslims by American news organizations is generally unfair to Muslims and Islam. However, it is not just the media that is guilty of this tainted image of jihad. Islamophobes also have a hand in the way jihad is portrayed to the American public. Prominent Islamophobes like Pamela Gellar, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson, and Frank Gaffney, as well as others, portray jihad as Muslims’ attempt to force non-Muslims to convert to Islam and eradicate those who refuse. They establish non-governmental organizations and carry out campaigns dedicated to the portrayal of Islam as a violent religion and use their own interpretation of jihad as proof.; Among American Muslims who said it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in the U.S. in recent years, the second most-answered reason for this was “negative media portrayals.”; 53% of Americans think that coverage of Islam and Muslims by American news organizations is generally unfair to Muslims and Islam. (+4 more)
Related
- Among American Muslims who said it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in the U.S. in recent years, the second most-answered reason for this was negative media portrayals. (similarity 0.91)
- 53% of Americans think that coverage of Islam and Muslims by American news organizations is generally unfair to Muslims and Islam. (similarity 0.89)
- Jihad, which has come to be perceived as ‘holy war’ in American media and by many Americans, is a hot topic of debate throughout the world but especially in the West. (similarity 0.89)
- Representations of jihad in American film and television are also very relevant to how Americans view jihad and Islam. (similarity 0.88)
- Media framing shapes American attitudes toward Islam and jihad (similarity 0.87)
- American commentators framed suicide bombing as repugnant and un-American (similarity 0.84)
- Large minorities of Americans hold unfavorable views of Islam and Muslims (similarity 0.84)
- Structural media economics favor religious explanations over complex political ones (similarity 0.83)
- Prominent Islamophobes like Pamela Gellar, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson, and Frank Gaffney, as well as others, portray jihad as Muslims’ attempt to force non-Muslims to convert to… (similarity 0.82)
- Nearly half of American Muslims experienced anti-Muslim discrimination within a single year. (similarity 0.82)
- Sustained media focus reframed Muslim citizens as enemies of the state (similarity 0.81)
- The false eighty-percent-mosque claim circulated unchallenged across mainstream media (similarity 0.81)
- Nearly half of Americans believed Islam encourages violence in 2010 (similarity 0.81)
- There is no shortage of jihad misrepresentations on social media. In February 2019, a meme featuring a handful of distorted translations of Qur’anic verses (including verses about jihad) along… (similarity 0.80)
- American media conflated Iranians, Arabs, Sunnis, and Shiites into one Muslim menace. (similarity 0.80)
Broader Connections
- Among American Muslims who said it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in the U.S. in recent years, the second most-answered reason for this was negative media portrayals.
#corroborates(1.00) - 53% of Americans think that coverage of Islam and Muslims by American news organizations is generally unfair to Muslims and Islam.
#corroborates(1.00) - Media framing shapes American attitudes toward Islam and jihad
#expands(0.60) — Asena Karipek, Portrayals of Jihad, 75 - Nearly half of American Muslims experienced anti-Muslim discrimination within a single year.
#corroborates(0.50) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 264 - Large minorities of Americans hold unfavorable views of Islam and Muslims
#complicates(0.30) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 754