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.”

Evidence

See Jack G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press, 1984), for an analysis of damaging representations of Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners on television and film through 1984. For a more recent study by Shaheen, see Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2014). — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 674 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

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)

Crucial to any analysis of the media’s portrayal of Muslims and Islam, therefore, is an understanding of what scholars refer to as “framing.” The sociologist Michael Schudson summarizes media framing in this way: “Journalists normally work with materials that real people and real events provide. But by selecting, highlighting, framing, shading, and shaping in reportage, they create the impression that real people—readers and viewers—then take to be real and to which they respond in their lives.” The news media creates frames of interpretation through which we understand “reality,” but the reality in question is a construction that reflects the biases and ideologies of individual journalists and the media organizations that employ them. The reality created by the media, moreover, is often constructed to attract consumers and to keep a newspaper, news website, or television network in business. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 497 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• 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.’ In addition, 53% of Americans think that coverage of Islam and Muslims by American news organizations is generally unfair to Muslims and Islam.; American media conflated Iranians, Arabs, Sunnis, and Shiites into one Muslim menace. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 254 (+3 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.’ In addition, 53%… (similarity 0.91)
• Representations of jihad in American film and television are also very relevant to how Americans view jihad and Islam. (similarity 0.90)
• 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 0.88)
• Media framing shapes American attitudes toward Islam and jihad (similarity 0.87)
• Rare positive portrayals of Muslims cannot offset the dominant dehumanizing narrative (similarity 0.86)
• 53% of Americans think that coverage of Islam and Muslims by American news organizations is generally unfair to Muslims and Islam. (similarity 0.85)
• There are also traces of terrorism in American film, going back as far as 1926 with Old Ironsides. Jack Shaheen, an expert on the portrayal of Muslims and Arabs in Hollywood films, claimed that… (similarity 0.85)
• Media framing constructs the reality audiences accept about Islam. (similarity 0.84)
• Arab and Muslim representation in American film has been persistently vilifying (similarity 0.84)
• American media conflated Iranians, Arabs, Sunnis, and Shiites into one Muslim menace. (similarity 0.83)
• Muslim lives are less grievable than American ones in public memory (similarity 0.83)
• American commentators framed suicide bombing as repugnant and un-American (similarity 0.81)
• More than 1,150 American films have defamed Muslims and Arabs. (similarity 0.81)
• Structural media economics favor religious explanations over complex political ones (similarity 0.81)
• American media reduces the Muslim world to a faceless, static, violent bloc. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Arab and Muslim representation in American film has been persistently vilifying #corroborates (0.70) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 674
• Media framing shapes American attitudes toward Islam and jihad #expands (0.65) — Asena Karipek, Portrayals of Jihad, 75
• American media conflated Iranians, Arabs, Sunnis, and Shiites into one Muslim menace. #expands (0.60) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 254
• Media framing constructs the reality audiences accept about Islam. #expands (0.60) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 497