Disproportionate media coverage reifies fear and mistrust of Muslims
Evidence
There is little doubt that since the Satanic Verses affair, news and media networks have located an undeniably disproportionate newsworthiness to Muslims and Islam. The effect of this has been that the perceived threat presented by Muslims and Islam has been overblown and exaggerated, an observation resonant with the rhetoric and discourse of the ‘War on Terror’. This ever increasing focus of newsworthiness, the exaggerated threat, and the mistrust that emerges from such a combination are of course highly influential and determinative of how Muslims and Islam are made known and given meaning. And with every time that another news story appears about Muslims or Islam, or the threat of Muslims or Islam is seen to be getting closer, so those processes of fear and mistrust become further reified. — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 240
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the media-amplification mechanisms discussed in moral panic theory and to how definition of the ‘threat’ gets constituted through news coverage. — connects to: Pejorative Muslim framing in headlines is a recurring, dangerous journalistic failure. — Nasar Meer, Tariq Modood, Refutations of Racism in the ‘Muslim…, 74; News organizations differ in how they frame Muslim religion as a public issue — Nasar Meer, Tariq Modood, Refutations of Racism in the ‘Muslim…, 90; Media reporting frames Islam’s treatment of women as uniquely and exceptionally oppressive. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 555 (+16 more)
Related
- Ninety-one per cent of press representations of Islam were negative (similarity 0.90)
- Media bias against Muslims remains as prevalent today as in 1997 (similarity 0.88)
- News organizations differ in how they frame Muslim religion as a public issue (similarity 0.87)
- Media coverage of Muslim violence superficially supports an Islam-violence link (similarity 0.86)
- Media distinction between Islam and terrorism was blurred by inflationary language (similarity 0.85)
- Media coverage of Muslim arrests shifted citizens into the enemy category (similarity 0.85)
- Mainstream media gave Islamophobic commentators hundreds of appearances with minimal scrutiny. (similarity 0.85)
- Pejorative Muslim framing in headlines is a recurring, dangerous journalistic failure. (similarity 0.84)
- Western media frames Islam chiefly through terrorism and women’s oppression. (similarity 0.84)
- Selective coverage reduces entire Muslim communities to violent militants. (similarity 0.84)
- Mainstream media coverage of Islam was overwhelmingly negative by 2015 (similarity 0.83)
- 53% of Americans think that coverage of Islam and Muslims by American news organizations is generally unfair to Muslims and Islam. (similarity 0.83)
- Muslim-perpetrated attacks receive dramatically disproportionate news coverage (similarity 0.83)
- Sustained media focus reframed Muslim citizens as enemies of the state (similarity 0.83)
- Media and political elites profit from stoking anti-Muslim fears (similarity 0.82)
Broader Connections
- Muslim-perpetrated attacks receive dramatically disproportionate news coverage
#corroborates(0.95) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 217 - Media coverage of Muslim violence superficially supports an Islam-violence link
#corroborates(0.95) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 282 - Media framing constructs the reality audiences accept about Islam.
#corroborates(0.85) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 497 - Media framing shapes American attitudes toward Islam and jihad
#corroborates(0.85) — Asena Karipek, Portrayals of Jihad, 75 - Media distinction between Islam and terrorism was blurred by inflationary language
#corroborates(0.80) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 571 - The media is not the origin or sole source of Islamophobia
#qualifies(0.75) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 836 - Islamophobia operates as a marketable commodity across media forms
#expands(0.72) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 354