Media portray victims as passive and faith-driven to heighten Western pity

Evidence

The portrait of the victim is formed by describing Lawal as illiterate, from a small village, and not having “a clue about what is going on.” By saying that Allah will be her judge, Lawal implies that she is resigned to the sentence and relies on her faith rather than questioning—as Winfrey so adamantly does— the injustice that has been done to her. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 665

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Media amplify disasters near the West while ignoring equivalent harms in the global South — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 125