Sustained negative media discourse has shifted American public opinion against Muslims

Evidence

The 2015 American Values Survey, for example, found that 73 percent of White Evangelical Protestants believe that Islam is incompatible with American values. This is ten percentage points higher than mainline White Protestants, at 63%; twelve points higher than Catholics, at 61%; and seventeen points higher than Black Protestants, at 55%, who hold unfavorable views of Islam. These findings demonstrate that the sustained negative public discourse about Islam for nearly two decades has successfully shifted public opinion against Muslims. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 749

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the author’s argument about social construction of racialized religion and parallels theories of discursive power from media studies. — connects to: US instrumental use of Islamists produced today’s negative Islam frame — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 395; Sustained media focus reframed Muslim citizens as enemies of the state; Media imagery drives public bias against Muslims and Arabs — Sahar F. Aziz, Sticks and Stones, the Words That Hurt:…, 74
• QUESTION: The racial split (White vs. Black Protestants) suggests race-based rather than purely theological determinants of Islamophobia — worth pursuing how the Racial Muslim framework explains this.