Analysis Critical Perspectives: Media Essay: Islam -

Critical Perspectives Essay: Islam - 

• The post 9/11 mediation of Islam is biased and unfair to what extent do you agree with this statement. 

The mass media is an important institute of secondary socialisation within society and its mediation of matters and can directly influence the masses interpretation of a collective identity; this process is called hegemony and is when the values of one dominant group is forced upon a submissive social group. A collective identity, these can be portrayed positively or negatively by the media, is a social group which share norms and values as a result of religion, class, gender, age, ethnicity and so on. Unfortunately, mediation, which is the intervention into an ideology to resolve it, of such collective identities is not always positive, as is often a subject of discussion when it comes to the reporting of Islam in the mass media specifically post 9/11.

The collective identity of Islam is one based off of shared norms, values and principles around beliefs in religion. The six main values of the Muslim community is the belief in Allah as the one and only God, belief in angels, belief in the holy books, belief in the Prophets, belief in the Day of Judgment and the belief in Predestination. These beliefs are of a peaceful religion that is too often seen as deviant from the Christian norm of western countries. Although, globally Christianity is the largest religion held by 31% of the population Islam is only shortly behind at 23%. Despite this, the theory of Orientalism in media as coined by Said is that the representation and understanding of Islam is that they are uncivilised and coordinated to be violent, their socialisation process is inferior and that generally their lives are of lesser value than their western counterparts. This conforms to Head’s 2014 investigation into Islamphobia being reported in 8 manners; one being that they are seen as “violent, aggressive, threatening, supporting of terrorism and engaged in a clash of civilisations”.