research, a good essay to refer to:
When Muslims (and male Muslims in particular) appear in Western media, whether it be news or fictional entertainment, their images are largely negative, the most popular contexts being violent demonstrations or terrorist acts. Muslim men are often depicted as intolerant religious extremists, culturally narrow-minded anti-Western types, misogynists, or all three rolled up into one. True, such people do exist, and I am not at all saying that Western media cannot talk about them. But the media has a duty to provide the bigger picture, that is, they should also balance their reporting with more positive stories such as on CNSNews.com, and . Both stories are from 2005, but it is not the first time that Indonesian Muslim leaders have organized Muslims to defend non-Muslims against Islamic extremists.
In the Middle East too, there are positive stories to be told. For example, in the recent bird flu outbreak in Turkish, Muslim clerics and their pulpits were a key part of the outreach campaign aimed at educating the general population about health risks. Of course, some people may argue that Turkey and Indonesia are more moderate Islamic countries and that the real problem lies with the Arab world. But in the Arab world, people are not necessarily as provincial as Westerners may think. Arab investors and Muslim charities based in Arab nations operate all over the world. The outflow of Arab Muslim capital and educators have accomplished positive things in many countries. But Westerners tend to think they are the only people with a global worldview and global reach, so they downplay stories of non-Westerners operating on an international level, except when these people are terrorists or criminals. There are many Middle Eastern and South Asian Muslims taking a vocal stand against criminals like Osama Bin Laden and his ilk, not as secular individuals, but as people of faith, but the Western media chooses not to focus on these other voices from the Muslim world.
I am not claiming Western medias tells no positive stories of Muslims. There are certainly a few good stories here and there. It is just that it would help to see more of them. With negative images of Muslims far outnumbering positive images, it is no wonder that many Westerners have biases against Muslim people, most of whom happen to be of non-European origin.
The popular Western stereotypes of Muslim men in general and Middle Eastern men in particular are most bluntly portrayed in the relatively recent American movie Second Hand Lions. A white American male serves in the French legion in North Africa. He devotes his time to battling slave traders (North African men) and rescuing their victims (North African women and children). Very simply, the Muslims men have been positioned as the oppressors of their own women and children, who need a white non-Muslim man to rescue them. Said white hero is purportedly the best rider in the whole of North Africa - seemingly, the male talent pool of the vast population of native North Africans cannot produce anyone to match him. The only native who matched the white guy in riding skills turns out to be a woman. The native woman has come specially to meet the 'handsome American' after hearing about his heroic acts and prowess in battle. Predictably they fall in love. Their disparate social status does not matter. A mercernary is enough of a match for a princess because his whiteness makes up for the rest of the equation.
Enter the Middle Eastern male villain again - the princess is engaged to a tyrannical prince who already has a large harem. The cardboard villain comes complete with the fake "hahahahaha" stereotypical villainous guffaw. OK, I know the movie is deliberately cheesy and most of the characters are by design rather two-dimensional, but the prince is way over the top. This shifty, dishonest Middle Eastern man is angry to see his impending marriage threatened by an interloper and takes the princess captive.
Of course, in the Western imagination, the exotic Middle Eastern woman who has found a white man would rather die than accept a Middle Eastern man. The princess stands with a dagger ready to kill herself but of course, the white hero fights his way through the prince's castle just in time to save her. [A very similar scene exists in , only in that case it is a Japanese woman who prefers suicide to submitting to a perverse man of her own race. Of course, the white man fights his way through the villain's stronghold to save the non-white woman before she plunges the dagger into herself.] Wives of the prince are portrayed as having zero loyalty to him, and fully in sympathy with the white man. Without hesitation, they help him to locate and rescue his dusky beloved.
The movie belittles Middle Eastern men in every possible way - on the levels of their character, their sense of honor, their professional achievement, and their family life. They do not even deserve the loyalty of their own women. Unfortunately, this kind of portrayal is too typical. And because Westerners do not always differentiate between Middle Eastern Muslims and non-Middle Eastern Muslims, stereotypes of Middle Easterners have the potential to hurt other Muslims too. [By the way, the Western idea that the woman of color prefers death over abandoning a white lover in favor of a man of color is not applied to Middle Eastern or Muslim women alone. This motif appears many times in films and stories about non-Muslim Asian women and white men too, the most famous being Madame Butterfly, but there are many more.]
Do stupid movie stereotypes matter? Yes, if the brainwashing of Western audiences results in people thinking like Lieutenant General James Mattis, a white male who served in Afghanistan. According on the 2005 AP article "Marine General Counseled Over Comments":
Lt. Gen. James Mattis, a career infantry officer now in charge of developing ways to better train and equip Marines, also made fun of the manhood of Afghans during comments Tuesday while speaking at a forum in San Diego.
"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
His comments evoked laughter and applause from the audience. Mattis was speaking during a panel discussion hosted by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association...
The alarming thing about the audience laughing and applauding is that it shows that many Americans share Mattis' values. If you have a US Marine general like Mattis acting like some 'great white savior movie hero' on the ground, killing hordes of Muslim men supposedly in the interests of oppressed Muslim women, then I am concerned that the casualty rate among the natives might be higher than it needs to be. Treating real life humans like cardboard movie villains may well have a tragic cost in human lives.
Wednesday 24 November 2010
how does the media industry profit from the demonisation of islam and terrorism?
strong>key focus points:
1. post 9/11 and the media
2. representation and sterotyping
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-403010/Stereotyping-leading-terror-says-Muslim-Miss-England.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/europe/newsid_9097000/9097203.stm
3. media effects on the audience
http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2005/3/27/203410/697
4. gender and ethnicity
http://www.colorq.org/PetSins/article.asp?y=2006&m=7&x=7_1
5. liberal plurism
points to be made in the critical investigation:
1. males are portrayed to be terrorists and stereotypically violent, aggressive and oppressive.
2. Islam as a religion is represented to be ‘against the world’ and therefore punish the world by killing innocent people in their attacks, for example, 9/11 and 7/7.
3. terrorism as an act against the world is shown to represent the whole religion of Islam.
4. Islam is constantly in the media spotlight, even in non commercial television channels such as BBC, and it is heavily scrutinised and portrayed to teach its young followers to effectively 'teach he world a lesson'- during a lecture by head speakers of Islamic communities.
5. in comedy movies such as four lions, the protagonists are often shown to be idiotic ans have no sense. they are shown to be forced into terrorism and therefore this stereotypes all Muslim men to be commercially used to create humour within movies.
theories to focus on:
1. cultivation theory
this causes enigma within the audience and then is used to create a false representation of certain minorities. much like the hypodermic needle this moulds wrong stereotypes within reality, and diminishes communities.
2. copycat modelling
although we can assume that terrorism in some movies is shown in a comedic light, it is also possible that people will imitate what they see in the media. they may resort to terrorism or other acts of extremism.
3. hypodermic needle theory
The ‘injected’ audience is seen as passive and powerless. whilst watching the negative portrayal of Islamic believers, the audience is likely to cause moral panic and create stereotypes within reality and label all Muslims as terrorists.
4. uses and gratifications theory
Instead of researching what the media do to the audience, this approach studies what the audience does with the media. This approach also takes account of people’s personalities and personal needs. this may also cause havos in sociery, if yougher viewers decide to act upon illegal activites.
1. post 9/11 and the media
2. representation and sterotyping
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-403010/Stereotyping-leading-terror-says-Muslim-Miss-England.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/europe/newsid_9097000/9097203.stm
3. media effects on the audience
http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2005/3/27/203410/697
4. gender and ethnicity
http://www.colorq.org/PetSins/article.asp?y=2006&m=7&x=7_1
5. liberal plurism
points to be made in the critical investigation:
1. males are portrayed to be terrorists and stereotypically violent, aggressive and oppressive.
2. Islam as a religion is represented to be ‘against the world’ and therefore punish the world by killing innocent people in their attacks, for example, 9/11 and 7/7.
3. terrorism as an act against the world is shown to represent the whole religion of Islam.
4. Islam is constantly in the media spotlight, even in non commercial television channels such as BBC, and it is heavily scrutinised and portrayed to teach its young followers to effectively 'teach he world a lesson'- during a lecture by head speakers of Islamic communities.
5. in comedy movies such as four lions, the protagonists are often shown to be idiotic ans have no sense. they are shown to be forced into terrorism and therefore this stereotypes all Muslim men to be commercially used to create humour within movies.
theories to focus on:
1. cultivation theory
this causes enigma within the audience and then is used to create a false representation of certain minorities. much like the hypodermic needle this moulds wrong stereotypes within reality, and diminishes communities.
2. copycat modelling
although we can assume that terrorism in some movies is shown in a comedic light, it is also possible that people will imitate what they see in the media. they may resort to terrorism or other acts of extremism.
3. hypodermic needle theory
The ‘injected’ audience is seen as passive and powerless. whilst watching the negative portrayal of Islamic believers, the audience is likely to cause moral panic and create stereotypes within reality and label all Muslims as terrorists.
4. uses and gratifications theory
Instead of researching what the media do to the audience, this approach studies what the audience does with the media. This approach also takes account of people’s personalities and personal needs. this may also cause havos in sociery, if yougher viewers decide to act upon illegal activites.
Thursday 11 November 2010
5 things to focus on during the critical investigation and question
1. post 9/11 and the media
2. representation and stereotyping
3. media effects on audience
4. gender and ethnicity
5. liberal pluralism
How has the media industry profited from the glamourisation of Islam and terrosism?
2. representation and stereotyping
3. media effects on audience
4. gender and ethnicity
5. liberal pluralism
How has the media industry profited from the glamourisation of Islam and terrosism?
The hypodermic model
Just like the syringe used to inject a drug into a body, the media ‘injects’ messages directly into the minds of the viewers/listeners/readers; and they can be as addictive as heroin.
This approach draws attention to the power that media producers have, and to the importance of the forms of media to which audiences have access.
The ‘injected’ audience is seen as passive and powerless. This model is mostly used when the effects of media on women or children are the subject of research. The way people use media remains unaccounted for.
Cultivation theory
As audiences watch more and more film and television, they gradually develop certain views about the world, some of which are ‘false’.
This approach draws attention to the fact that audiences gain a lot of their knowledge about the world from the media. It also recognises the important role the media have in our lives.
This approach can encourage views such as: ‘Crimewatch feeds perceptions that Britain’s crime rate is growing’ while not actually measuring this idea against the actual views of audience members. In other words, it’s hard to prove accurately.
Copycat(or modelling) theory
This approach suggests that people will imitate what they see in the media – e.g. if young people watch Natural Born Killers, they will go out on a killing
spree. This is not so much a ‘theory’ as an assumption perpetuated by the Press!
The power of this approach is that it feeds off (and mirrors) the types of concerns that parents have about their kids’ media use. It might encourage parents to stop their children from playing violent computer games, for example.
Firstly: different people see different levels of ‘risk’ in different media! So one person’s threat is another person’s light evening entertainment ... Secondly: while short term effects might be measurable, it is hard to measure long term effects of this kind. This is often the basis for moral panics
– e.g. rap music leads to gun violence.
Uses and gratifications
Instead of researching what the media do to the audience, this approach studies what the audience does with the media. This approach also takes account of people’s personalities and personal needs.
The audience is seen as active, and reasonably intelligent. Life experience in general is regarded as more influential than experience of media. The pleasures that the media offer audiences are not regarded as
negative!
Too much optimism about the ‘power’ and ‘choices’ of an active
audience can distract us from the power certain texts have, or the influence that media institutions and ownership may have on texts
and understandings.
Just like the syringe used to inject a drug into a body, the media ‘injects’ messages directly into the minds of the viewers/listeners/readers; and they can be as addictive as heroin.
This approach draws attention to the power that media producers have, and to the importance of the forms of media to which audiences have access.
The ‘injected’ audience is seen as passive and powerless. This model is mostly used when the effects of media on women or children are the subject of research. The way people use media remains unaccounted for.
Cultivation theory
As audiences watch more and more film and television, they gradually develop certain views about the world, some of which are ‘false’.
This approach draws attention to the fact that audiences gain a lot of their knowledge about the world from the media. It also recognises the important role the media have in our lives.
This approach can encourage views such as: ‘Crimewatch feeds perceptions that Britain’s crime rate is growing’ while not actually measuring this idea against the actual views of audience members. In other words, it’s hard to prove accurately.
Copycat(or modelling) theory
This approach suggests that people will imitate what they see in the media – e.g. if young people watch Natural Born Killers, they will go out on a killing
spree. This is not so much a ‘theory’ as an assumption perpetuated by the Press!
The power of this approach is that it feeds off (and mirrors) the types of concerns that parents have about their kids’ media use. It might encourage parents to stop their children from playing violent computer games, for example.
Firstly: different people see different levels of ‘risk’ in different media! So one person’s threat is another person’s light evening entertainment ... Secondly: while short term effects might be measurable, it is hard to measure long term effects of this kind. This is often the basis for moral panics
– e.g. rap music leads to gun violence.
Uses and gratifications
Instead of researching what the media do to the audience, this approach studies what the audience does with the media. This approach also takes account of people’s personalities and personal needs.
The audience is seen as active, and reasonably intelligent. Life experience in general is regarded as more influential than experience of media. The pleasures that the media offer audiences are not regarded as
negative!
Too much optimism about the ‘power’ and ‘choices’ of an active
audience can distract us from the power certain texts have, or the influence that media institutions and ownership may have on texts
and understandings.
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