Representing the British Muslim Community in a Media - Essay Example

?How is the British Muslim community represented in a news media text of your choice? Discuss with reference to debates on assimilation and multiculturalism.  Unarguably, the print media environment in Britain is a vibrant industry, wielding important influence both in the British society and in the government. Such influence becomes unfortunate when tainted with racial bias and Eurocentrism that unfortunately still permeates in the UK. The book, Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence (2003) succinctly detailed how the growing number of Muslims in Western countries such as Britain is being subjected to hostility because they cannot conform to the dominant ideology. The negative treatment of the media, particularly, its penchant for humiliating Muslims, is seen as a major contributor to such phenomenon. This paper will examine how the Muslim community is represented in the print media. Background: The British Print Media In order to understand the dynamics of the Muslim representation in the print media, it is important to explain the nature and characteristics of the British press. As anywhere, the newspapers in Britain are categorized into two – broadsheet and tabloid. The fundamental differences of these two classifications pertain to the size and the content. According to Penock (2000), broad generalizations can also be made out of the news style wherein broadsheet is equated with “quality” press while the tabloid dwells more on the “popular” press, which relies on the sensational treatment of a small segment of news. (p131) With this in mind, it is easy to understand how broadsheets and tabloids could report the same story differently according to their style. Furthermore, both of the broadsheet and the tabloid media are popular and that the United Kingdom prides its print media to have the most number of national daily and Sunday newspapers throughout the world. Bednarek (2006) highlighted that the British public is third biggest newspaper buyers in the global ranking, with nearly 80 per cent of all households buying newspaper daily. (p12) The span of the geographical reach of the newspaper also highlights its capability to frame and shape public opinion and, in the process, influence all policy networks. This is underscored by the fact that the British newspapers are known to adopt specific editorial positions on various issues such as politics, class and race. For instance, The Daily Telegraph is known for supporting the Conservatives both during electoral exercise and in policymaking. Many British editors and journalists would go as far as saying that the materials they publish reflect the views of society and therefore mirror reality. Despite the claims to balance, hence, it is inevitable for the press to be biased against immigrants. It is helpful to remember that journalists are also human, living within the society that they report on. For a long time, British society has adopted the view that people of colour and different culture and ethnicity are alien, effectively embedding in all sectors and institutions within it a deep resentment towards plurality. Since the 1980s, there has been a gradual shift in policy, wherein a more diverse community is being targeted by encouraging multi-ethnic immigration but the resistance to diversity has persisted in many social institutions and this is true in the case of the media. According to Greenslade (2005), within the national paper newsrooms there are very few non-white journalists, certainly fewer than is representative of the overall non-white population that is why it is very likely that the values of indigenous Britons and their prejudices continue to hold sway in the popular press. (p11) Islamophobia As previously mentioned, there had been some progress in Britain’s attempts at building a pluralistic society. This, however, encountered a setback during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the United States. There are some quarters that attribute this to the growing Islamophobia that permeates in Western societies like Britain, which encouraged journalists to be more vocal about their prejudices without being branded as racist. The recent string of electoral success of groups such as the British National Party whose agenda is primarily anti-Muslim underscores this point. Even other minorities are now seeking to distance themselves from the Muslim community, worrying that such association could bring them into disrepute. (Britten 2002, p14) The British media can be partly blamed for these developments. The press publishes negative news about Muslims that include: reporting of non-existent terrorist plots; highlighting stories that depict how Muslims are getting special treatment; and the portrayal of Muslim and the Muslim community through the words and actions of a few individuals, claiming that they represent the wider Muslim population. (iEngage 2010) The repetitive and indiscriminate use of negativity attributed to Muslims and the stereotypes, misconceptions and generalizations to the Islamic faith has reinforced the hostility that has so far persisted. This has been aggravated when actual terrorist attacks by Islamic militants occurred in July 2005 in London. The coordinated bombings in London’s public transport system, for instance, draw an impassioned piece out of the Sun, which, besides the strong condemnation, reflected the already negative attitude of the past and the ensuing sentiment in Britain against Muslims: … yesterday’s outrage by fanatics of al-Qaeda – Britain’s 9/11 – will achieve only one end… To make this nation ever more determined that those who violate our way of life must never win. (cited in Shirazi 2010, p247) If one examines this statement closely, there is an implication of the rationalization for the British attitude towards the alien and the immigrants, that it has been right all along, that if there is anything left to improve on, it is to reinforce the social and state safeguards against terrorism, which is almost already identified with any Muslim sounding name and Muslim appearance. The Muslim Community in the Papers A random search through the online edition of British publications for Muslim community news/keywords will result in several articles about the speed of their population growth. For example, there is Kerbaj’s article for the The Times, which reported the astounding rise of the Muslim population from 500,000 to 2.4 million in the span of four years. The subject of the news is simple and, ideally, harmless for the concerned minority. But the very first sentence that declared this message was immediately followed by a declaration that such growth is 10 times faster than the rest of the society, while the number of Christians fell by more than 2 million within the same period. (Kerbaj) There is a clearly alarmist racial tone here when the author could have just reported about the development and relevant information, objectively, without citing religious keywords. Instead, he managed to pit Muslims and Christian against each other in the first three sentences of the story, confirming Moore, Mason and Lewis’ research finding that one in five stories about British Muslims makes comparisons between Islam and other religions. (p3) Kerbaj proceeded on with his narrative, touching on issues about immigration and the impact it would cause on society. While there were some politically correct elements thrown here and there in Kerbaj’s piece, a reader could not help but be bothered with the news if he or she had to take into account the negative stories that come out of the press about the Muslim community. Many articles tackling the same subject follow in style and treatment, with others going as far as identifying a creeping Islamisation that threaten the very existence of the British society. For example, in December 2001, an editorial was published by the Daily Telegraph, along with a story that came short of an endorsement for the French politician Marine Le Pen, a far-right, anti-Islamic leader. This editorial summarized the prevailing attitude towards the Muslim community and influence the way they were treated in the news. To quote: Britain is beginning to experience French-style anxiety about Islamisation. The fact that many terrorists are Muslims may lead to unfair assumptions about the loyalty of British Muslims. But, at a time when – according to some surveys – around 40 per cent of the Muslim community support the establishment of Sharia, fears of social fracture are understandable. (Telegraph View 2010) The above article speaks volume about the prevailing attitude of print journalists. There is a growing position of engagement to prod policymakers to act and support on anti-Muslim issues and advocacies. What is critical in this area is that there are both conscious and consistent - if not campaign – then, initiatives to depict Muslims in bad light. In a study undertaken by Moore, Mason and Lewis, it was found that the negative coverage of British Muslims by the British media has increased dramatically since 2000 and has peaked in the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. (p3) This development is primarily attributed to the interest in terrorism and terrorist related stories following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the United States and the series of terrorism that gripped the United Kingdom afterwards. Examining more than 900 newspaper articles about British Muslims, the researchers found that the British press within the period of 2000 and 2008 have equated the name Muslim and Muslim community with concepts/words like “threat”, “terrorism”, problem(in terms of differences in values), and “extremism”. (p3) The Terrorism Issue The Muslim Public Affairs Committee in Britain raised the argument that the word “terrorism” has been exclusively tagged to Muslim and Islam in newspaper depictions. The group pointed out that “Catholic terrorism”, for example, had never been used during the peak of the IRA attacks in England. (HC 2005, p53) This has been reinforced by the Moore, Mason and Lewis’ research, wherein it was reported that: The most common nouns used in relation to British Muslims were terrorist, extremist, Islamist, suicide bomber and militant, with very few positive nouns (such as ‘scholar’) used. The most common adjectives used were radical, fanatical, fundamentalist, extremist and militant. (p3) Richardson’s own work also reflected the same conclusions when he analysed more than a hundred British newspaper reports regarding the massacre of tourists in the resort of Luxor in Egypt, which included six Britons, one of them a child: His research found that the news reports predominantly argued that ‘Islam vs. the West’ is a ‘natural’ state of affairs (85.2%); that Islam is ‘separate’ (70.4%), ‘inferior’ (88.9%) and an “enemy” (88.9%). (p131) The representation is particularly unfair given the fact such treatment is not the same in the case of other ethnic or religious sectors. Jaber (2008), for example, argued that when a Jewish gunman attacks a mosque in the name of religion, when a Catholic IRA guerilla bomb a British urban center, or when Serbian Orthodox militiamen rape women and massacre children, they were never labeled as terrorists or that their acts are never taken to represent an entire faith. (p74) Another important aspect to this issue is the manner in which the British press sensationalises a story when a suspected Muslim terrorist is arrested. Once the suspect is cleared of wrongdoing, the press does not give the same prominence in their reportage. In the most extreme, the press is even critical or reports criticisms every time such instances arise. A case in point was the release of 12 men who were arrested over allegations of a bomb plot. They were released due to lack of evidence. An article written by Bird and Fletcher (2009) printed in The Times regarding this story obsessively emphasized the disagreements between governmental law enforcement agencies with regards to the release and did not make any effort to explain why the police found there was lack of evidence that would implicate the suspects in the alleged terrorist plot. The collective effect of this practice contributes immensely to the negative stereotyping of the entire British Muslim community. Conclusion People who have no idea what Muslims are or their faith, culture and their community rely heavily on the media and the printed material for their opinions and judgments. It is, hence, unfortunate that they get to read about Muslim depictions that are negative and often misleading and malicious. The print media in Britain as explained by this paper is characterized by deeply embedded prejudices and biases that are inevitable for a country that has resisted and controlled plurality for years. If this problem is not addressed, it will create divisions in a society that is claiming to encourage multiculturalism as a way of moving forward. References Bednarek, M 2006, Evaluation in media discourse: analysis of a newspaper corpus. Continuum Publishing Group, London. Bird, S and Fletcher, H 2009, "Students held in 'terror' raids freed without charge." The Times Online. 22 April 2009. Available from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6144111.ece. [March 21, 2011]. Britten, N 2002, "Ethnic radio station to ban 'Asian' description," The Daily Telegraph, 23 January. Feldman, D and Lawrence, J 2011, Structures and Transformations in Modern British History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Great Britain House of Commons 2005, Terrorism and Community Relations: Report, together with formal minutes and appendix. The Stationery Office, London. Greenslade, R 2005, Seeking scapegoats: the coverage of asylum in the UK press. Institute for Public Policy Research, London. iEngage 2010, “Daily Telegraph Warns About the 'Islamisation' of Britain," ENGAGE. 30 Dec. 2010. Available from: http://www.iengage.org.uk/component/content/article/1-news/1159-daily-telegraph-warns-about-the-islamisation-of-britain. [March 23, 2011] Jaber, Y 2008, Islam In Brief. IslamHouse, Riyadh. Karim, K 2003, Islamic peril: media and global violence. Black Rose Books, Montreal. Kerbaj, R 2009, "Muslim population 'rising 10 times faster than rest of society," The Times. 30 Jan. 2009. Available from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5621482.ece. [22 March 2011]. Moore, K, Mason, P and Lewis J 2008, Images of Islam in the UK. Cardiff School of Journalism and Cultural Studies. Pennock, B 2000, A genre approach to re-entry patterns in editorials. Universitat de Valencia, Valencia. Richardson, J 2004, (Mis)representing Islam: the racism and rhetoric of British broadsheet newspapers. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam. Shirazi, F 2010, Muslim Women in War and Crisis: Representation and Reality. University of Texas Press, Austin. Telegraph View 2010, "David Cameron must face the challenge of Islamisation," The Telegraph. 23 October. Read More