HoW iS ISLaM RePReSeNTeD iN THe MeDiA ?

Media Proposal

“ How is Islam misrepresented in the western media and how does this create islamphobia? “

For my A2 media independent study I am going to look into the representation of Islam in the western media and how the media has the power to represent Islam in a bad way. I am going to study what is “Islamphobia” and how and what causes it. I will need to study websites and look into newspapers reporting into Islam and watching over old news reporting of terrorist attacks. Analysing the text will be crucial for me to understand how the western media uses language and images to make representation occur.


M- Camera angles can make a difference to what is being shown, how people are dressed can cause stereotypes (linked with costume), lighting in coverage can make a difference, the language used can have a great difference.

I- Studying BBC, sky news, Diff type of newspaper: tabloid, broadsheets.


G- Genre is looking into Islamic related studies and text.

R- How are Muslim represented and why are represented in this way. What things are used to make them be represented in this way. Are stereotypes used?

A- Audience is very big and mixed the western media is for everyone, every race and age and is for Muslim and Non- Muslim people.

I- Ideology behind my whole study is that Muslim are misrepresented in the media and I prove how they do this.

N- The narrative is done through language used in the newspaper and language used by the reporter in the news report and what tone is used to present the news and what the mode of address is like.



1) Social – social problems are people in the uk living in one area with hatred for one another, they feed off info given from the media. Problem with women wearing hijab in france.

2) Historical – links can be made with the western world always not meeting eye to eye, with the crusade and wars in the past with Islamic country.

3) Economic – The iraq war is related to usa wanted oil and more economic power, and people say the western media don’t show the truth about the war.

4) political- Lots of political issues involved, with war and terrorist attacks occurring.
Wider context and issues and debates:


Muslim people in the uk have to live in places where sometime is dominated more by western people. They live in areas of racial hatred and segregation. How it can be debated is the media to blame for the hatred because whereas do these people get such bad ideas about Muslim people? So can it be debated that if the government were to stop this poor representation of Islam there would be less racial problems.

Also these stereotypes come from the terrorist, but have the western government ever tried to talk or communicate, maybe through UN or stopping the Iraq war, to see what the consequences are, is enough being done to stop terrorist.

Also in relation to the media, do the western broadcasters know enough about Islam before broadcasting information on a topic?

THEORY-

*HYODERMIC THEORY- the media having the power to manipulate the audience, having an effect of a drug on the audience.

*SPIN- having ability to portray something with your own interest in mind.

*USE AND GRAFICATION- make audience believe it has the choice to pick and mix from the media production, but really media is operating within a cultural and ideological framework. in more simple terms it is wen the audience watch something and enjoy it but also learn something from it, like changing rooms on BBC.