Media portrayal of Muslims after the 9/11 attacks: Terrorism or Islamist terrorism?

Saransh Ahuja | Ashoka University, Sonepat

|

In the past two decades we have often heard and read the words “Islamist terrorism” and “Muslim fundamentalists” in the media. The animosity between the world population and Muslims increased all across the globe with the start of the 21st Century. There are a lot of contributing factors, some specific to certain countries (like India) because of its history of friction between religious communities, which exacerbate this cultural rift. But the media becomes an important factor to consider in today’s time as it affects attitudes globally.

After the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001, orchestrated by the terrorist group al-Qaeda, the manner in which the media reported the tragedy put them under the spotlight. Let me highlight the media’s contribution in the construction of this association between Muslims and terrorism, starting from the 9/11 incident, which have helped perpetuate negative attitudes towards Muslims and nourished the prevalent Islamophobia. 

The role of a free press, in the world’s largest democracy, becomes vital in shaping the opinions and attitudes of the masses. These attitudes are formed under strong ‘informational social influences’ and are particularly resistant to change because they are ‘affectively-based attitudes’. Informational social influence is the phenomenon which pushes us to conform with seemingly credible information sources because we believe that their interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more accurate and will help us choose an appropriate course of action (Aronson, 2013). This ‘need’ for being accurate leads to a ‘private acceptance’, which is the genuine belief that what others are saying is right (Aronson, 2013). Here, the media is the expert and our best bet to make sense of the ambiguity surrounding us. This newly acquired information gives shape to our attitudes about an object. These attitudes, which are premised on emotions and hold a sentimental value, are called affectively based attitudes. Such attitudes which are bound by emotions are particularly resistant to change, even in the face of contrary logical arguments (Connor et al., 2011). 

Whenever something tragic happens in the world, the people are left confused and there is a lot of ambiguity involved. The masses are solely dependent on the media reports and stories for information because they have not directly witnessed the tragedy or event. The informational influence that the media has on the masses in this case is absolute as they are the controllers of mass opinions and setting the norms for future behaviours. This power of the media can turn venomous if they target a particular group to present a homogenous image of their entire community by picking out egregious examples and identifying their affiliations to that community.

Post-9/11, the use of the words Muslim and Islam more than doubled and even tripled in media articles (Ahmed, 2012). The label ‘Muslim’ tagged to a terrorist sows the seeds for a sinister harvest for the entire Muslim population. The bias of out-group homogeneity leads the in-group members to not see the egregious examples as exceptions in their community, but rather all muslims as having destructive instincts. The word ‘Muslim’, suggests Conte (2001), should be dropped from descriptions of terrorists as the terrorists’ beliefs fall well outside the scope of Islam. This argument is further strengthened by Nurullah:

"The Irish Republican Army is not called Catholic terrorists; the Ulster Freedom Fighters are not called Protestant terrorists; America’s White Aryan Resistance is not Christian terrorists; South Africa’s AWB were not called Calvinist terrorists; and Uganda’s Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments was described as a cult by the media after it massacred 780 of its followers, though its name alone points at Jewish influences. Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist sect in Japan poisoned people with gas but is not called Buddhist terrorists. The Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland terrorized each other but are not called Christian terrorists."

(Nurullah, 2010)

Scholars have studied how the stereotypical and negative portrayals of Muslims in the media can lead to intergroup friction and ultimately a process called ‘othering’. When this behavior of a few people of a group and their motives attached to that behaviour are generalised across all members of their group, we become vulnerable to social categorisation, creating an ‘us’ versus ‘them’  in the form of an in-group and an out-group.This results in viewing all members of an out-group as more alike than comprising individual differences. This flawed perception contributes to an important concept of social psychology known as out-group homogeneity. We start seeing the ‘others’ unfavourably and generalise negative traits of a few to the whole group. Research has shown that terrorism is regularly connected to Islam and as a result, Muslims have been severely ‘othered’ (Nurullah, 2010). This process of ‘othering’ can be examined through two lenses - Agenda-setting and the Cultivation Theory.

Agenda-setting is “the media’s capability, through repeated news coverage, of raising the importance of an issue in the mind of mass people” (Severin & Tankard, 2000). Empirical studies have shown evidence for the fact that the public perception about an issue heavily aligns with how it is portrayed in the media and greater exposure causes the viewers to become more concerned about issues that are being given importance by the media (Wanta and Wu, 1992). The worldwide hatred and discrimination against Muslims can be attributed to the repeated coverage of ‘Muslims’ as terrorists post the 9/11 attacks.

The Cultivation theory, established by George Gerbner and his colleagues, states that the heavy consumers of television and media are being influenced by the portrayed ideas and information. This is cultivating or shaping a common worldview, based on the common values and roles frequently depicted (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorelli, 1994). So, the viewers develop a disliking for the Muslims based on the impression that the media has cultivated in them through their biased portrayals hinting at the homogeneity of a destructive mindset among all Muslims. There have been similar research findings in Canada (Elmasry, 2002), Australia (Manning, 2006) and throughout the European Union (Fekete, 2002) where the negativity of Islam and Muslims has been highlighted by the media post the 9/11 incident, which has only strengthened the dichotomy of ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Nurullah, 2010).

The Western media had a major influence on the Indian media due to a low number of foreign correspondents at the time of 9/11 attacks (Ahmed, 2012). The overarching dominance of news giants like BBC, New York Times and Fox News controlled the flow of information into the news sphere of Indian media. This compelled the Indian media to be influenced by the negative stereotypes endorsed by the Western media while reporting stories involving Muslims and Islam. The daily consumers of this biased coverage of events are at a heightened risk of falling prey to this assortment of anti-Muslim sentiments from Western and Indian media sources (Ahmed, 2012). 

So, the bottomline is that after the 9/11 attacks, the perceived association between terrorism and Islam/Muslims increased exponentially among the masses, owing to the religion’s artfully constructed image by the media. On the brighter side, however, the last decade has seen the rise of several independent media platforms, many of them internet-based, that have shown their reporting to be unbiased and objective. In a positive sign, today's youth is increasingly becoming more aware about cultural racism and toxic stereotypes directed towards the Muslim community. Objectivity in reporting would go a long way in breaking the deeply entrenched negative stereotypes surrounding the Muslim identity, and help minimise the gap between ‘us’ versus ‘them’.

This is my take on how the media has played a critical role in the construct of the 'sinister' image of Muslims. I leave it upto you to decide who here morally stands in the line of fire and who calls the shots.

---

References

1. Ahmed, S. (2012). Media portrayals of Muslims and Islam and their influence on adolescent attitude: An empirical study from India. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 5(3), 279–306. https://doi.org/10.1386/jammr.5.3.279_1

2. Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M. (2013). Social psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

3. Conner, M., Rhodes, R. E., Morris, B., McEachan, R., & Lawton, R. (2011). Changing exercise through targeting affective or cognitive attitudes. Psychology & Health, 26(2), 133–149. doi:10.1080/088704 46.2011.531570

4. Elmasry, M. (2002). The future of Muslims in Canada. Paper presented at the Conference on the Future of Muslims in Canada, October 20, Ottawa, Canada.

5. Fekete, L. (2002). Racism, the hidden cost of September 11. London: Institute of Race Relations.

6. Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., & Signorelli, N. (1994). Growing up with television: The cultivation perspective. In J. Bryant & D. Zillman (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 17-41). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

7. Manning, P. (2006). Australians imagining Islam. In E. Poole & J. Richardson (Eds.), Muslims and the news media (pp. 128-141). London: I.B. Tauris.

8. Nurullah, A. S. (2010). Portrayal of Muslims in the media: “24” and the ‘Othering’ process. International Journal of Human Sciences [Online]. 7:1. Available: http://www.insanbilimleri.com/en

9. Severin, W. J., & Tankard, J. W. (2000). Communication theories: Origins, methods, and uses in the mass media (5th ed.). New York: Longman.

10. Wanta, W., & Wu, Y. C. (1992). Interpersonal communication and the agenda-setting process. Journalism Quarterly, 69, 847-855.