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What is the role of ethnicity and race in the way audiences interpret media messages
Are minorities discriminated against in the media
Misinterpretation of islam in media
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Muslims in the Media Islam, the second largest monotheistic religion in the world. About one-fourth of world populations consists of Muslims, practicing and nonpracticing (Webster, 2017). It is believed that there is one God, Allah (the Arabic term for God), and people are free of choices and ultimately it is Allah who decides on the judgments and accountability of people. It bases the five “pillars of Islam” including the Shahadah, salat, zakat, sawm, and hajj. However, how people perceive Muslims today is very different. The media when it comes to Islam and Muslims, has created a negative frame to portray them, specifically around race, stereotypes, and bias.
Americans Muslims categorizes their lives into, pre-9/11 and post-9/11. In 2002,
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Race is used to place a label on people to categorize people to create a social reality. This social reality not only effects how one perceives their own race but well as other races. The color of a person’s skin has an astonishing impact when it comes to media representation. It’s not only the Muslim community, even African Americans or Hispanics face discrimination due to their skin color. However, focusing only Muslims, the brown skin with dark features such as beards, dark hair and eyebrows automatically categorizes an individual into a specific racial …show more content…
Trump, after the Las Vegas shooting, tweeted, “My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas Shooting. God bless you!” but earlier in September, after the London subway bomb that was two Muslims were suspected of, he tweeted “loser terrorist” even before any arrest was made. It was around the same time Muslim ban that was placed. If the president of the United States uses their social media to send messages containing bias, his supporters continues to stay uneducated and intolerant to
All blondes are dumb. Gingers have no soul. All Jews are greedy. All Asians are bad drivers. Imagine living in a world where people are put into a category simply because of their appearance, race, or religion. It limits a person’s chance of expressing individuality through categorization. Desmond Cole’s article, “The Skin I’m In” introduces the struggles faced by black people through racial stereotypes in Canada— a country known for its diversity. Cole reveals the experiences of black people who are stereotyped as dangerous; as a result, they are victimized with prejudice, discrimination, and injustice by society.
RACE: SMOKE AND MIRRORS The study of race and its social formation in the article "Racial Formations" by Michael Omi and Howard Winant challenge our socially accepted concepts of "race", race being defined as the social categorization of black, white, yellow and red people. Race plays a pivotal role in society because it has a overwhelming influence on an individuals life choices and outcome. Society has historically placed positive and negative stereotypes on different races. Whites are presented and in many cases perceived as the standard of civility and beauty. People of color are conveniently grouped together as disingenuous to American patriotism in addition to being subjected to perpetuating stereotypes such as being lazy, criminal, and deviant to general society.
Islam is a religion that most Americans don’t understand but still have strong feelings towards. To clear things up, Islam is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion written in the Qur'an, a book considered by its believers to be the exact word of God. They also consider it to be the last prophet of God through the teachings and the example of Muhammad. They refer to their god as Allah. The basis of Islamic life is centered on Allah, whom must be submitted to and served. They believe that the previous messages and revelations have been partially misinterpreted or altered over time with evolving cultures and translating languages, but consider the Arabic Qur'an to be the unaltered and final revelation of Allah. The religion is practiced with the five pillars of Islam, which are basic concepts and required acts of worship. The first is, testifying to God's One-ness: The declaration "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His prophet." The second is, Prayer. Prayer must happen at least five times a day, and must be done by bowing and facing towards the Mecca. Also, everyone must stand in straight lines and if women do come, however not required, must stand behind the men. The third is, giving charity. 2.5% of annual income is generall...
Islam the complete ‘surrender to Allah’ is a living religious tradition with the principal belief in one God – Allah. Islam has remained the same in its principle beliefs of Allah, His Angels, His Prophets, His Books, The Last Day and his complete authority over destiny and has also changed over time to ensure that Islam remains a living religious tradition. Over its history Islam has had many significant people including Al Ghazali and Aisha Bint Abu Bakr who have ensured that Islam remains living in the hearts and minds of its adherents. In addition to significant individuals participation in the Five Pillars e.g. the Hajj ensure that Islam will continue to be the living religious tradition that it is.
Although the United States has taken a big step towards accomplishing King’s version of The American Dream, everyday many African Americans, immigrants and other minorities are stereotyped because of their race and ethnicities and are frequently subjected to discrimination and prejudice. Today, Muslims are one of the largest groups who face discrimination for their beliefs; in fact, they have a hard time practicing their religion freely because of society’s prejudgment of them. They are mostly stereotyped as terrorist because of the actions of some individuals such as the ISIS terrorist group. Another group that endures racial discrimination is African Americans. Blacks have been fighting for their freedom, equality, and justice for over two-hundred years; in fact, the fourteenth amendment granted them citizens’ rights as Americans. However, there are many blacks who are constantly treated unfairly because of the color of their skin and are often classified by society as ghetto and a menace. Furthermore, many often become victims of police brutality. For
Islam is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion alongside Judaism and Christianity. It is currently the second largest religion in the world today. Its beliefs come from the Qur'an which literally means "the recitation" which is believed to be a literal transcription of the word of God. Its main prophet is named Muhammad who began Islam by speaking with the angel Gabriel in a cave during his meditation and then acting as an instrument of God to help write the Qur’an. Muhammad then spread Islam to the scattered tribes of Arabia by becoming the leader of Yathrib and using his wonderful leadership abilities to then grow his influence over virtually all of Arabia. Muhammad is known by Muslims to be the seal of the profits because no profits after Muhammad should be considered legitimate. Muhammad also left behind the Hadith or “tradition” which is a collection of writings compiled of reports of Muhammad’s actions as leader of Yathrib. These reports are used as a more specific code of ethics in day to day life and from these reports the 5 Pillars of Islam are derived (Smith 160). Although Islam shares many similarities to Judaism and Christianity it is often viewed in the US with hate derived from preconceived notions following the attack on September 11th 2001. This paper seeks to provide an overview of Islam’s history as well as its two major sects and 5 main pillars to remove preconceived notions and provide a glance into the minds of the Islamic people.
Islam is portrayed and is commonly accepted as the most violent and largest direct threat to the West. This is a generalization made by most of the West, but it is not particularly the West or the Islamic people’s fault. There is constant turmoil in Islamic countries in the Middle East and these conflicts are what make the news in the West. The only representation in the media that the Islamic nation gets is that of war. Though most Islamic people are not violent, the select few that do participate in terrorist groups give the rest of the Islam nation a bad image.
What is the Truth About American Muslims: Questions and Answers is a resource created jointly by Interfaith Alliance and the Religious Freedom Education Project. In the resource paper titled What is the Truth About American Muslims? Questions and Answers republished by an anonymous team at Southern Poverty Law Center, the thesis is clearly stated right away. The team starts off with a strong statement that eventually wraps the whole article up in the end; the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. These clauses are there to make sure the government remains neutral to all citizens of America. This research paper was very well done and is an excellent source to use for the essay, not only is it full of information, and easy to follow, all the sources that were used are cited as other resources as well.
In Michael Omi’s chapter “In Living Color: Race and American Culture”, he expresses his resentment towards the media and how they handle race relations. The essay discusses how the media in popular culture represents minorities, and how it leads to perception of race based on what the public views and hears (Omi 116). Omi believes that the way minorities are portrayed in visual media provides people with a false impression of their race, and media only adds to numerous judgmental stereotypes that surround minority races (Omi 117). Thus, creating a culture of citizens that have prejudices based on the stereotypes depicted on television or in movies (Omi 119). Discrimination and racism are still very alive in the culture of America, popular
Racialization is the process of attributing complex characteristics to racial categories (TEXTBOOK), and due to recent attacks from extremist groups; various negative attributions are consistently being unfairly linked to Muslims. With ISIS promoting religious violence and dangerous attacks, many non-Muslims have projected the hateful and violent beliefs to the religion of Islam as an entirety. Internalized racism, the internalization of racial categorization into a person’s identity, is also a plaguing concern amongst the Muslim race. With such projections being placed onto the Muslim demographic, we have seen cases of individuals go on to embrace the hate and join extremist groups themselves. Despite being a rarity, the growing condition of racialization seen around the World is leading to a similar upward trend in internalized racism. This alarming trend must be eradicated from the spectrum of our society, as it negates a key point of sociology and promotes biased stereotypes. Continuing this paradigm shift would encourage such stereotyping similar to that have which plagued various demographics in history (i.e. Blacks, Aboriginals). Eliminating such misconceptions from society, including but not limited to those currently facing Muslims, would spear head improvements in the equality between
Centered around revelations of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam was founded thousands of years ago. According to Mary Fisher, author of Living Religions, followers of Islam are commonly referred to as Muslims (Fisher, 2008 p. 381). Very similar to the structures of both Christianity and Judaism, Islam is a monotheistic religion, where worshipers believe in a single God, commonly referred to as Allah, according to Mary Fisher (Fisher, 2008 p. 386). In fact, many Muslims recognize some of the prophets from Judaism and Christianity, such as Moses and Jesus, as messengers of God, according to Mary Fisher
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 changed America and the world forever. When we hear about terrorists in the news, most often the media is referring to a person of the Islamic descent. The actions of a small group of radicals caused society to generalize about the entire Muslim community. Research done by Jack Shaheen, a professor of Mass Communication from Southern Illinois University and a consultant to CBS News, showed that the media has the ability to create false stereotypes of Muslims. The government enforces stereotypes here at home, which influence policies. During times of conflict, the media functions as the carrier of government policies. (Alexandar, Hanson, 64). Through this form of mediatization, prejudice and misconceptions about the Muslim community has risen.
Imagine being scared to step foot outside your house and getting taunted on because of your color or being too scared to even step foot out of your house because your loved one just got killed the same reason you might. Well for Muslim Americans this was an everyday thing after the event 9/11. 9/11 is an event that even the new generation talks about and the only terrorist attack that killed thousands in the U.S. This event is still talked about and remembered but something that many Americans don't talk about and know was what happened to the Muslims after 9/11 and how hundreds of lives were taken all over America just because they were same ethnicity as them. In this essay I will go in depth on how Muslims were racially profiled
Islam is a religion that is based on the submission oneself to the will of God, who is called Allah. Muslims are the people believe in that, regardless of their culture, background or ethnicity. It is believed that God’s prophets brought a message for the people to worship one God without intermediaries and that prophet Muhammad was the end of G...
In Zainab Ali's book, "Unveiling Islam: What Muslims Believe," she explains the basic beliefs of a Muslim. She also elaborates on the images of Muslims in the media created by important leaders such as Saddam Hussein and Louis Farrakhan and how they contradict the Islamic belief. The writer then gives her explaination of these contradictions with respect to Islamic rules. She focuses on the rules of the faith - the five pillars of Islam - by provinding explanations, definitions, and examples. After an elaboration of each pillar, the writer explains the relevance of the pillars in life and the affects that the pillars have on the character of a true Muslim. She then compares this character to the characters of the Islamic leaders in the media to support her claim that people of the Islamic faith are not compatible with the images portrayed through the media. By making this claim, the author is trying to correct the misunderstandings of the Islamic faith and of the Muslim image by providing examples, explanations, and comparisons to define a "true" Muslim.