Portrayal of Arabs in Biased American Media

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Some American Media outlets prove to be biased; the information they mediate through discourse pictures and videos are often slanted. In order to be able to recognize the impartial from the one-sided opinion, and in order to learn how language, images and videos work to create meaning, one should rely on the science of semiotics. This paper will apply a semiotic approach in analyzing the attacks directed to Arabs by some biased American Media outlets. The first part will deal with discourse and will explain some properties in language; the second part will be devoted to images and to their Machiavelli use in achieving meaning; in the third part, it will attempt to decipher the hidden information in videos.

The misrepresentation of Arabs and Muslims is sometimes flagrant in American newspaper articles. There is often a tendency to attribute other signifiers to the term “Arab. This term is usually, substituted with the term “Muslim.” Richard Cohen, a journalist from The Washington Post epitomizes the deliberate mixing of the terms “Arab” and “Muslims.” He intentionally amalgamates those terms with terrorism; thus, Arabs, Muslims and terrorist become synonymous. Cohen states that “one hundred percent of the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 mass murder were Arabs. Their accomplices, if any, were probably Arabs too, or at least Muslims. Ethnicity and religion are the very basis of their movement.” (Ibish 124)

It is evident for some scholars that the goal of this amalgamation is to implement the terms Arabs and Muslims with terrorism as a connotation. “Arab” equals “Muslim,” and “Muslim” equals “terrorist;” all become identical. It can also the other way round; the signifier “terrorist” can prompt other signifiers such as “Arab...

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...uary 2012]

CNN December 2011[Cited January 2012] < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw5v-kkIix8&feature=player_embedded>

The Dictator Trailor [HD] December 2011 [Cited January 2012] < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RH6BCXQjO4>

Freeman Nate New York Observer: Sacha Baron Cohen’s Next Project? Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Dictator Novel Larry Charles January 2011 [Cited January 2012] < http://www.observer.com/2011/culture/sacha-baron-cohens-next-project-saddam-husseins-iraqi-dictator-novel>

Lymari Morales “Majority in U.S. Continues to Distrust the Media, Perceive.”

Bias More perceive liberal bias than conservative bias” George Gallup.Web. September 2011 [cited January 2012]

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