the media

Muslims and the Media

In this section we are going to look at the way the media has represented Muslims and issues relating to Islam since 2001. During a short survey in September 2009, a hundred text messages were sent out, asking the following question ‘How do the British media represent Muslims?’ The majority of the replies indicated that the representation of Muslims in the British media was of a negative nature with stories about Muslims regularly being sensationalised & Islam constantly being framed as violent, intolerant & barbaric.

In 2007, a report commissioned by the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, was published. Titled ‘The Search for Common Ground; Muslims, non-Muslims and the UK Media’, the report sought to examine the role of the media in promoting or harming good community relations with London’s Muslim communities. The findings can also be generalised with the rest of the Muslim population in the UK due to the wide reaching nature of UK’s media.

In one typical week in 2006, the report found that over 90 per cent of the media articles that referred to Islam and Muslims were negative. Other findings include

The principal view of the UK media is that there is no common ground between the West and Islam, therefore conflict between the two is unavoidable.
Muslims are depicted as a threat to traditional British customs, values and ways of life.
Facts are frequently oversimplified, distorted or exaggerated while the tone of the language used is often alarmist, abusive or immoderate.
Thus the coverage is likely to provoke feelings of insecurity, vulnerability and alienation amongst Muslims; thereby weakening the Government’s measures to reduce and prevent violent extremism.
Another aspect of the coverage is that it is unlikely to help diminish hate crimes and acts of unlawful discrimination towards Muslims by non-Muslims. This then impacts on the community cohesion agenda that the Government wants to promote.
All in all, the media coverage is unlikely to contribute to informed discussion between different groups within British society, thereby hindering the prospects of developing Britain as a multi- cultural and multi- faith democracy.

Though this report highlighted the nature and the degree to which the British media represented stories on Islam in a negative manner based upon findings in 2006 and 2007, is it still the case today, three years later?

Enclosed below are stories featuring Muslims and Islam by the British media, taken from just one day. (18th January 2010)

Double standards row as Ed Balls refuses to ban smacking at mosque schools to avoid 'upsetting Muslim sensitivities'

(Daily Mail)

BAN BURKHA IN BRITAIN SAYS UKIP

(Daily Express)

Islamic sect’s plan to build mega-mosque next to Olympics site collapses

(The Times)

Taliban militants launch wave of attacks on Kabul

(The Guardian)

Speaker with extremist links to address Detroit bomber's former student group

(The Telegraph)

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