Wednesday, 24 March 2010

Second Draft

An investigation into how the representation in the media of religious fundamentalism impacts on contemporary society.

"rejection of the network may motivate Al-Qaida terrorism, which may therefore be said to be a product of its extension across the world"

Religious fundamentalism is bad enough, causing death and havoc around the world as it is but could the media be sensationalising these ideological extremists through their coverage and directly affecting society? This essay intends to explore the representations of religious fundamentalism in both contemporary and historical texts and compare what has changed over time and the factors that could have influenced them, for example. There appears to be attention towards fundamentalism so that, for influence, "Anjem Choudhary remains a constantly invited figure, even on the BBC, because he offers them entertainment. People are being sucked into a game of sensationalism" , but it would appear that audiences are willing, active participants. Another key area being explored will be the media effects on society through the way it controls audiences.

The stereotypes the media creates of religious fundamentalists impacts upon society and then they becomes normalised to everyone. An example of these stereotypes would be how a bearded Asian man carrying a large rucksack would now posts 9/11 straight away induce anxiety. These are stereotypes that have been reinforced by the media by repeatedly showing images of so called fundamentalists with a Middle Eastern look. In texts such as The Kingdom the religious fundamentalists all seem to be heavily bearded and seem to be excessively serious about their religion. A prime example of this in recent times is the mockeries of Abu Hamza a well known terrorist and the sun placed on their front page a picture of Abu Hamza showing his hook hand and the headline “Hook and the hooker” . After doing this the Sun was able to scapegoat the demonic figure of Abu Hamza for the entire Islamic world. The film is a prime example of how the media links fundamentalism back to certain religions, in particular Islam. With this link created it inevitably generates a negative attitude towards the religion and people who like a Muslim creates Islam phobia within society. "Just as “Rambo” offered the fantasy of do-over on Vietnam, “The Kingdom” can be seen as a wishful revisionist scenario for the American response to Islamic fundamentalist terrorism."

However the representation of fundamentalist and terrorists has not always related to religious beliefs. A good example of this is shown in the 1970’s film Airport where the text is based around a plane being hijacked by a fundamentalist. The fundamentalist in this film however is shown to be an everyday white American. This when compared to films from the modern age such as The Kingdom we can see that in the modern age films represent the fundamentalists with religion and of an eastern background. This also shows how the media has changed along with society's view and how we now view Muslims as the “other”. Post 9/11 the view of fundamentalism along with religion was scarce in the media. The media media's views moving with society about people can be summed up in this quote “The way in which individuals actions are determined is by social class, economic position and ideologies of gender or race" . The the media determines individual’s actions through ideologies of gender and race and in this case this would be their representation of the fundamentalists.

The way the media represents "terrorists" has a direct impact on society itself. Print media has just as much to do with this than TV and films does. Newspapers favouring the Conservative party seem to be against "terrorists" and like to link Islam directly with terrorism to get their views across to the public. A recent article in the Telegraph read [4]"Dozens of Islamic terrorists in Britain released from prison" . This is how newspapers create this image of Islam to be associated with terrorism before the reader has even begun to read the full article. With these headlines the newspapers sensationalise the stories and in this case try and create moral panics in society. The words dozens, Islamic, terrorists and released when read in a readers mind instantly creates a moral panic as it makes them feel as though these Islamic terrorist are free and a threat to them. “Many believe the term was coined by Stanley Cohen to describe press reporting and the reaction of the establishment to the behaviour of mods and rockers” . Stanley Cohen brought moral panics to the forefront and in this present day is used by the news industries to manipulate audiences. Audiences use the news as a way of surveillance if we relate this back to uses and gratification theory; this goes to show how important it is to people and why it really impacts them. A quote that also shows how this works is [5] "the public's views are further manipulated by tabloid headlines" . This backs up the view that newspapers manipulate the public's view with their headlines. However, “one of the categories that Galtung and Ruge suggested for news values was negativity – the idea that bad news is good news. ” With all the moral panics being created it has a huge impact on society as most the population become victims of this manipulation and this Islam phobia being generated. This then leads to attacks on Muslims and protest against them in the U.K. By these coming about more negative stereotypes have been created against Muslims and the most obvious one would be all Muslims are "terrorists". This is a view some of society is taking on board from what representations they are receiving in the media.

The radio is another platform where I can't help but find the media exaggerating and doing nothing more than just promoting fundamentalism. "In Our Time Fundamentalism" is a BBC 4 radio show that talks about fundamentalism itself and the believers in it. This would also mean the message of fundamentalism and why it is done can be heard through the radio and potentially go out to thousands of listeners around the U.K. This in itself to some people could be promoting fundamentalism although be it in a mediated form it is still promoting. Although there are radio shows fighting another side of this argument in saying "Is al-Qaeda winning?” This was form a news quiz show on BBC radio four and discussed the issue or the fundamentalists winning because of all this media attention they receive. The media might not represent them in a positive way but the message the fundamentalists are trying to make gets across most the time on a global scale. At least the radio does not stereotype people and mark fundamentalism down with certain religions when touching the issues. This is a positive sign in the media where religion is not being brought down with it so stereotypes are not being created in society but there is still the issue of promoting the work of fundamentalists that the radio does.

The internet is the biggest source of media on the planet so it would only make sense for the media industry to command a lot of influence of users and consumers over the net every day. All the media’s biggest companies also have their own source of media through the web so it would not be hard to assume that these values discussed earlier from the movies will carry over to the internet. The net is also filled with the media created moral panics such as “Terrorist threat level raised to 'severe” to try and grab people attention. This does nothing more than created moral panics between internet users everyday through the words terrorist threat raised to severe, the media in this case The Times online is scaring readers into thinking the threat is worse than first thought. The media is so powerful and on the net can even try and turn continents towards their beliefs in this case The Times online. “Stoned to death... why Europe is starting to lose its faith in Islam” is an article written by The Times online trying to get the message across that religious fundamentalism is the reason why the western world is losing faith in Islam. The truth is that Islam itself has nothing to do with fundamentalism and this is all stereotyping and representations created by the media to influence consumers. The Times Online seems to think “Islamic fundamentalism is causing a 'clash of civilisations' between liberal democracies and Muslims” which shows exactly the intentions of this article and there take on fundamentalism. In the present media “Islam is seen as an "extremist", "terrorist", or "fundamental" religion” which might explain why Media companies such as The Times Online might make such representations but it is they themselves who create these representations and then relate it to religion in this case Islam. When realistically addressing the issue with an open mind it comes across as "A complex issue like western attitudes to Islamic fundamentalism cannot be adequately represented within the confines of a news story" as it does not portray the truth to consumers. The times newspapers are known to supporter the conservative party who are not very fond of immigration into the U.K. as most eastern European countries are Islamic it shows why The Times would write negative comments for their political affiliation.
A recent article on the Guardian online webpage talked about “The world's most influential Muslims?” Which looked into the top 500 Muslim figures in the world? The fact that they put Osama Bin Laden in second place just shows how much influence they think fundamentalism has over Islam across the world. The fact is “Bin Laden is on the list – as a radical. Funny, I thought he was a terrorist” which really comes Bin Laden second on the top 500 most influential Muslims in the world it is directly linking terrorism with Islam to the consumers of media. This creates a positive representation of a terrorist that should be locked up in jail and instead is glorified as the second most influential Muslims in the world.
A huge phenomenon in recent times on the internet is social networking with sites such as Twitter and Facebook. These now also controlled by media giants and have created this representation of “choosing or being forced to live outside the network is associated with fundamentalism" to obviously make people stay inside the network for their own benefits. This could influence society to chose to stay inside the network when online and in fact manipulate them to a certain extend all through representations given out by the media companies themselves. Looking into the deeper meaning of media texts put out to audiences a certain Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotics theory comes to mind. His theory looked into signs and symbols and what they could mean in media texts and how different audiences would receive them. Looking at the film The Hurt Locker there’s a scene where the American protagonist is defusing a bomb in the middle of a street in Iraq. Now a couple of eastern bystanders start to gather to watch this and all camera angles switch from our main characters to the bystanders. Now to the passive audience this could connote danger and maybe these people left the bomb there, but to a more active audience this could connote innocent bystanders who came to see what all the commotion was about. The way that the passive audience would automatically relate and Middle Eastern person with an act of terrorism shows how the semiotics theory applies.
A more relative theory that comes across when looking at the media and its effects on society may be the information or representations it pumps into the audience’s heads. This now more relates to the hyperdermic syringe model. This theory looks into how the media use techniques to pump their views and in this case their representations into the passive audience’s minds. The Kingdom shows scenes of the terrorist reciting from what looks like the Quran which is the holy book of Islam and therefore pumping into the passive audience’s minds that the terrorists are related to Islam. This is an effective method mostly used by directors to get their views or the views of the institution behind the media product across to the audiences. This of course has its affects on society as with these representations being pumped into audiences it will create negative feelings towards Islam and Muslims in the contemporary society.
In my own views after embarking on my voyage of research and analysis of the media industry across many different media platforms there many issues I have come to terms with. The media has a huge amount of influence across all the media platforms and can get their own views across to a lot of passive audiences without the audiences even realising. For the most part the media industry does seem to relate Islam with terrorism and create a lot of representations and stereotypes out of this in texts. These representations and stereotypes carry over into society and a negative view of Islam is created and a lot of anger and hate is thrown towards Muslims in society. The times newspaper has shown an example of exactly how they can create moral panics in society and get people with this negative image of Islam. The times are a known supporter of the conservative party and could be the reason behind the shown negative comments about Islam. Overall I think the media do impact the society very deeply with all the representations as I cannot help but feel religion is the real victim in the end.
Word count: 2,321
Works cited
Books
1. Hartley,John.(2002): Communication, Culture and Media studies, USA, Routledge.
14. Bennet, Peter.Slater, Jerry.Wall, Peter. (2006): A2 media studies the essential introduction, USA, Routledge Page 173.
6. D, Buckingham (1987) Public Secrets Eastenders and its audience, London, Arnold p56.
17. Hartley, John. (2002): Communication, Culture and Media studies, USA, Routledge. p161.
8. Probert, David. Graham, Anderew. (2008): Advanced media studies, Oxfordshire, Philip Alan updates. Page 133.
9. Rayner, Philip Wall, Peter, Kruger, Stephen (2004): AS Media Studies: The Essential Introduction. London, Routledge.

Internet
1. Title: Sensationalism is a gift to extremists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/12/birmingham-riots-extremism-media.
3. Title: Abu Hamza al-Masri was a participant or observer in the following events:
http://www.historycommons.org/events-images/b138_abu_hamza_sun_2050081722-21846.jpg.

4 Title: MOVIE REVIEW The Kingdom (2007), http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/movies/28king.html.
7. Title: Dozens of Islamic terrorists in Britain released from prison
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6160758/Dozens-of-Islamic-terrorists-in-Britain-released-from-prison.html.
10. Title: Cut the cosy stuff. I want rage
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/oct/05/radio.bb

11. Title: Religious fundamentalism http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/subjects/c3ViamVjdC9yZWxpZ2lvdXMgZnVuZGFtZW50YWxpc20

12. Title:
Terrorist threat level raised to 'severe http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6999294.ece
13. ibid
14. Title: Islam and the Western Media
http://www.islamfortoday.com/media.htm
15. Title: The world's most influential Muslims?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/19/500-influential-muslims-list

16. ibid
Moving Texts

18. Bigelow, K. (2008). USA: Summit Entertainment..
19. Berg, P. (2008).The Kingdom, USA: Universal Studios.
2. Berg, P. (2008).The Kingdom, USA: Universal Studios.
5. Seaton, G. (1974).Airport, USA: Good Times Video.
Radio
8. Bragg.M (2009) BBC 4 Radio 25/11/09
Works Consulted
Books:
Bignell,Jonathan.(2004): An introduction to television studies, USA, Routledge.
Casey,Bernadette.Casey,Neil.Calvert,Ben.French, Liam. Lewis, Justin.(2002) : television studies they key concepts, USA, Routledge.
Jewkes,Yvonne.O'sullivan, Tim.(1997): The media studies reader, London, Arnold..
Lauhney,Dan.(2009): Media studies theories and approches,Herts, Kamera books.
Williams,Kevin.(2003): Understanding media theory, London, Arnold.
Internet
:http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/renouncing-islamism-to-the-brink-and-back-again-1821215.html
An Islamic view from society who don't understand why Islamists are in Britain.

:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-deports-yusuf-islam-over-claims-that-he-supports-terrorist-groups-547332.html
Could be used this quote to show how a Muslim feels towards the issue dealing with it in society.

Link: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050505/REVIEWS/50502001/1023

http://www.manaa.org/asian_stereotypes.html

Friday, 19 March 2010

Essay targets and plan

After the feedback recieved from my peers it was clear that I needed to go into more depth about any topics I touched. For example when I talked about a theory I should have flag posted it for the reader and made it clear I knew what I was talking about. Another issue was research as I discovered there were more topic and debates in the subject I could research into. Not only this but even more research to back up any points made already in the essay are also needed. when my peers highlighted my work there were a lot of issues and debates all over the essay but once again I need to focus on expanding on each point. The writing style was not too bad but still needs improving if i want a better grade. The bibliography was ok but I need to add the websites names into the internet section. Footnotes had minimal errors. In terms of theory I could have used a lot more audience theorys to go into depth about how this really affects consumers or media.

My next steps:

My first next step is to go through the peer to peer marking presentation and go through my essay and highlight and annotate everything to make sure i make all the needed to improve.

Next target is to get the needed research to cover a range of topics and to back up any points I do make in the essay.

My last target is to get atleast one grade above what I got this time and show myself I have made some decent progrression with the essay.

Thursday, 18 March 2010

Update

Action plan:

Week 6 22nd March - 26th March - This week is the final week and we will finish off all our editing for a review from Mr Bush and get his advice on any way to improve it before submission this way we aim to secure top mark and produce a production of professional standards. we might have to work extra in our own time to fix any mistakes or anything gone wrong which is why we want to finish all editing at the tart of the week

Progress report:
Week 5 15th March - 19th March - This week we started our editing, this will affect where we work more. This was in school as we decieded to use premire. We we edited the video how we want and added our effects into it and at school and making a title sequence and credits to make it look professional.

Friday, 26 February 2010

Additional Research

The Britz - A British TV series about a young Muslim girl who turns to terrorism as her life does not go the way she planned. I looked into great detail into this to help structure the narrative for our production. The two part series was spilt into two perspectives. The first was of sohail a British muslim born in England and supports British views and I think they are using him to go against the normal views that everyone has of a British muslim. the second we see of his sisters perspective and what drives her to terrorism. The whole two part series was a flashback and a build up to the point where sohail finds his sister with a bomb ready to blow up in public. this is not a structure we see everyday and is something that we considered when planning how to structure our opening 5 mins of our film. We found some camera shotss we cna use aswell when creating tense moods for the audiences.

The Kingdom - From watching the extract, the props and setting used all help to connote a very western and eastern presence in the text. all the westerners were dressed in what we see in the western world as casual clothes when going into an Islamic country, on the flip side the easterners were dressed in Saudi clothing and so were the terrorists.as for props the Saudi's military are always armed with weapons and very strict and firm with there movements on screen, where as the Americans tend to be more casual and have no weapons. When considering the mise en scene the Saudi's are more dominant on screen in the extract than the Americans.

At the start of the extract we see the protagonist and his men being lead by the Saudi captain to the crime scene to investigate. at this point the camera shots all all varying from the helicopter patrolling the scene in the sky to over the shoulder shots of the protagonist and captain talking.These shots are used in the scene to create more tension and place the audience right behind what is happening on screen. at this point the audience still do not trust the captain due to the shots and the representations of the captain to be stereotypically strict and firm to be against the Americans.

The genre of this film is hybrid, as it contains elements of a thriller, as well as a action genre. The Saudi army shown in the extract, help connote the film is of a action genre, due to their appearance. For example, they are seen to be holding guns and moving with heavy artillery connoting there could be violence to come. The fact that characters all seem to be tense, demonstrates elements of the thriller genre, the scenes really focus on the dialogue between the characters to focus on the story.

The representation of the Saudi's is built around the way they talk and the acents and the firm way they talk to the Americans. they are also shown praying showing them to be very religious even when in the army, the terrorist are also shown to be doing this prayer before blowing themselves up earlier in the text. In addition, Muslims today are the group of people who are seen to be terrorists, which is sensationalised through the media and often is mediated to create meanings. Because of this, moral panics are created and often led to stereotyping certain groups in society.
The leader of the terrorist is shown to be powerful and cold-blooded, the extract shocks the audience when he allows his 10 year old son to watch the terrorism in act. However, the audience perception may not change as he comes across as a masculine and dangerous man.

The text is targeted at both male and female audiences of a white working class. This is evident through the main characters shown within the film, they are shown to be white powerful people in the American army. However, it can be argued that the main protagonist is black and the film aims to target America as a whole with the issues touched in the film.

The ideologies behind this text are fairly different to most terrorist related films. For example “The Kingdom” offers an alternative representation of a easterner. The film breaks the stereotypical view on the eastern world, as a soldier from Saudi Arabia is not someone who loves his family, cares for his friends and has a soft side for life. Instead, we have a male with a family and kids, who is then only interested in keeping his friends and American new made friends alive.

The narrative follows a linier sequence, as we are shown the history between America and Saudi Arabia before introduced to the character and throughout the film the audience follows his and his Saudi counterparts involvement with the story.

Socially the text can be used for people to refer to and discuss, as the extract shows exactly why these representations of Muslims in the media get the western world to blame any Muslim they see, for example in the film the Saudi captain is blamed by a victim of the terrorist bombing for the murder of his wife and child. the audience know the Saudi captain had no involvement with the attacks and it is just showing the affects media has on society with the representations of terrorists.

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x566ovlskDg

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Production Idea

View more presentations from guest8e1359cd.

Action Plan

Week 1 15th Feb - 19th Feb - In this week, we started to story board. We went sat down and discussed how we wanted to structure the production and the types of hots we wanted to use. We watched some films to try and get some good ideas for . We looked at BRITZ and Crash and picked out 8 different shot types we could use and 3 soundtracks to use with them.

Week 2 22nd Feb - 26th Feb - In this week, we finished our storyboards off with 16 shots. These 16 hots are the main shots in the main scenes and we are expecting to have more shot but these will be minor and based around the scenes we have drawn up. For example, we got an scene were the black man is shown a racist remark and the minor scene for this could be the black man walking up to the area before abuse. We have decided to use Curtis Kingston as the lead actor as we know he i a good actor and his ethnicity will fit into the story.

Week 3 1st March - 5th March - Start Filming, this week we will start filming and hopefully shoot at least 8 of the 16 shots we need. At the same time we will be trying to figure out more places to film to make a variety of settings so people can relate to our production even more. We will also be considering additional actors for the production and final filming next week.

Week 4 8th March - 12th March - This week we will finish our filming and film the last 8 shots and any other additional shots that we felt were needed to make the production. if filming is not finished by the Friday we will then finish it over the weekend so we are ready to tart editing on Monday. We will also have to go back and review the filming this week and make sure we have everything before we start editing.

Week 5 15th March - 19th March - This week we will start our editing, depending on if we are going to use final cut pro or adobe premier, this will affect where we work more. This could be in school or at home but either way we would like to get most the editing out the way for the final week. We we edit the video how we want and add our effects into it and at home be making a title sequence and credits to make it look professional.

Week 6 22nd March - 26th March - This week is the final week and we will finish off all our editing for a review from Mr Bush and get his advice on any way to improve it before submission this way we aim to secure top mark and produce a production of professional standards. we might have to work extra in our own time to fix any mistakes or anything gone wrong which is why we want to finish all editing at the tart of the week.

Half Term Work

Progress Report For Linked Production

Week 2 22th Feb - 26th Feb- In this week, we finished our storyboards off with 16 shots. These 16 hots are the main shots in the main scenes and we are expecting to have more shot but these will be minor and based around the scenes we have drawn up. For example, we got an scene were the black man is shown a racist remark and the minor scene for this could be the black man walking up to the area before abuse. We have decided to use Curtis Kingston as the lead actor as we know he i a good actor and his ethnicity will fit into the story.

Friday, 12 February 2010

Prsentation Evaluation

In my own opinion I was happy with my presentation and presentation skills. I felt like I gave clear point and expanded on everything on the presentation to get people thinking about with the idea we have. the presentation itself could have been better although we had the wrong presentation on the day. Based on the feedback recieved we missed our genre codes and conventions. also the psyhcographics part was not up to it. Some more theory could have been applied and the story itself could have been looked at more. The first few slides were not in bullet points and let the presentation down. overall I think we did well and the whole class got the idea of what we are trying to achieve and everyone is happy for us to go ahead.

Monday, 1 February 2010

First Draft

An investigation into how the representation in the media of religious fundamentalism impacts on contemporary society.

Religious Fundamentalism is bad enough causing death and havoc around the world as it is but could the media be sensationalising these fundamentalists and their coverage and directly affecting society? This is what I intend to explore in my investigation and come to a conclusion on. I will be looking at the representations of religious fundamentalism in contemporary and historical text and comparing what has changed in time and the factors that could have changed them for example politics. "Anjem Choudhary remains a constantly invited figure, even on the BBC, because he offers them entertainment. People are being sucked into a game of sensationalism"[1] a quote that shows just how easily the audience can fall for sensationalism. Another key area I will be exploring will be the direct affects on society the representations in the media have.

The stereotypes the media create of these religious fundamentalists carry's through to society and then becomes normalised to everyone. An example of these stereotypes would a big beard on an Asian man or an Asian man carrying large covered items would now straight away get most of society worried. These are just stereotypes that were created by the media by showing constant images of fundamentalists with a Middle Eastern look. In texts such as The Kingdom[2] the religious fundamentalists all seem to have big beards and seem to be very serious about their religion. The film is a prime example of how the media link fundamentalism back to certain religions in this case Islam. With this link created it instantly makes this negative attitude towards the religion and people who "look" like terrorists due to their beards in society. "Just as “Rambo” offered the fantasy of do-over on Vietnam, “The Kingdom” can be seen as a wishful revisionist scenario for the American response to Islamic fundamentalist terrorism." [3]This quote from a film review relates to the film being a western view on Islamic fundamentalism which to some extend is true because of all the stereotypes that were used in the film.

The representation of fundamentalist was not always related to religious beliefs and used to be something people with mental issues turned to. A good example of this is shown in the film Airport[4] where the text is based around a plane being hijacked by a fundamentalist. The fundamentalist in this film however is shown to be a casual white American. This when compared to films from the modern age such as The Kingdom we can see that in the modern age films represent the fundamentalists with religion and of an eastern background. This also shows how the media has changed along with society's view. Post 9/11 the view of fundamentalism along with religion was scarce in the media. The media media's views moving with society about people can be summed up in this quote"The way in which individuals actions are determined is by social class, economic position and ideologies of gender or race"[5]. The quote shows the media determines individual’s actions through ideologies of gender and race and in this case this would be their representation of the fundamentalists.

The way the media represents "terrorists" has a direct impact on society itself. Print media has just as much to do with this than TV and films does. Newspapers favouring the Conservative party seem to be against "terrorists" and like to link Islam directly with terrorism to get their views across to the public. A recent article in the Telegraph read [4]"Dozens of Islamic terrorists in Britain released from prison"[6]. This quote shows how newspapers create this image of Islam to be associated with terrorism before the reader has even begun to read the full article. With these headlines the newspapers sensationalise the stories and in this case try and create a moral panic. The words dozens, Islamic, terrorists and released when read in a readers mind instantly creates a moral panic as it makes them feel as though these Islamic terrorist are free and a threat to them. A quote that also shows how this works is [5] "the public's views are further manipulated by tabloid headlines"[7]. The quote backs up the view that newspapers manipulate the public's view with their headlines. With all the moral panics being created it has a huge impact on society as most the population become victims of this manipulation and this fear of Islam and Muslims are created. This then leads to attacks on Muslims and protest against them in the U.K. By these coming about more negative stereotypes have been created against Muslims and the most obvious one would be all Muslims are "terrorists". This is a view some of society is taking on board from what representations they are receiving in the media.

The radio is another platform where I can't help but find the media exaggerating and doing nothing more than just promoting fundamentalism. "In Our Time Fundamentalism"[8] is a BBC 4 radio show that talks about fundamentalism itself and the believers in it. This would also mean the message of fundamentalism and why it is done can be heard through the radio and potentially go out to thousands of listeners around the U.K. This in itself to some people could be promoting fundamentalism although be it in a mediated form it is still promoting. Although there are radio shows fighting another side of this argument in saying "Is al-Qaeda winning?”[9] This was form a news quiz show on BBC radio four and discussed the issue or the fundamentalists winning because of all this media attention they receive. The media might not represent them in a positive way but the message the fundamentalists are trying to make gets across most the time on a global scale. At least the radio does not stereotype people and mark fundamentalism down with certain religions when touching the issues. This is a positive sign in the media where religion is not being brought down with it so stereotypes are not being created in society but there is still the issue of promoting the work of fundamentalists that the radio does.

The internet is the biggest source of media on the planet so it would only make sense for the media industry to command a lot of influence of users and consumers over the net every day. All the media’s biggest companies also have their own source of media through the web so it would not be hard to assume that these values discussed earlier from the movies will carry over to the internet. The net is also filled with the media created moral panics such as “Terrorist threat level raised to 'severe”[10] to try and grab people attention. This does nothing more than created moral panics between internet users everyday through the words terrorist threat raised to severe, the media in this case The Times online is scaring readers into thinking the threat is worse than first thought. The media is so powerful and on the net can even try and turn continents towards their beliefs in this case The Times online. “Stoned to death... why Europe is starting to lose its faith in Islam”[11] is an article written by The Times online trying to get the message across that religious fundamentalism is the reason why the western world is losing faith in Islam. The truth is that Islam itself has nothing to do with fundamentalism and this is all stereotyping and representations created by the media to influence consumers. The Times Online seems to think “Islamic fundamentalism is causing a 'clash of civilisations' between liberal democracies and Muslims”[12] which shows exactly the intentions of this article and there take on fundamentalism. In the present media “Islam is seen as an "extremist", "terrorist", or "fundamental" religion” [13] which might explain why Media companies such as The Times Online might make such representations but it is they themselves who create these representations and then relate it to religion in this case Islam. When realistically addressing the issue with an open mind it comes across as "A complex issue like western attitudes to Islamic fundamentalism cannot be adequately represented within the confines of a news story"[14] as it does not portray the truth to consumers. The times newspapers are known to supporter the conservative party who are not very fond of immigration into the U.K. as most eastern European countries are Islamic it shows why The Times would write negative comments for their political affiliation.

A recent article on the Guardian online webpage talked about “The world's most influential Muslims?”[15] Which looked into the top 500 Muslim figures in the world? The fact that they put Osama Bin Laden in second place just shows how much influence they think fundamentalism has over Islam across the world. The fact is “Bin Laden is on the list – as a radical. Funny, I thought he was a terrorist”[16] which really comes Bin Laden second on the top 500 most influential Muslims in the world it is directly linking terrorism with Islam to the consumers of media. This creates a positive representation of a terrorist that should be locked up in jail and instead is glorified as the second most influential Muslims in the world.

A huge phenomenon in recent times on the internet is social networking with sites such as Twitter and Facebook. These now also controlled by media giants and have created this representation of “choosing or being forced to live outside the network is associated with fundamentalism"[17] to obviously make people stay inside the network for their own benefits. This could influence society to chose to stay inside the network when online and in fact manipulate them to a certain extend all through representations given out by the media companies themselves. Looking into the deeper meaning of media texts put out to audiences a certain Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotics theory comes to mind. His theory looked into signs and symbols and what they could mean in media texts and how different audiences would receive them. Looking at the film The Hurt Locker [18] there’s a scene where the American protagonist is defusing a bomb in the middle of a street in Iraq. Now a couple of eastern bystanders start to gather to watch this and all camera angles switch from our main characters to the bystanders. Now to the passive audience this could connote danger and maybe these people left the bomb there, but to a more active audience this could connote innocent bystanders who came to see what all the commotion was about. The way that the passive audience would automatically relate and Middle Eastern person with an act of terrorism shows how the semiotics theory applies.

A more relative theory that comes across when looking at the media and its effects on society may be the information or representations it pumps into the audience’s heads. This now more relates to the hyperdermic syringe model. This theory looks into how the media use techniques to pump their views and in this case their representations into the passive audience’s minds. The Kingdom[19] shows scenes of the terrorist reciting from what looks like the Quran which is the holy book of Islam and therefore pumping into the passive audience’s minds that the terrorists are related to Islam. This is an effective method mostly used by directors to get their views or the views of the institution behind the media product across to the audiences. This of course has its affects on society as with these representations being pumped into audiences it will create negative feelings towards Islam and Muslims in the contemporary society.

In my own views after embarking on my voyage of research and analysis of the media industry across many different media platforms there many issues I have come to terms with. The media has a huge amount of influence across all the media platforms and can get their own views across to a lot of passive audiences without the audiences even realising. For the most part the media industry does seem to relate Islam with terrorism and create a lot of representations and stereotypes out of this in texts. These representations and stereotypes carry over into society and a negative view of Islam is created and a lot of anger and hate is thrown towards Muslims in society. The times newspaper has shown an example of exactly how they can create moral panics in society and get people with this negative image of Islam. The times are a known supporter of the conservative party and could be the reason behind the shown negative comments about Islam. Overall I think the media do impact the society very deeply with all the representations as I cannot help but feel religion is the real victim in the end.

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Works cited

Books

14. Bennet, Peter.Slater, Jerry.Wall, Peter. (2006): A2 media studies the essential introduction, USA, Routledge Page 173

5. D, Buckingham (1987) Public Secrets Eastenders and its audience, London, Arnold p56

17. Hartley, John. (2002): Communication, Culture and Media studies, USA, Routledge. p161

7. Probert, David. Graham, Anderew. (2008): Advanced media studies, Oxfordshire, Philip Alan updates. Page 133

Internet

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/12/birmingham-riots-extremism-media

3. http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/movies/28king.html

6. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6160758/Dozens-of-Islamic-terrorists-in-Britain-released-from-prison.html

9. http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/oct/05/radio.bb