Task 5

Essay Plan

Introduction

In this paragraph i will be writing and introducing my task which is my critical investigation. I would be writing about how the representation of of fundamentalists has affecting the contemporary society and seeing how it was in the history and how it is now. I would do this by looking at historical texts such as Airport (1970). I would look at the similarities and differences between the historical text and a contemporary text such as The Kingdom and other genre texts. I would then mention that I would be coming to a conclusion on how fundamentalist are being represented in media texts and if the affects are positive or not in society.

2nd Paragraph

In this paragraph i would be writing about fundamentalists and how they are sterotyped in the media today. This would mean that I would start off with stating the obvious stereotypes of terrorists today. I would then be comparing contemporary texts to see how male terrorists are being stereotyped and put across to the audience. In this paragraph, I would have reference to the texts The Kingdom, Taken because by this I could see the different roles that male characters are having in media texts and if they are similar. This would fit in with the issue of fundamentalism and the media because the films that I would look at would have terrorism in them and I could see to what extent texts are going to show terrorists negatively. In this paragraph, I would put in the quote"""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" as I would want to try and drive the point that sensationalism has a big part to play in peoples views on certain religions because of the media coverage.

3rd Paragraph

In this paragraph I would be writing about how the way that fundamentalists are shown has changed over a period of time. For this, I would be writing about the film Airport (1970) and I would look at how males are being characterised in that film. This would mean that I would need to look the attitude of terrorist used, the clothing, the propps and the language used. This would show if fundamentalist representation has changed over time. For this I would have to look at the social and economical factor too because the representation of Terrorists could have changed over time because of these factors. In this paragraph I would add in the quote "Stereotypes tend to be resistant to change; Second, they generally carry a pejorativve and narrow range of meanings" because it shows that the stereotypes of Terrorists would not stay the same for a long period of time.

4th Paragraph

In this paragraph I would look at what effect the representations of terrorists is having on the audience and the public. I would need to look at certain contemporary texts such as The Kingdom and The Hurt Locker to show how negatively male terrorist and Islam are being represented. I would then look at if this representation is causing a moral panic in the media because the public might then be afraid to talk to Muslims or be near them in public. In this paragraph I could also add the quote "Once again, issues relating to freedom of expression and the use of death threats by musilm extremists to scare western goverments and media become a top story"because it shows that the media will create these moral panics through sensationalising them just to attract more audiences.

5th Paragraph

In this paragraph I would look at the theory audience theory because I would look in more detail what this stereotypes of terrorists and religions is created. For example are there ideas being injected in to the audiences mind (hypodermic needle theory) because is the audience looking at a terrorists and being influenced to find all Muslims a threat. Has this representation also meant that the public view Muslims in a more negative way? Is this representation being created because of off screen representation where the producers might have something against Muslims too and are influencing the public to think that too? This would mean that in this paragraph, I would look at the audience theory and look at what affects these films have on the audience and is that the reason for a moral panic of terrorism in the media?. In this paragraph I could put in the quote "increasing concerns about terrorism have resulted in widespread coverage of the activitys of minority muslim extremists groups". This would be a good quote for this paragraph because it shows that audiences are being exposed more to terrorist news story to help create more of a moral panic.

Conclusion

I would now come to a decision on how fundamentalism is being represented in media texts and how this affects affects society. I would make this decision by looking at contemporary and historical texts. This would show if fundamentalists are being represented negatively and are these representations being created because of factors such as social, political and economical. This would mean that I would understand more why this representation of terrorists and Islam is created and what are the factors that influence it.