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.

Word count: 2,159

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