Media Biases Against Muslims Ambarta Noor San Diego State University Portrayal of Muslims in the Media In the wake of the unfortunate events that occurred September 11, 2001, America has been at one of its most fearful points in history. This fear fueled with the medias negative portrayal of Islam and Muslims after 9/11 both helped to create an uninviting attitude towards Muslims. After 9/11, the media formed a negative illustration of Muslims for the viewers who were distraught with the grief from the attacks. In today’s society, people often assume that the media is essentially there to inform. However, over the past couple of years, the media has gone from an informational source to an entertaining take on real current issues …show more content…
Because of the media’s displays, there is an evident widespread of Islamophobia throughout the west and it is one that has potentially scared citizens into a defense mode. This over arching idea of Muslim dominance is a common thread amongst media outlets and is one that is often overlooked. This paper seeks to determine not only the implications of news biases but also the core reasons as to why the media chose to frame Muslims in a particular way. The aftermath of 9/11 effected society, socially, politically, economically, and globally. It acted as a historical turning point in American history. More interestingly, 9//11 brought forth the underpinning realities of the nations media and its ill effects on viewers. It has prompted academics to apply further research on the idea of American exceptionalism as a reoccurring theme amongst media outlets. In order to understand how a bias media came to prominence, we must first examine how American exceptionalism took part in early western settlement into the United Sates and carried over as an attitude well accepted by Americans …show more content…
As individuals, we tend to perceive the world based on our socio-cultural values. More explicitly, people often lack the ability to comprehend issues with an all-objective perspective. Studies show that when media sources acknowledged Arabs and Palestinians with a terroristic background, there was a positive correlation to the viewer’s political affiliation, ethnocentric background, and the amount of trust they had in TV news (Passini, Palareti, & Battistelli, 2009). These findings signify the importance of the viewer’s background and how likely they are to discriminate or gravitate towards a stereotypical understanding of who Muslims are. Perhaps an ethnocentric identity is considered a norm amongst media outlets to better accommodate their viewers’