1. ISLAM AND THE MEDIA POST 9/11 Following the events of September 11, Muslim Americans were placed front and center as the American psyche became increasingly concerned about terrorism and public distrust of Muslim-Americans grew. This increasingly negative view is most apparent in the mainstream American media’s portrayal of Muslims. In “The US Media, Huntington and September 11,” Ervand Abrahamian discusses how this negative image was only amplified by the reporting on September 11 that relied on Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” as a framework (529). Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” framed the events of 9/11 within the context of Islam, attributing the attacks as a result of a clash between two culturally different civilizations. It was a framework that print news sources like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Time …show more content…
The Huntington paradigm, Abrahamian writes, “was even more keenly embraced by the tabloid press, the television and radio networks, including National Public Radio, and even smaller quality newspapers” (530). The Islam versus the West framework allows media outlets to resort to religious-cultural explanations without discussing actual politics. Media outlets that were “supposed to deal with current news escaped into the realms of history, theology, anthropology and even cultural studies” (Abrahamian 535). Headlines like “The anger of Arab youth” and “The Battlefield for the American Mind” shifted the focus onto the link between terrorism and Islam, between Muslims and violence. Prior to 9/11 many Americans knew nothing about Islam and the post-9/11 mainstream media has painted a distorted image of Islam. The message: