By Dr. Salman Al-Azami
The writer holds a PhD in Linguistics and is a Senior Lecturer in English Language at Liverpool Hope University, U.K. His research interests include bilingualism, language in education, language, religion and the media and language of advertising. His book Religion in the Media: A Linguistic Analysis (Palgrave) has recently been published in the U.K.
LONDON (AA) – In the current climate of hate, bigotry and suspicion against Muslims by a significant section of the wider population in Britain, it is important to question whether the media is playing any role in fuelling Islamophobia.
One expects media practitioners to be more responsible while carrying out their journalistic duties, but unfortunately, we do not witness fair portrayals of Islam and Muslims in the British media.
For example, a headline of a report on a survey in The Sun last year after the Paris attacks claimed that one-in-five British Muslims had sympathy for ISIS [Daesh] terrorists, which wrongly interpreted a survey question about British Muslims’ attitudes towards those who were fighting in Syria – not specific to those fighting for ISIS.
A previous poll by the same company on non-Muslims showed that 14 percent had sympathy for Muslims fighting in Syria. The word “sympathy” was used in the report as “support” for ISIS, but there are many groups involved in the Syrian civil war and implying that “sympathy” only applies to ISIS is a misrepresentation of reality.
Another example of unjust media coverage of British Muslims is the contrasts in which the row over anti-Semitism within the Labour Party and Islamophobia in London’s mayoral election campaign were covered in the media, leading to an important question as to what constitutes racism and whether there are different parameters to measure two abhorrent forms of racism in our society – anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
The unpleasant remarks about Jews made by a few Labour politicians have been extensively covered in all forms of news media. What was largely ignored is how the campaign for the London mayoral election had turned into nasty Islamophobic propaganda by the losing Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith against his Labour counterpart and current London mayor Sadiq Khan, particularly through his article in the Daily Mail with images of the 7/7 bombings to suggest the latter’s link with terrorists.
There is a culture in some media outlets to portray the faith of a Muslim individual if there is anything negative about them, whereas if the perpetrator is a non-Muslim, then their faith is hardly an issue.
While the media was right not to raise Goldsmith’s Jewish connections, it is astonishing how Khan’s Muslim background was used to undermine his credentials in a society where everyone is expected to rise above these matters.
Another example is the barrage of media onslaughts against Malia Bouattia following her election as the first black Muslim President of the National Union of Students (NUS) with a misleading accusation that she refused to condemn ISIS, an allegation she robustly rebutted.
The way mainstream British media represent Islam and Muslims has a significant impact on the lives of ordinary Muslims. Journalists have an important role to play in reducing hate crimes against Muslims, but there are suggestions that their representations are actually exacerbating the problem.
According to recent research at the University of Cambridge, the media is actually fuelling rising hostility towards British Muslims. Miqdaad Versi, a spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain in a recent article provided a number of examples in the British media with inflammatory headlines and reports about Muslims and asked the editors to “…own up to this problem within the media and take meaningful steps to resolve it”.
A study on media discourse on Islam by Baker et al. (2013) concluded that some members of the British press are playing into the hands of the extremists as terrorists use these negative media portrayals of Islam to influence young people against the West suggesting that they have waged a war against their faith.
In my recently published book I looked at the relationship between language and power in the depiction of Judaism, Islam and Christianity in the British media in which I undertook my own linguistic analysis and showed the same news stories to religious and non-religious groups to gather perceptions.
It was clear from my study that majority of the media represents the three religions differently, with the coverage of Islam being far more negative than the other two religions.
Ethnocentrism was found to be one of the major reasons for such negative media coverage about Islam and Muslims. The reason for this ethnocentric attitude in the secular British press can be attributed to the disproportionately low number of Muslim journalists in the U.K. A report by City University of London finds only 0.5 percent Muslim journalists from among almost five percent of Muslims in the overall population.
Contrary to what the media wants us to believe, a recent survey showed that 93 percent of ethnic minorities in Britain are very positive about this country, are proud to live here and feel respect for the British political system.
Another study by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex (2012) found that Muslims were more proud to be British (83 percent) compared to 79 percent of the general public.
Unfortunately, the media have failed to represent this real picture of British Muslims.
Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of our democracy, but that freedom is essentially linked to responsibility. Almost three million Muslims live in the U.K. and the overwhelming majority of them are proud British citizens. It is, therefore, important that the media takes into account the opinions of majority of the Muslim population while reporting about Islam and Muslims.
Media practitioners need to understand the importance of their role in an increasingly polarized society that is being unleashed due to contemporary global politics.
Responsible reporting on issues of sensitivity is of paramount importance. Muslims are an integral part of British society and the media can play a positive role to celebrate this diversity and contribute towards unity rather than divisions between communities.
* Opinions expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu Agency’s editorial policy.
