Interpretation of Islamic Extremism in Mass Media

When we discuss ‘Islamic Extremism’, there are various factors that need to be looked into before reaching a conclusion, regarding how the western mass media has ‘manipulated’ and ‘exploited’ their understanding of what Islamic Extremism is all about and how it in turn has had an impact on the Muslim world.

To begin with, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the West. Nonetheless, the West has many stereotypes and false impressions about Islam that are due to the media, prejudice and ignorance. In many cases, the media’s reports about Islam are incorrect due to primal unawareness. This is one of the reasons as to why the West often hates Islam and depicts it in an illusion of revulsion through its media.

The major factor which contributes to Islamic stereotyping in the West is due to the lack of knowledge media has when it comes down to selecting their words that portray Muslims in general. Some very frequently heard or seen names and words in the news relating to Muslims are “extremist” or “terrorist”. These words are ambiguous and misleading; moreover serve to be completely anti-Islamic. The Western media seldom uses impartial terms such as “revivalist” or “progressives”. It also creates the notion that Muslims are “returning” to Islam. This of course in all forms is not true in most cases, since most Muslims have never left Islam in the first place. Islam has always been a huge part of their lives. A more correct and just way to express this idea is by suggesting that there is a revival of Islam and that it is becoming more and more influential around everyone.

In addition to the fact that media creates erroneous ideas about Islam, the Western media is also very powerful to its audiences in making negative Islamic stereotypes, such as the allegation that all Muslims are fundamentalists. The term “fundamentalist” is actually a term that is interpreted by the media. Whereas a fundamentalist, in fact, only symbolizes a normal Muslim who follows his or her religion.

Fundamentalism means an approach, an effort or a movement that an ideology, group or religion tries to promote in its fundamental beliefs. Although the Western media is clearly uncomfortable with religious groups, yet it focuses profoundly on “Islamic fundamentalism”. A majority of the media’s reports that talk about Islamic fundamentalism commonly illustrate most Muslims as extremists. This goes on to showing how the media has become ignorant if not preconceived. The media most often represents Muslim "fundamentalists" prostrating themselves before God in prayer. For instance, in the October 4 issue of Time, Muslims soldiers were shown performing prayers with guns. The caption on the bottom of the picture said, "Guns and prayer go together in the fundamentalist battle". The part that the reporters omitted or failed to state was that the Muslim soldiers were praying on a battlefield in Afghanistan. Common sense of the situation meant that the soldiers had to remain armed at all times in case of an ambush at any time. This is a clear example of the Western media’s bias and erroneous reporting.

With an observation on the soldiers, another great mistaken belief that exists is the truth about Jihad or "holy war" in Islam. The ideas of war and hostility have become related to the Islamic religion from the media. Jihad is so often evident in the news because the media thinks it is Islam’s rationalization for war and violence. Jihad factually means “The struggle in the path of God.” Conversely the Western media literally abuses the definition of jihad by labelling it as a holy war where Muslims unreasonably slaughter non-believers. But the fact is that jihad can mean a number of things that a Muslim does for the sake of God. Hardly ever has the Western media used this kind of an explanation in their respective reports. The Western media repeatedly takes the word “jihad” out of the context only to propagate negative views on Islam.

The association of Islam and violence is a common misconception that the general Western public has urbanized about Islam. An example of this kind of delusion is that the Western media and some historians often say that Islam was a religion spread by the sword, meaning that Muslims went from one end of the world to the other forcing people to either convert or to die.

Since majorities of the American public only get their information about Islam through the media, they believe this wrong idea. The media’s reports about Arab or "Islamic" events, such as the Gulf War, are often misapprehended. The media usually fails to give background information about these Islamic events that it reports on. The media occasionally differentiates between the religion Islam and the political affairs that occur in most Islamic countries. For instance, what Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq, did in the Gulf War was not Islamic and totally wrong (to attack other people for no reason, especially Muslims). But the media still makes reports about Islam and how Islam is made of war-crazed people. For example, to help put things into perspective, Hitler was a person of the Christian faith. This does not mean that all of his actions were consistent with the Christian beliefs. Likewise, Saddam Hussein is of the Islamic faith, but all of his actions do not necessarily represent Islam. So you can see that the media’s reports about "war-crazed Muslims" are incorrect. The notion of associating of Islam and Muslims with the terms Arabs and Middle East are in fact misleading. Arabs only account for 18% of the Muslim population across the world.

Aside from the fact that the Western media indeed pulls the wool over our eyes, the media is also a profit-seeking organization which often seeks to create a false image of reality. Islam is often news of an obnoxious sort for the general public of the United States and other western countries. Islam has often been presented as a peril or a danger to the West. These negative images do not match up to Islam, but are the belief of certain sectors of a particular society. These prominent sectors can transmit negative images of Islam, which sometimes influences people’s views on Islam. The Western media actually weakly represents Islam. Most of these problems of meagre representations come from poor language translations, the absence of developed news agencies with international networks and native reporters, and biased reporting by many Western reporters.

A few predisposed reports come from negative images that have happened in the Muslim world in the past like the hijacking of airplanes by Palestinians, the occupation of the United States Embassy by students in Tehran, the fact that there are no democratic governments in most Islamic countries, and the Gulf War. For most of these events, the media has misinterpreted and misrepresented them. The media sometimes involuntarily blows things out of proportion, sometimes because of prejudiced sentiments towards Muslims. Nevertheless, many positive developments in the Muslims world seldom go into observation.

With the Western media’s spotlight and some Western government approach, the West is a place where Islam is a name of negativity. The Western media has contributed a great amount to this devastating negative and downbeat image of Islam. The media often misrepresents and imprecisely explains Islam and its materializations. Occasionally the media seems to be biased against Islam. When the media twists the image of Islam, the general public tends to believe it, because the media is a major source of information that the public gets about Islam. This ignorance that the West accumulates from the media leads them into making stereotypes about Islam and associating all Muslims and Arabs together. The West often times views Islam as "fundamental" "extremist" or "bigoted", but all of these terms have been manoeuvred, purposely because of predisposed feelings and fortuitously because of ignorance, by the media to present a rather negative image about Islam.