Islam post 9/11

I would scythe western world has become very islamophobic not only with Trump and American but in general most of the western world and especially the UK. Islam gets linked heavily with not only terrorism but also illegal immigration.

Orientalism by Edward Said is a text of cultural studies which challenges the concept of orientalism or the difference between east and west. 

In reviewing these texts you need to explore:

•Are media representations of Islam, biased, balanced or fair

The medias representation of Islam is certainly not balanced, they are portrayed in a very negative light and can never be seen to do anything right. A few years ago there was a front page headline of a newspaper about an Muslim owned convenience store where the toilet was just a whole in the ground and it was a total outrage. This story was later proven totally false and the paper was to apologise or be taken to court. The apology was only a small story somewhere in the back pages out of sight. The media are very unfair in there representation of Islam and they're also too snobbish and arrogant to ever really admit when they make false accusations. 

•To what extent is Western mediation of Islam a reflection of Orientalism/Islamophobic

It is a reflection to a great extent as they are viewed as imperfect in every sense there are no real news stories that portray Muslims in a good light. 

•To what extent does media representations of Islam conflict with Muslims collective Identity…

Do 20% of British Muslims really sympathise with jihadists?•Was the Sun’s Headline true?

•Is the Sun misrepresenting Muslim people as as a whole?

•What is the Sun’s reasons for making these statements?

The headline doesn't accurately reflect how the survey was carried out. For example jihadis wasn't featured in the questions asked to the British Muslims, it was instead fighters, now this in itself is very vague because fighters could be referring to rebel groups formed to combat IS, it doesn't necessarily mean the IS group itself. Sympathy is also a loose word to use as it too in different contexts can have different meanings, sympathising with someone can mean you feel sorry for them, not only this but it can also mean understanding someone. 

They were telling her to go back to her own country, it was 'get YOUR shit out of here' YOUR creating this 'us and them' vibe. People are naive to assume that Muslims are all foreign and people forget ideas spread all around the world and can be attractive for citizens of that country too.

·       To what extent can Todorov’s theory/Cohen’s “Moral Panic” be used to explain the increasing sense of Islamophobia? 

After the events of 9/11 and the 7/7 bombings we have returned somewhat to a state of equilibrium however, we are always on alert when it comes to terrorism and new stricter polices have been put in place to combat terrorism, things are not the same. The papers do not shine a good light on Islam with the news stories being highly negative, creating moral panic but this moral panic leads individuals or groups to try and force Muslims to conform out of a state of fear. They make out all Muslims to be foreign as if they are from a completely different world, '.. On British streets' and its quite disgusting to see this very naive view being so widely accepted by the public and of course this is not only in Britain but across the west as well. We tend to say we are tolerant but are we? It's natural to fear what you don't understand but we take such a childish approach when we don't understand something. We aren't even trying to understand, we just accept we don't understand and then that becomes some sort of justification for making it wrong. You can tell someone that they're billions of stars in the sky and they'll believe you but you tell them that bench has wet paint they'll touch it. The same principle applies here, we don't even try to understand the religion but as soon as newspapers represents them all of a sudden it becomes indisputable, thats what all Muslims are like. We accept the words of some opinionated snobby reporter but  Muslims from the religion tell you differently its too hard to believe. 

·      define what mediation and collective identity is

Collective identity is how a group values themselves. Mediation is how the press manipulate information to share their side oft he story to create representations.

Generic Theory (collective identity)

What collective identity can mean

• Not just representations from mainstream media but also through self construction by users of media.

(Social networking, pub discussions, etc.)

• “ A focus on Identity requires us to pay closer attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences for social groups” David Buckingham

• Communities formed from shared identity. e.g. age/gender/ethnicity/political ideas etc.

David Gauntlett

• identity is now consciously constructed, and the media provides some of the tools to help us construct our identities. The media contains a huge number of messages about identity and acceptable lifestyles.

At the same time the public have their own diverse set of feelings. The media and media consumers are engaged in a dialogue in which neither overpowers the other.

The media put out stories about certain groups but the consumer are still choosing as to whether they agree disagree or are somewhere in-between 

Anthony Giddens

•There is a social structure which shapes our lives (traditions, institutions, moral codes, established
ways of doing things), but it relies on individuals following these structures.

•When they act differently the social structure can change. Structuration is the process in which human agency and social structure are in a constant relationship ± the social structure is reproduced by the repetition of acts by individual people (and can therefore change)

Ann Gould said that there were six different stereotypes of teenagers which included:

•Rebellious

•Sexual- (teenage pregnancies)

•Artificial Tribe- ( a group of people with the same social interests)

•Nihilistic- (when teenagers reject moral values)

•Self Destructive-( drugs, pregnancies)

•Violent 

•Cohen in his research could find little actual evidence that such clashes between rival 

groups of motorcycle-scooter gangs actually took place. The only violence he found

witness to involved regional rivalries not bike gangs. He argued that the press reports were

distorted, wildly exaggerated and portrayed false picture of what actually went on. Cohen

argues identified 3 distinctive elements in the media reporting of events: a)Exaggeration and

distortion: numbers, damage caused, violence... b)Prediction: that further conflict

and violence was on the cards c)Symbolisation: the symbols of the youth groups were all

negatively labelled and associated with deviance However the media outrage SPARKED a series 

of interrelated responses:4

The media are putting across a very negative view of youth with all the headlines conveying the

drastic measures being taken to bring them under control. Most of the headlines show shocking

images of youth fights and show the extent of the damage. The Mirror are making  young people

out to be self-destructive and rebellious with riot police being needed to maintain control. Its

easy to see why people may have believed the stories and headlines as groups of 40 and 97 being

arrested doesn't seem that small but when you take into consideration this would have been an

incredibly small percentage of young people with the baby boom after WW2, it would be wrong 

o assume that because the youth were challenging the social norms of fashion and music they

were all this violent and rebellious.

Wilkins

Deviancy amplification

•a)It aroused wider public concern police increased surveillance more arrests result confirmed validity of initial press reports b)The reported Mod/Rock antagonism advertised and encouraged young people to opt for one camp or the other (created we-groups and they groups)

•polarization cemented the image more clashes elsewhere and more arrests resulted confirmed validity of initial press reposts

• c) New disturbances created even more news coverage even more police surveillance even more public concern

•Wilkins termed this process a Deviancy Amplification Spiral 

–Less tolerance…………………………………leads to………. more acts being

defined as crimes…………leads to………. more action against

criminals……………….leads to………. more alienation of

deviants………………….leads to………. more crime by deviant

groups……………….leads to………. less tolerance of deviant groups by

conforming groups………

–youths can come to identify with the label attached to them which may result in a status 

transformation – they may come to believe they are actually deviant, and separate from

mainstream society and act as such (Self-Fulfilling Prophecy). Cohen argued that groups 

for whatever reason could be singled out as Folk devils (a threat to public order and

social values) and as a result act out that stigmatised role. 

Cohen's and Wilkin's theory of folk devils runs through continuously through the character of Jimmy. He represents the deviancy amplification because not only is he apart of the MOD culture but he represents all the things the media portray the MODs to be, violent, disrespectful and self-destructive. Its as if he has accepted his label, for example after his employer has been reasonable with him and given him another chance, he reacts with a radical response by telling him to 'shove it up his arse'. Jimmy's character is at an age where he is developing into adult hood and so he chooses to experience these things to find out who he is and so the deviance amplification, the label that gets placed on his head and his acceptance of the label are part of him believing that is who he is. All of Ann Gould's 6 stereotypes of youth are present within the extract and they follow a pattern. Because the is part of this artificial tribe the MODs, he starts to become rebellious viewing pornographic images, choosing to reject his parents authority becoming nihilistic, his frustrations then drive him to drugs, he's self-destructive losing control and in all the confusion of his emotions and the drugs, the built up frustrations creates this outburst of violence against someone who was once his friend.

Exam requirements

Section A:  Theoretical evaluation of production.

•

•Question 1(a) requires candidates to describe and evaluate their skills development over the course of their production work, from Foundation Portfolio to Advanced Portfolio. The focus of this evaluation must be on skills development, and the question will require them to adapt this to one or two specific production practices. The list of practices to which questions will relate is as follows:

•Digital Technology

•Creativity

•Research and planning

•Post-production

•Using conventions from real media texts

•Question 1(b) requires candidates to select one

production and evaluate it in relation to a media

concept. The list of concepts to which questions

will relate is as follows:

•Genre

•Narrative

•Representation

•Audience

•Media language

Section B: Contemporary Media Issues

•You will be investigating

•Media and Collective identity

Media and Collective Identity

–How do the contemporary media represent: nations, regions and ethnic / social / collective groups

of people in different ways?

–How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods?

–What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?

–To what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’? 

Candidates may analyse the representation of and / or the collective identity of one or more

group(s) of people.

•National cinema, television representations, magazines and… gender, representations of youth and

youth culture, post-9/11 representations of Islam, absence / presence of people with disability in

two media.