This article proposes an argument settling puzzling reality concerning the representation of Arab/Muslim Americans during the past decade. On the one hand, the number of hate crimes, negative portrayals, racist political rhetoric and discrimination against Muslims and Arabs have risen exponentially. On the other hand, many media outlets including T.V. networks, movies production companies and newspapers attempted to portray Muslims as victims and patriotic. The article argues that such amicable representations of Muslims/Arabs are “strategies used by television producers, writers, and directors to give the impression that the representations they are producing are complex, yet they do so in a simplified way. These predictable strategies can
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drama shows, Alsultaney suggested that many writers and producers presented Arabs and Muslims as friendly to America by being patriotic, government agents or victims of racism. Here detailed observation of a dozen drama shows yielded a clear representation of Muslims as FBI agents, Homeland Security Aids or good citizens who cooperate with the government against terrorist targets.
Despite the positive representations of Arabs/Muslims that influence publics’ perceptions of them. Those positive frames are woven in a larger discriminatory framework. The episodes analyzed in the study pointed to the reality that inevitably one or few exceptions, cases of Arabs/Muslims, would be innocent, victims or government assisting agents. The larger proportion is a non-cooperative one, which deserves governmental attention leading to large scale discriminatory acts such as those recorded after the passage of the PATRIOT Act (Alsultaney, 2013. P.165).
In addition to drama shows, Alsultaney analyzed newspapers’ representations of Arabs/Muslims following September 11th, 2001. Oftentimes, she found that journalists and reporters focus on negative characteristics levelled against Islam and Muslims by academics or the general public. Most newspaper stories focused on women oppression, backwardness and barbarism of Muslims, especially in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Muslim/Arab …show more content…
While her narrative seems to be accurate, the positive portrayals of Muslims in media may not necessarily be used by the government or media as a cover for bigger ideological biases. Such portrayals may be genuine countering the negative perceptions among politicians, as well as media outlets. Therefore, the argument provided by the author is based on her expert knowledge of the population under study, which could simply be a mere conjecture. Third, the author committed a classic research design mistake, selecting on the dependent variable. Her variable of interest was Muslims/Arabs representations in American media. She only considered positive portrayals while not reporting the great number of negative portraits in drama shows, movies or newspapers. Therefore, her selective criteria of reporting the positive simplified representations added credibility to her argument, yet provided an incomplete description of the dependent variable, the representations of Muslims/Arabs living in America.
drama shows, Alsultaney suggested that many writers and producers presented Arabs and Muslims as friendly to America by being patriotic, government agents or victims of racism. Here detailed observation of a dozen drama shows yielded a clear representation of Muslims as FBI agents, Homeland Security Aids or good citizens who cooperate with the government against terrorist targets.
Despite the positive representations of Arabs/Muslims that influence publics’ perceptions of them. Those positive frames are woven in a larger discriminatory framework. The episodes analyzed in the study pointed to the reality that inevitably one or few exceptions, cases of Arabs/Muslims, would be innocent, victims or government assisting agents. The larger proportion is a non-cooperative one, which deserves governmental attention leading to large scale discriminatory acts such as those recorded after the passage of the PATRIOT Act (Alsultaney, 2013. P.165).
In addition to drama shows, Alsultaney analyzed newspapers’ representations of Arabs/Muslims following September 11th, 2001. Oftentimes, she found that journalists and reporters focus on negative characteristics levelled against Islam and Muslims by academics or the general public. Most newspaper stories focused on women oppression, backwardness and barbarism of Muslims, especially in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Muslim/Arab …show more content…
While her narrative seems to be accurate, the positive portrayals of Muslims in media may not necessarily be used by the government or media as a cover for bigger ideological biases. Such portrayals may be genuine countering the negative perceptions among politicians, as well as media outlets. Therefore, the argument provided by the author is based on her expert knowledge of the population under study, which could simply be a mere conjecture. Third, the author committed a classic research design mistake, selecting on the dependent variable. Her variable of interest was Muslims/Arabs representations in American media. She only considered positive portrayals while not reporting the great number of negative portraits in drama shows, movies or newspapers. Therefore, her selective criteria of reporting the positive simplified representations added credibility to her argument, yet provided an incomplete description of the dependent variable, the representations of Muslims/Arabs living in America.