How does Western Media Promote Islamophobia

The media has come out to be a very powerful tool that is used to spread propaganda and other pieces of information that may have both positive and negative effects on the lives of those who receive them. There are several factors that support contribute the western media spreading and causing islamophobia. One such reason is the attitude people have towards a group Muslims in the western countries. Most western countries have a higher non-Muslim population and so the media finds it easy to target the muslim community and portray them in a negative light to the public which ends up causing a lot of fear and misunderstanding. This is the main reason as to why there are alot of trust issues between people of the western world and certain groups of muslims especially the ones who take part in criminal activities.

This is because of the manner in which they carry out themselves, this is a group of people that prefer taking responsibilities for crimes even when they are not even responsible for them. The fact that they like being identified with criminal activities further fuels Islamophobia. One thing that people should not forget is the role of the media which is to inform. At the same time, the media is known to take advantage of every opportunity they get to create commotion and get people talking. They find it easy to make their headlines trending when they report issues that cause Islamophobia because they are already well aware of the manner in which some Muslims are vowed in their countries. Their wars are said to be holy when in reality, some are people who like to practice violence.

Reports have shown that there was a Muslim hand in the attacks which occurred on the 11th of September 2001 in the United States of America (Halliday, 2015). When these reports came out, Islamophobia was further fueled by the media. The population of the western world took this very seriously and further believed that Muslims are capable of doing anything. This was generalized when in real sense, most Muslims are very peaceful people. Even though they are viewed in a certain way, they are human being who deserve protection just like everyone else and this they should be granted. Another problem with this is that the media simply generalizes everything and blames it on all the Muslims. This does not work well because it is an attack even on innocent people.

The media does not stop portraying Muslims in a negative way in newspapers and televisions. This has taken another turn to an extent that some Muslims are portrayed as violent people even in documentaries such as “We Need to Talk About Islam”. In conclusion, the media causes Islamophobia and it is through them that this is spreading in the western countries. However, there is a lot that can be done to stop this. The media is known to be the tool with which people get information. Such information travels far and wide ta the click of a button. There is a lot that can be done to reconstruct this view the western media has towards soem of the Muslim population (Organ, Willmott, Pennington & Bashir, 2014).