Synopses & Reviews
Set in both British and international contexts, this text is designed as a comprehensive and critical textbook which clearly establishes the links between context, content, production and audiences. Looking closely at a wide range of journalistic genres the authors examine the influence of Muslims in the processes of news production, and the ways in which audiences, both Muslim and non-Muslim, consume this media. The book brings together different perspectives to provide insights into the representation--and misrepresentation--of Islam and Muslims today.
Review
"Timely and comprehensive, this book covers all aspects of representation of Muslims in contemporary Western media. Impressively, it also attempts to answer fundamental questions about a multicultural Europe. In order to understand the nature of coverage in an era of interactive media one must scrutinise not only media content, but also its creators and consumers." --Daphna Baram, author of
Disenchantment: the Guardian and Israel"Provides a much-needed, authoritative and wide-ranging set of interventions both documenting and challenging the democratic deficits, as well as analyzing new democratizing possibilities, that characterize today's news media." -- Simon Cottle, University of Melbourne
Synopsis
Muslims have featured in many of the more significant news stories of the past few years - yet shockingly very few of these stories have been about anything other than the 'war on terror'. This urgently relevant book examines the role and representations of Muslims in the news media, particularly within a climate of threat, fear and misunderstanding. Written by both academic authorities and media practitioners, Muslims and the News Media is designed as a comprehensive and critical textbook and is set in both the British and international context. Bringing together a range of insightful perspectives on the subject into a coherent whole, the book clearly establishes the links between context, content, production and audiences, thus reflecting the entire cycle of the communication process. It reveals both the ways in which meaning is produced and reproduced in the news media, and the ways in which audiences themselves, both Muslim and non-Muslim, use or consume this media. Significant too and discussed here is the role of Muslims themselves in the processes of news production.
Clarifying the circumstances and politics surrounding the representation of Muslims across a range of journalistic genres, Muslims and the News Media provides crucial insights into the representation - and misrepresentation - of Islam and Muslims today.
About the Author
Elizabeth Poole is Lecturer in Media Studies at Staffordshire University and author of
Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims (I.B.Tauris).
John E. Richardson is Lecturer in Journalism at Sheffield University and author of
(Mis)Representing Islam: the Racism and Rhetoric of the British Press. Table of Contents
Introduction--Poole & Richardson * Part 1 Context, Politics and Production * New Labour, Multiculturalism and the Media in Britain--Siobhan Holohan * Anti-Arab Prejudice in the UK: the BBC Response--Fred Halliday * Racial Profiling and the War on Terror-Liz Fekete * Propaganda and the 'Terror Threat' in the UK--David Miller * Still no Redress from the PPC--Julian Petley * Mixed Communities: Mixed Newsroom--Peter Cole * Islamic Features in British and French Muslim Media--Isabelle Rigoni * Part 2 Media Output * The Effects of September 11th and the War in Iraq on British Newspaper Coverage--Elizabeth Poole * Who Gets to Speak? A Study of Sources in the Broadsheet Press--John E Richardson * American Media Coverage of Muslims: The Historical Roots of Contemporary Portrayals--Karim H. Karim * Australians Imagining Islam--Peter Manning * Joined Forces: The IDF and the Israeli Press Reporting of the Intifada--Alina Korn * Towards an Islamic Information Revolution?--Gary Bunt * Part 3 Audience Practices * The Media Consumption of Young British Muslims--Sameera Ahmed * Arab Public Opinion in the Age of Satellite Television: The Case of Al Jazeera--Mohamed Zayani * Framing the Other: Worldview, Rhetoric and Media Dissonance Since 9/11--Lawrence Pintak * Bad News and Public Debate about the Israel-Palestine Conflict--Greg Philo and Mike Berry