Islamophobia in the American news media

Introduction
Media, the sister of democracy, was born as the voice of public opinion.
According to Murata (2007), “the press is prioritizing the readers’ interest” and the samecan be said for news programs on television: they have no way to survive but to feed off
the interests of their audiences. In recent years, however, the media has noticeablygrown into an independent entity of its own. Its relationship with the public has been
reversed; now, the voice of the media has the ability to become the opinion of the public.
While the degree of influence the media exerts over the public is hard to measure, “it isindisputable that the mass media plays a major role in the communication andtransmission of social values” (Lippi-green, 1997). There is no doubt that media isresponsible for shaping many of the norms prevalent in today’s society. And
Islamophobia is certainly a prime example.
Islamophobia—irrational fear against the Islamic religion—involves prejudice
toward Muslims, and have led to hate attacks across the world. United States especiallyhas seen a nationwide spread of the term in the wake of 9.11. Even a decade later, thenotion still persists. There are various factors behind the prevalence of Islamophobia;

1but when one considers the significant rise after the attacks in the attention paid to theIslamic world on newspapers, televisions, and Internet alike, one can assume that themedia plays a large role in propagating Islamophobia within the country.
First, let me set the framework in which various studies have been conducted inrelation to the construction of prejudice and perception of media.

Literature review: racial, cultural, and news discourse
In this section, I examine three frameworks of social-psychological research:
racial discourse, cultural discourse, and news discourse. Some racial discourse studies
do not directly approach racism itself, but rather aim to reveal its presence by focusing
on the methods used to conceal and deny racism. For example, a research conducted byAugoustinos and Every (2007) has shown that the recent increase in social awarenesstoward overtly racist sentiments has led to the development of speech patterns thatenables the speaker to convey negative views without being accused of racism. The
strategic measures taken by the speakers emphasize their awareness toward racism.
There also have been studies that illustrate a close relation shared between
racial discourse and cultural discourse. Durheim and Dixon (2000) note how “whiteSouth Africans use cultural discourse to justify racial segregation”. They dub this2

“cultural racism”, a concept which captures racism as a natural and inevitablephenomenon by writing off racial differences as cultural differences. These studies
indicate that people have adopted a more discreet approach to negative talk about otherraces and ethnicities; by employing such tactics, speakers are able to conceal the natureof their talk, allowing them to avoid being openly racist while simultaneously projecting
negative messages.
News discourse, which is an extensive collection of studies addressing thecauses, effects, and structure of news report, overlaps in many ways with topics andissues associated with racial and cultural discourse. An example of this is Murata (2007),
who focused on the connection between news context and “cultural assumptions andvalues” found within the audience.
The three discourses—racial, news, and cultural—are key players in the critical
discourse analysis, “a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies theway social power abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted
by text and talk in the social and political concept” (Dijk, 1998). Critical discourse
analysis, which can be useful in the exposure of “the ‘taken-for-grantedness’ ofideological messages” (Dellinger, 1995), allows for an in-depth examination into theimpact the media has on the public.

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In the next section, I introduce the data and methods I used to examine thespecific forms of propagation within Muslim-related news reports.

Data & Method
The media I examine in this paper is limited to mass media in the form oftelevision. I based my study on talk shows, specifically at political commentaries onnews channels, which gives the commentator more leeway to express his or her views
and a more direct approach to the public audience compared to daily news reports. I
focused on The O’Reilly Factor from Fox News, a talk show that addresses
controversial political and social issues. The host, Bill O’Reilly, is a politicalcommentator known for his conservative views. I collected the data accessing the online
video archive of The O’Reilly Factor on FOXNews.com, and typing in the search word
“Muslims”. For my analysis, I focused on two videos, both discussing current
controversial news event related to Muslims in America. I will give a brief summary ofeach.
The first one is titled “Is Media sympathizing with NY Bomb?” The video isbased on the case of Fasial Shahzad, an American of Pakistan origin who was accusedof planting a car bomb in Times Square. The news attracted much attention due to the4fact that the bomber was an American citizen with an MBA degree, a secure job and afamily. In his show, O’Reilly mainly focuses on the homegrown aspect of terrorism andfeatures two guests to provide their outlook on this incident.
The second video, titled “Gruesome Epidemic?”, is based on the murder in
Buffalo, New York by a Muslim man named Mo Hassan, who has been accused ofbeheading his wife after she filed for divorce. O’Reilly introduces the man’sachievements in the United States, which include the founding of a cable TV station that
promoted understanding of Muslims. As a guest, the show featured Dawn Perlmutter,
introduced as a ritual murder expert. Together, she and O’Reilly focused on the role ofbeheading in the Islamic religion, the significance of the messages the act carries forMuslims, and the tolerance toward beheadings in the Muslim world. While the firstvideo was mainly composed of studio shots of O’Reilly and the commentators, and still
pictures of Fasial Shahzad, the second video featured images of jihadists pressing knife
into a hostage’s throat, along with other similar beheading gestures.
I analyzed the data from two standpoints: context and deliverance. For context,I focused on the words used by the commentator and searched for patterns: thefrequency at which certain words were used, and appearance of keywords strongly
associated with Islamophobia. For deliverance, I looked at the overall structure of the5

show, on the conversing style between the commentator and the guests, and the use ofvisual aids. The next section will explain the findings based on this procedure ofanalysis.

Findings
The analysis of the video revealed three methods used by O’Reilly in which thefindings can be categorized.

Stereotyping
Stereotyping is a common method associated with racism and prejudice, andO’Reilly attempts this through keyword and generalization. In the first video, O’Reilly
is seen repetitively using the words “Islamic jihadists” and “terrorists”. Although thewords terrorism and terrorists are general terms with broad meaning, ever since 9.11
they have come to be associated strongly with Muslims. Other words that appearcontinuously are “kill” and “thousands”, both of which appeared throughout his speech
in sentences referring to Muslims. “Thousands” was repeated in succession, especiallywhen expressing the number of “terrorists” wanting to “kill”. Such repeated usage ofnegative words in describing controversial news events reinforces the Muslim

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stereotype even further.
O’Reilly also uses generalization to perpetuate stereotypes of Muslims. Bothvideos carry this distinctive structure: the show begins with a focus on the shocking
attempt at bombing or beheading carried out by individuals who happen to be Muslim,
and gradually expands the discussion to include Muslims in general. As a result,
negative images and emotions formed toward the specific event are transferred alongwith the discussion. By applying the actions of an individual to the majority, O’Reilly
oversimplifies the image of Muslims—leading to the assumption that the negativity
applies to all of the Islamic population
In the case of Islamophobia, such ways of stereotyping are exacerbated by thelack of actual knowledge amongst the audience. According to a poll by Gallup (2009),“a majority of Americans (63%) say they have either ‘very little knowledge’ (40%) or‘none at all’ (23%) of Islam. Thirty-four percent of Americans say they have ‘someknowledge’ and 3% report having ‘a great deal of knowledge’ about Islam.”Despite—or perhaps because of—this lack of knowledge and familiarity, “Americans
are more than twice as likely to express negative feelings toward Muslims as they are
toward Buddhists, Christians, and Jews”. Survey results show that people have nearly as
little knowledge about Buddhism as they do about Islam, yet the negative views elicited

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toward Buddhists are much lower than that of Muslims. These facts indicate that thestereotypes encouraged by the media have stepped in to fill the gap left by audience’s
limited knowledge.

Us and Them
O’Reilly’s speech patterns indicate the construction of a world in which there isa clear distinction between “Us” and “Them”. In the second video, O’Reilly shrewdly
constructs the structure of “us” the Americans and “them” the Muslims through thetopic of beheading. The calm explanation by the guest on the significance of beheadingin the Muslim community is followed by an emotional, shocked response of incredulity
by O’Reilly—a conversing style that is repeated several times. The message here isclear: ‘They’ the Muslims are irrational, barbarous, and crazy because not only do they
accept and tolerate beheading, they consider it honorary. ‘We’ the Americans on theother hand, are compassionate and humane because we do not do these things. Hence,Muslims are dangerous, the reasoning goes.
This method of “positive self-representations…typically accompanied bynegative other presentations” is also identified by Augoustinos and Every (2007) in theirstudy of racism toward other ethnicities. The dichotomization of “us” and “them” works

8exceptionally well in promoting Islamophobia: by enunciating the differences between“our” civilized way of life and “our” reasonable way of thinking, and “their” savage
way of life and “their” unbalanced way thinking, the American audience falsely assume
that they are given an excuse to reject, fear, or dehumanize the Muslims.
In the book The Psychology of War, LeShan (2002) states a dualistic perceptionof reality as one of the common psychological states people enter during a war. Hedescribes this state as one in which “‘we’ and ‘they’ are qualitatively different, sodifferent that the same actions are ‘good’ when we do them, and ‘evil’ when the enemy
does them.” This mythic reality, in which the world is divided into good and evil, isstrikingly similar to the framework O’Reilly creates within his show. There have been
Americans who have tried to bomb buildings; Americans husbands that have murdered
their wives. Yet when these two are done by Muslims, O’Reilly implies, they take on acompletely different meaning altogether—one that is far more evil and unforgivable.
The assertion of mythic reality is even more effective against the backdrop ofan actual war; the existence of the “War on Terror” raging in Iraq and Afghanistan has
made the “Us” and “Them” perspective much more credible and acceptable, further
fueling the fire of Islamophobia.

9Appeal to Fear
Humans respond strongly to fear. This emotion is activated when we feelthreatened, and often we sense such threats on a subconscious level. The context and thedeliverance of the two talk shows reveal that O’Reilly takes great advantage of thishuman nature in promoting Islamophobia.
The first example is the choice of words by O’Reilly. He uses the word “kill”
and “terrorists”, strong words that stir ripples of anxiety in the listener’s mind. He also
repeats certain words for a stronger effect, by saying how “thousands and thousands andthousands of terrorists wanting to kill us”. The threatening implications behind thesentence, and the sense of urgency these words convey, are clearly intended to inducefear.
O’Reilly also exploits certain phrases to evoke negative images of Muslims.
“Islamic jihadists” and “preaching hatred” appear several times in both videos.
Although these phrases are commonly used to depict Muslims, the individual words
used in these phrases usually have no negative connotations of Islam on their own. Yetby cleverly combining them together, O’Reilly presents the words in ways that rob thewords of their neutrality and instead instill in them a tone of threat and danger.
“Madrasahs” is another word that bears strong, negative connotations of Islam.

10It is often falsely associated with the education of future radical Muslims and potential
terrorist, but—as with the case of many other words—the word itself simply means
educational institution, both secular and religious. But because of the misleading reportsof this term, when, for example in newspapers, “articles mentioned ‘madrassas,’ readers
were led to infer that all schools so-named are anti-American, anti-Western, pro-terrorist
centers having less to do with teaching basic literacy and more to do with politicalindoctrination” (Moeller, 2007). O’Reilly exploits these already establishedmisinterpretations in order to generate in his audience a sense of danger.
The second video strategically employs visuals, which possess an even greater
efficacy in evoking fear than words. O’Reilly’s commentaries are accompanied byimages of jihadists holding hostages and pressing a knife to their throat. The notion ofbeheading is enough to cause fear and disgust; the video reinforces those emotions evenfurther by featuring foreign hostages, blindfolded and at the mercy of the jihadists. But
it is important to note that the majority of the victims of honor beheadings are Muslims,
not foreigners—a fact O’Reilly himself clarifies with the expert. The images, then, areactually irrelevant and misleading, since they seem to imply that the main targeting ofbeheading are non-Islamic people. Despite this, they have been heavily incorporated
into the show because they are more likely to incite fear amongst the audience.

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Conclusion
In this essay, I have examined the specific ways O’Reilly promotes
Islamophobia in his talk show. I identified three methods—stereotyping, construction of“Us” and “Them”, and appeal to fear—by which O’Reilly promulgates negative views
on Muslims and the Islamic faith.
Repetition of words such as “kill” and “terrorists”, and generalization of thebeheading by a single individual reinforces the negative stereotype of Muslims based on
fragmented knowledge of the audience. Depicting the Islamic tolerance towardbeheading as a mark of savagery and inhumanity create a mythic reality in which there
is a significant difference between “us” the Americans and “them” the Muslims.
Keywords with strong negative connotations and misleading visual aid are used to
provoke a false sense of alarm and fear.
The extent of influence such methods have over the public opinion can be
speculated on the internet: in the comments section on www.youtube.com to the videoof the second show, ‘Gruesome Epidemic?’, there is onslaught of violent and hatefulwords toward the Islam religion and Muslims.
This thesis based on the detailed analysis of two talk shows by the conservative
political commentator Bill O’Reilly has revealed deliberate and implicit attempts to12

promote prejudice against Muslims and perpetuate Islamophobia amongst its audience.

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