Facts about Islam

• As of 2010, Christianity is the largest religion, followed by Islam
• 1.6 Billion Muslims
• Fastest growing major religion
• Around 2.7 million in the UK
• Belief in Allah as the only god
• Belief in angels
• Belief in the Holy Book
• Belief in prophets
• Can apply Todrov's equilibrium theory to the events of 9/11
• Dr Dr Chris Allen 24th October 2012
• 4% of the British public claim that they know 'nothing or next to nothing about Islam’
• 64% of the British public claim that what they do know is ‘acquired through the media
• Research from 2006 suggests that the press coverage relating to Muslims and Islam in British National newspapers had increased by approximately 270% over preceding decade
• 91% of that coverage was deemed negative
• 84% of press coverage represented Islam and Muslims either as ‘likely to cause damage or danger’ or as ‘operating in a time of intense difficulty or danger’

Collective Identity - Islam

Cohen 

-Folk Devils

-Scapegoat

-Moral Panic Code

-Stereotypes

Stuart Hall

Encoding - What's the intended message

Decoding - What the message was taken as by the public

Runnymede Trust’s newly established Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia (Head 2014).

•The report identified eight patterns of behaviour that characterise Islamophobic attitudes:

•“Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.”

•“It is seen as a separate ‘other’. It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.

• “It is seen as inferior to the west. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive, and sexist.”

•“It is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supporting of terrorism, and engaged in a clash of civilisations.”

•“It is seen as a political ideology, used for political or military advantage.”

•“Criticisms made of ‘the west’ by Muslims are rejected out of hand.”

•“Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society.”

• “Anti- Muslim hostility is seen as natural and normal”.

Hypodermic Needle Theory - When a passive audience is injected with media that directly influences their norms and values

This is an example of representing muslim women as having freedom of expression, having chosen to 

practice islam and wear a headscarf, which varies to the usual media portrayal of women in islam being oppressed 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34967994

Do 20% of British Muslims sympathise with Jahidis?

I think that this statistic has been completely twisted to show an anti muslim sentiment. The question that was actually asked was whether muslims had sympathy with young muslims who leave the UK to fight in Syria. While the article mentions Jihadis, the question doesn't specify who the young people were fighting for, as it is not mentioned that they are joining an Islamic state group, many in the poll would assume that they mean going to join resistance fighters fighting against them. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that 20 of Muslims sympathise with Jahidis, as the majority of the people in the poll would have taken the question as whether they sympathise for Muslims fighting against ISIS.

Charlie Hebdo

After Syrian child Aylan Kurdi was found drowned on a Greek Island, Satirical weekly cartoon Charlie Hebdo produced this cartoon, which reads Welcome to the migrants, so close to the goal...promotional offer: kids menu 2 for the price of 1" The cartoon was received poorly, with many claiming it to be offensive and insensitive. While the cartoon was intended to be satirical, it was criticised as many believed that either it was manipulative to use the image of the drowned child in satire, or that it is beyond satire and is simply is making fun of a very serious and terrible event.

http://harvardpolitics.com/world/portrayals-violence-abroad-dehumanization-home/

This news story is an example of how mediation is used in the media regarding the representation on Muslims.

Mediation, collective indentity, representation and Hegemony essay

Create an essay.

Highlight what collective identity is

And distinguish between “collective identity and  representation.

Why is mediation important with regards to representation.

In what way does hegemony influence mediation

In media, there are many concepts which are available to use in critical debates in context with current events in the media. For example, mediation, which is how we select, shape and create meaning from an event. This varies from Representation, which is the way something, for example a group of people, or an event, is depicted in mass media. Relating to this is collective identity, which is an individual's sense of belonging to a group. Something which can relate to all of these is hegemony, which is dominance or leadership by one state or social group over another.

Collective Identity is something that can be linked strongly to representation in media. Collective Identity can be used to describe a personal sense of identity that is achieved from being part of a wider group. An example of collective identity would be youth subcultures, for example mods and rockers during the 1960s. Members of these subcultures could be described as having a sense of collective identity, in that your identity involves belonging to a group that share traditions, interests and values. This example can link to representation in the media, as these groups were heavily demonised in the media, portrayed as hooligans and as being wild. However, the wildness could also be considered part of their collective identity; they all share the characteristic of having a wild lifestyle.

Mediation is almost always used in representation, as the leaders of the mass media prefer to shape an event as what they perceive it as so that they can show this representation of an event to the public, which will lead them to believe it is a true representation. It is important to a lot of leaders of the mass media as they usually shape a news story to present their own view on it, or the view of either left or right wing politics, depending on the publication. Hegemony is often a large part in how media is mediated due to this. For example, there have been some very negative attitudes to Islam in the West following several terrorist attacks in Europe. It could be said that this has created a general hegemony of Right Wing news owners over the muslim community, which is showed through many anti muslim publications through newspapers such as The Sun.

 

Critical perspectives in Media

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

Section A: Theoretical evaluation of production.
•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
•One question to be answered from a choice of six topic areas offered by OCR.
–There will be two questions from each topic area. 

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. 

Collective Identity

This Image represents youth in the 1960s. The image shows people riding scooters, alongside two men on a motorbike, which represents the mods and rockers subcultures that many young people joined into during the time period.

In regards to the 2011 London riots, the right wing media has presented youth as out of control. They have been represented as starting riots, vandalising things and looting.

Why is mediation important with regards to representation?

In what way does hegemony influence mediation?

•        Edward Said explained that at the start of European colonization the Europeans came in contact with the lesser developed countries of the East. They found their civilization and culture very interesting and established the science of orientalism (the study of the orientals/people from these exotic civilisation).
• 
  
• Said argues Europeans divided the world into two parts; the East (Orient)and the west (Occident) or the civilized and the uncivilised - an artificial boundary

• The Europeans used orientalism to define themselves. Some particular attributes were associated with the Orientals.  Europeans defined themselves as the superior race compared to the orientals; and they justified their colonization by this concept. They said that it was their duty towards the world to civilize the uncivilised world

Glossary

Hegemony - dominance or leadership usually by one state or social group over others

Collective identity: the individuals sense of belonging to a group who share a set of traditions and values, (part of personal identity).

Representation means the way ideas , objects , people, groups  and life forms are depicted by the mass media.

Mediation - the process of selecting, shaping and creating meaning from an original event