The portrayal of violence and muslims in the media at Piaras Kelly PR

The portrayal of violence and muslims in the media

Published August 15th, 2006 in General

I’ve found the recent conflict in Lebanon and terrorist threat in the UK interesting mainly due to the media coverage, specifically for its portrayal of violence and muslims. I’ll talk about each point separately because one concentrates on Irish media and the other about International media.

With regards to the media’s portrayal of violence from the conflict, the Irish public appears to have double standards when it comes to its demands of decency among the Irish media. We recently had a press photographer give a presentation to us at work and during the Q&A session, one of the girls in her office criticised Irish papers for using such emotional pictures. Interestingly though, the photographer pointed out that the Irish press suffered a huge backlash from the public when images of a victim of a gangland killing were published. It seems the public can endure violent images from abroad, but not from their own back yard. Is it due to a disconnect because they feel these images come from another corner of the globe?

I’m also becoming increasingly worried about how muslims are portrayed in the media. For example, the other night Sky News had a British muslim who had extremist links to discuss the recent terror scare. A frustrated muslim called in to criticise the anchorman for his line of questioning which she thought was backing his guest into a corner. The media seems intent on dividing muslims into two groups - do you support terrorism or not? You could appreciate the Sky News listener’s frustration. Imagine Irish people being asked on every media interview they appeared on whether they enjoyed a pint or not? There is a demeaning aspect to it and helps reinforce stereotypes.

I’ve often struggled to understand why Irish charities have pushed for people in developing countries’ rights to be respected in their portrayal in the media. For the same reasons I think we need to pay more respect to the victims of conflicts like that of Lebanon if we’re not prepared to accept similar images from our own country. Furthermore, muslims need to be cast in a better light, rather than simply acting as spokespeople when there’s another terrorist threat. It’s gotten to the stage where Islamaphobia is a legitimate word in the diary.

Technorati Tags: Journalism, Media, Piaras Kelly

3 Responses to “The portrayal of violence and muslims in the media”

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1 Richard Aug 15th, 2006 at 9:38 am

“do you support terrorism or not?” - well when you having an American president saying that ‘you’re either with us or with the terrorists’ (I paraphrase) what can you expect?

The world is increasingly being painted in black and white tones by those in power. This type of outlook unfortunately seems to be self-fulfilling as more and more people are becoming marginalised.
2 ainelivia Aug 15th, 2006 at 9:43 am

Absolutely agree with Richard’s comment. I recall when the standard media reporting of Northern Ireland usually identified the interviewee with a particular religion; and the standard question was, “do you condemn the terrorists?”
3 fmk Aug 15th, 2006 at 12:50 pm

in terms of portrayal of victims, this is obviously not just an irish issue, but one which affects all media. i know the guardian regularly wrings its hands over the use of pictures of dead foreigners on its front page, when it is afraid to show pictures of dead brits / americans in the same place. various submissions to the bci (for their code of programme standards) have drawn attention to the fact that we are too often fed images from overseas which would be deemed insensitive if they came from this country. what’s to be done about it? legislate? or simply turn off the media that is causing the offence?

as for the portrayal of muslims - my younger brother moved to egypt and converted to islam several years ago and i have to confess, there does seem to be an awful lot of ignorance in the west about what it means to be a muslim. the irish analogy is actually apt, which is why witnessing irish media mis-respresenting muslims seems doubly offensive.

as for sky et al - you do have to consider a wider issue, which is how they portray any debate, not just the muslim issue. everything is about soundbytes and guests are all too often selected for the fact that the they can be counted on to say something controversial.