Research Paper (Media Representations)

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EDUCATIONAL STUDIES, 46: 3–24, 2010 Copyright C© American Educational Studies Association ISSN: 0013-1946 print / 1532-6993 online DOI: 10.1080/00131940903480217

ARTICLES

Images of Islam in US Media and their Educational Implications

Liz Jackson

Northwest Province Department of Education, Republic of South Africa

Educators teaching about social difference and about minorities in society face a variety of challenges in effectively teaching students accurate and balanced un- derstandings of different groups in society, including, particularly, the competing influence of the mass media on young people’s minds. Whether one views rep- resentations in contemporary US media as directly educational to youth, or as more reflective of common beliefs and attitudes deemed acceptable or normal in mainstream society, it remains clear that controversial minorities are vulnerable to stereotyping in this domain that has at least an indirect influence on young people, and that must, therefore, be taken into account by multicultural educators as partly constitutive of students’ background knowledge/experience.

In this article, I illustrate this challenge for multicultural education by reference to some of the common themes that emerge in widely disseminated images of Islam and Muslims in US media since September 11, 2001 (9/11). Although many insightful accounts emphasize a systematic, structural, and/or comprehensive character to Muslim misrepresentation in Western/US media throughout the later half of the twentieth century (Hudson and Wolfe 1980; Kamalipour 1997; Karim 2002; Kincheloe and Steinberg 2004; Mousa 1984; Said 1979, 1997; Shaheen 2001), it is important to consider chiefly representations of this group since 9/11, given the likelihood that recent media accounts may be more

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Liz Jackson, Educational Policies Consultant, North- west Province Department of Education, Private Bag X1003, Swartruggens 2835, South Africa. E-mail: liz@lizjackson.org; ejackso4@illinois

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reflectively produced, for instance, given recent government statements disallow- ing hatefulness toward Islam and Muslim in US society (Bush 2001). Additionally, media changes so rapidly that old structures of film and news journalism that predominated at earlier periods in media history are no longer necessarily central to an objective view of contemporary media representations; thus I want to largely discard earlier findings regarding mainstream media coverage of Islam, focusing here instead on what is normal in media representations today, since 9/11, and its implications for education.

After elaborating on my understanding of the impact the media has on young people, I provide an overview of recent popular representations of Islam and Mus- lims, showing how this minority group is regularly and commonly portrayed in mainstream media in negative, stereotypical ways, especially since 9/11. Articu- lating this trend as a challenge to teachers aiming to provide students with more balanced, impartial understandings of Islam and Muslims, I go on to elaborate on the need for thematic, analytical, and critical media literacy in social studies classrooms that responds to the irresponsible, incidental education of mass media, discussing in relation some best teaching practices for managing resources to learn about Muslims and related topics in public schools today.

THE IMPACT OF MEDIA

There are two ways in which media (news media and popular culture and enter- tainment sources) are commonly viewed as educational. In the first sense, people learn what to think and how to behave from media sources, viewing information on the news as matter of fact, or the characters on a televised sitcom as models for normal behavior, for example. Many find this view most compelling when considering media’s impact on young children, whose understanding of the dis- tinction between reality and fantasy is not set in stone. For instance, Robert Schrag argued that children’s first stories teach them about the real world, as well as the criteria for assessing the narrative fidelity, or truthfulness, of later media accounts or messages, lacking “prior stories or authoritative instructions to the contrary” (Schrag and Javidi 2005, 214).

As an example, Schrag suggests that, lacking prior learning or experience with Middle Eastern culture, young children are bound to learn from Aladdin—a Walt Disney film marketed to young children that has sold tens of millions of copies—that Middle Eastern fruit sellers are commonly prone to violent rage upon discovering a single apple has been stolen from their cart (Schrag and Javidi 2005). A similar view of media as unduly and directly influential to children was used in defense of twelve-year-old Lionel Tate, who was tried in 1991 for killing a six-year-old girl by body slamming her as he commonly observed contestants in World Federation of Wrestling do on television (Cortés 2005, 69–70).

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Others argue that such views of the impact of the media are overly simplistic, however. Older children clearly recognize Aladdin as fiction, rather than reality, and can bear in mind alternative renderings of Middle Easterners as they watch the film. It is not that younger children identify the story as real, but that they lack the prerequisite ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy needed to make such an evaluation. It makes more sense, therefore, to view the educative impact of media as more indirect—as a framing or reflection of popular ideas, beliefs, and perceptions, rather than as directly instructional: as a source of ideas and attitudes, shaped by producers’ expectations about their target audience, that one can respond to with more or less criticality (Hall 1973; Morley 1980). As Carlos Cortés notes, “Media teaching does not guarantee media-derived learning, just as classroom teaching does not guarantee classroom learning” (2005, 58–59). He goes on,

Both critics and defenders of media often address the wrong proposition when debating the media’s behavioral role modeling. It is difficult, generally impossible, to prove that the media have actually caused something to happen (after all, millions may watch the same move or television show without imitating that behavior). Rather, the question should be tweaked in the following manner: If it were not for the media, would this have happened? . . . How likely is it that Lionel Tate would have dreamed up the particular body slams that killed Tiffany Eunick?

But consider some dimensions that are not framed as potential cause-and-effect provocation to action. Some critical theorists argue that media fostering of “nonchange”—or at least a reduction in the speed of change—may constitute the most important behavior-related aspect of the media. From this perspective, interra- cial buddy movies and desegregated TV news teams may actually retard the process of social change. Rather than role modeling integration, they may surreptitiously sug- gest that social change is occurring so rapidly and normally that additional special efforts are unnecessary.

Then there is the issue of disinhibiting effects. . . . Do movies that celebrate vigilan- tism contribute to societal violence by removing inhibitions to imitative behavior? Or do they reduce violence by providing viewers a catharsis for pent-up frustrations? Do films with teenage sex disinhibit such activity by making it appear normative and safe. . . . Or do they provide a vicarious substitute for the real thing? (Cortés 2005, 70)

As Cortés (2005) illustrates, the impact of media is not necessarily simple or straightforward, but can be, in many cases, understood as highly complex. Thus, there is second, more general, way that media can be viewed as educational: for what is says about us—its producers and audience. By examining norms and trends in popular or mainstream media, one can uncover what is valued or held as

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legitimate in mainstream society—what is regarded by media producers informed about mainstream norms as acceptable, and what is not.

For example, it is still common for movie stars to smoke cigarettes in realistic mainstream films, because, regardless of anti-smoking campaigns, smoking is not considered a taboo in mainstream society today. Libertarianism toward smoking still permeates the society sufficiently to make smoking by film stars tolerable and normal, if not also attractive and desirable, as long as they are not literally advertising cigarettes to minors. Some audience members respond critically to media messages implying that smoking is socially acceptable, while others are more favorable. Yet the commonality of smoking by protagonists in mainstream film, nonetheless, reveals that, according to mainstream producers’ information, smoking is not considered to be beyond the bounds of social norms; it is regarded normally as an expected, largely acceptable, behavior that need not require a critical response or prohibition on the big screen (McCarthy 1998).

Here, I understand media’s impact on young people primarily in this second sense, as a reflection of mainstream cultural/social norms, as I examine contempo- rary trends in representing Muslims for their educational implications. I argue that the commonality of stereotypical representations associating Muslims with terror- ism in mainstream media reveals widespread belief among the producers of media messages that the association, or connection, is normal, reasonable, and/or accept- able, which is then implied to, and learned by, young people, rather than the view that, alternatively, the association is biased and stereotypical and harms Muslims, making them vulnerable to prejudice and discrimination in the public sphere.

Journalists or writers of fictional accounts may not intend to develop or sustain an association of Muslims with terrorism—indeed, they may intend to express the opposite, or criticality toward this connection, if they desire any in- fluence on long-term audience perception at all. Yet out of the sum of otherwise heterogeneous portraits and stories of Islam, nonetheless, emerges this common connection, which is “what a large cross-section and hegemonic part of [society] ‘already knows’“ (McCarthy 1998, 83). Mass media associates Islam and Mus- lims, by and large, with terrorism, portraying the religion and the group most frequently as unreasonable, fundamentalist, and/or prone to reactive violence.

Although some may dismiss this informal education, or critically respond to or reject it, teachers are responsible for helping their students learn about the world around them, and effective teaching about social difference depends upon teachers considering students’ knowledge and background experience in a subject matter in the course of their teaching. Critical teachers should, therefore, keep this popular, but harmful, disposition toward Islam and Muslims in mind as they try to enable students to develop more accurate and balanced understandings of the religion and the group, responding to media actively and critically in the course of their teaching.

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ISLAM IN CONTEMPORARY NEWS MEDIA AND POPULAR CULTURE

Common sorts of representations of Islam recently given in news media illustrate that the assumption that Muslims are, may be, or are like terrorists has remained ever present in well-known mainstream representations of this group since 9/11, even if this assumption is sometimes played with or framed critically. Although one can hardly say from this sample that people learn to see Muslims as terrorists from media, or that mainstream media messages are exclusively or intentionally negative toward Muslims, or anti-Islamic, the sample does demonstrate that it is popular to associate Muslims with terrorism, and is therefore implied as acceptable or legitimate by American mass media.

To best understand media representations of controversial minorities, it is im- portant to recognize the relationships between media and real-world events. In the case of contemporary media, the association of Muslims with terrorism or violence did not come strictly from a film writer or journalist’s imagination. Journalists could have hardly interpreted the terrorist attacks of 9/11, plotted by self-identified Islamic radicals, without reference to a group of Muslims that au- diences keenly wished to know more about (although many do question, however, the media’s repetitious framing of 9/11 in religion terms, when compared with their treatments of other attacks conducted by members of other religions; see Abukhattala 2004, 158; Karim 2002; McBrien 2005, 28). Thus, the media is not simply free to portray things however they would like, but depends upon audience interests (among other factors, not the least of which includes owners’ personal and political interests) in depicting facts and fictions.

In this section, I examine, first, 9/11 as a major media event influencing popular perception, not necessarily unduly, and related portrayals of Osama bin Laden, perhaps the most well known (and certainly the most visible) Muslim in the United States today, as well as the ultimate enemy of the state. I argue in the case of the proliferation of images and information about bin Laden that real-life terrorism contributes substantially to the commonality of associating Muslims with terrorism in the US mass media, but that it is, nonetheless, a highly imbalanced representa- tion of the group, focusing on the very narrowest margin of Muslim people and experiences, owing to the news’ focus on the exceptional over the ordinary. I then show how a similar theme emerges in political cartoons, particularly since the Dutch cartoon protests, where imagery portrays Muslims as exceptionally violent and antagonistic, rather than as ordinary or peaceful. These various representations largely present roughly the same negative stereotypical perspective on Muslims, I argue here, to the detriment of members of this religious group in society, lacking an education aiming to actively counteract potential miseducative effects of the media.

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Newsworthy Imagery Since September 11, 2001: Osama bin Laden

The mediation of the events of 9/11 brought real fear and a real villain, who happens to self-identify as Muslim—bin Laden—to ordinary US households. Journalists portrayed a world of great uncertainties that day, initially, knowing no more than most people did, as James Carey (2002) recalls: “While it was clear, following the second crash, that these were deliberate acts rather than a spectacular coincidence, no one was sure that the episodes in New York and Washington were not a prelude to an even wider attack on multiple sites across the country” (73). As those covering 9/11 were initially unable to comprehend what they were reporting on and showing to television, radio, and Internet audiences and lacked much official information for days after, the events of the day were represented as urgent, yet incomprehensible. As Michael Apple (2003) recalled, “I sat and watched—for hours. Interviews, screaming people running away, running toward. . . . Another plane—this one missing. What was its target? Then came the news that the pentagon was hit” (300). Journalists and audiences struggled together without official information to know exactly what was happening, and waited as resources were collected to make sense of the day’s events.

Within days, previously identified terrorist suspect bin Laden and the group of al-Qaeda were identified as leading suspects plotting the attack, and on September 20, then-President George W. Bush (2001) identified both as enemies of the United States, emphasizing incidentally in his speech that “the enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends,” but “traitors to their faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.” At this juncture, the media took on the task of informing the public about bin Laden, and other terrorist suspects and groups, but did not see the need to educate about the other, truer Muslims, as discussed by Bush—about the diversity of Muslims within and outside the United States. Quotations of bin Laden speaking out against the West and the United States before and after 9/11 were presented, sparingly—to some the publication and transcription of enemy statements was viewed as antithetical to state interests (Carey 2002; Bush 2005)—although other Muslim leaders’ statements and perspectives received even less attention and publicity, leading plausibly to large cross sections of the public claiming knowledge of Muslims teaching hatred and promoting violence, but lacking awareness of any Muslim leaders condemning terrorism (see Council on American–Islamic Relations [CAIR] 2006).

By far, the most frequently represented (self-identifying) Muslim, bin Laden has become a sort of icon representing Muslim terrorists who describe their actions by reference to their (mis)understanding of the dictates of Islam (Borradori 2003; Kellner 2004, 37). He has since been portrayed in negative ways, as a sinister villain, in alignment with the public understanding of him as a clear, embodied form of the threat apparent since 9/11 to US society or the nation-state. Although such a form of representation may be reasonable—it is certainly not in the interest

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FIGURE 1 Bin Laden, photograph 1.

of American media to glorify or empathize with bin Laden—as a consequence, the single most common representation of a Muslim (albeit one self-professed, and largely against the expressed interests of many other Muslims) has, since 9/11. been of a scary, shady character: an unlikable, intolerable enemy of society. Thus, although one might hope that the most common representation of Islam in American mass media is of an ordinary, good man, woman, or group of believers, instead it is of a dark, often even disembodied, presence, who is, in his own words, out to “get” Americans.

Consider Figures 1 and 2. In these images, bin Laden appears in thoughtful social or interpersonal engage-

ment, communicating with others or his photographer peacefully, or nonviolently: in the first image at a political event, and in the second, in apparent tranquility or serenity. Neither framing of bin Laden reflects that he is violent, or even perturbed. He appears as engaged meaningfully and productively with others in both images. His body is apparent in both, with his hand(s) and torso visible. The message these pictures convey is of a possibly ordinary Muslim man in nonviolent interaction with others. In neither picture does he have the expression emphasized in images of bin Laden in the US popular press since 9/11, such as in Figures 3 or 4.

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FIGURE 2 Bin Laden, photograph 2.

In stark contrast, these cover images from Time and the New York Times Maga- zine graphically portray a very different sense of the man. In them, all is obscured but his beard and head covering (which are divergent from American norms, them- selves reflecting his divergent culture and faith) and his facial features; his shoulder is even blurred from view in the photographic image (Figure 3). Unlike either of the first two, his eyes are looking slightly upward, as if he is watching somebody,

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FIGURE 3 Bin Laden Time cover image.

or the audience to the image, and the meaning or emotion of his expression is not immediately clear or relatable—is he grimacing or smiling? His expression is less clear, or relatable, than it is in the previous two images. In these cover images, he is also framed with words, expressing that he is a target and an enemy.

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FIGURE 4 Bin Laden New York Times image.

In contrast to the rest, Figure 4 is obviously a painting, rather than a photo- graph, commissioned for the New York Times by Brenda Zlamany. It is a shadowy impression of a man, emphasizing his iconic status as the ultimate enemy of the state. By making dramatic imagery of bin Laden the most common representation of a Muslim since 9/11, the media, nonetheless, provides for, and perpetuates, a visual association of Muslims with terrorism and fear. To put it another way, the most visible Muslim in America is an actual (that is, self-professed) menace to US

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society, a real-life villain, and his stature as such has led to a proliferation of im- agery connecting Islam and Muslims with terrorism in the mass media, rather than a series of pictures and stories connecting Islam Muslims with (less newsworthy) condemnations of terrorism, or acts of peaceful cross-religious collaboration, for instance.1

This major theme in the visual representation of Islam in mass media since 9/11 undoubtedly contributes to a public demonstrating high awareness of Mus- lims wishing it harm, and of radical elements unaligned with the majority of Muslims, over other points of view on Islam. The CAIR found that those who expressed intolerant attitudes and positions toward Islam and Muslims among the American public most commonly knew of this singular framing of Islam, as a radical religion inspiring violence and terrorism. That one-fifth of the popula- tion could be categorized thusly, while two-thirds claimed to have not heard of Muslim leaders condemning terrorism, is attributable, according to CAIR, to the mainstream media viewing acts of terror as “more newsworthy than statements condemning senseless violence” (2006, 11). Their polling also revealed that a vast majority of Americans cite their major source of information about Islam and Muslims as television. On television there can be little doubt that the most cited Muslim man is bin Laden, rather than any other more internally popular or more important religious leader.

To summarize, the most common graphic representation of Islam or of Muslims since 9/11 has been of a man identified as a terrorist, bin Laden. Other Muslims identified as state enemies, such as others identified as terrorists or sponsors of terrorism (in particular Saddam Hussein) surely also rank highly. Of course, the media should not be held as solely responsible for this representational imbalance; after 9/11, “Osama bin Laden” ranked the highest among subjects of Internet searches, revealing a widespread interest, or need to know, about Muslims in association with terrorism, that media appropriately aims to respond to, in part (Bird 2002, 149; Google 2001;).

Yet the result remains that a Muslim “bad guy” is fore-grounded in media over other Muslims and despite the diversity of Muslim experiences. And this trend can also be seen elsewhere in mass media accounts: As I show in the next section, imbalanced representations of Islam emerge in recent political cartoons, particularly since the recent Dutch cartoon protests, which further demonstrates the extent to which the visual association of Muslims with terrorism is commonplace, if not predominant, in news spaces, reflected as a normal view in mainstream media that need not be perpetuated, yet is—to the detriment of Muslims in our society and across the world.

Political Cartoons

As Maher Al-Hajji and Jack Nelson (1997) observed, “One of the strongest weapons a newspaper uses to forcefully state a point of view is its editorial

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FIGURE 5 Cartoon 1: Radical Islam.

cartoons” (394). As images rather than statements, political cartoons can express popular sentiments and perspectives without acquiescing to the demands of jour- nalistic objectivity that prevail in most of the rest of news pages. These sentiments can be conveyed without any reporting, providing particular sorts of perspectives in an otherwise possibly objective or neutral space, that may bare little relation to the real world. In this domain, Muslims as terrorists, or as violent, uncivi- lized people, are the most common sorts of Muslims portrayed today, as in the past (Al-Hajji and Nelson 1997; Palmer 1997). Consider the cartoons, shown in Figures 5, 6, and 7, published in major US newspapers years after 9/11, in relation to controversy surrounding a Dutch newspaper seeking cartoons portraying the Muslim prophet Muhammad, to the upset of many Muslims (and non-Muslims) who regard imagery of the Muhammad (or Allah) as a taboo in Islam.

While alluding to an important social debate regarding the rights of illustrators and cartoonists to free speech versus the interests of religious communities and Muslims, these political cartoons clearly echo the terroristic view of Muslims as vengeful and unreasonable, archaically flinging about swords to intimidate or kill more deliberative non-Muslims. No mass published political cartoons dealing with the debate portray any calm, apparently reasonable Muslims, questioning the newspaper’s interest or considering the potential harm involved in breaking

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FIGURE 6 Cartoon 2: Cartoon controversy.

FIGURE 7 Cartoon 3.

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FIGURE 8 Cartoon 4: “Islam.” The gun holder reads, “terrorist.”

their religious taboo; nor does one see any evidence of actual violence done to those peacefully protesting the newspaper’s actions (which included Muslims and non-Muslims; AFP 2008). Indeed, it is hard to find in the United States cartoons depicting the Muslim as anyone other than an antagonistic, violent (vengeful, armed, and bearded Arab) man—Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Clay Bennett’s “Islam” comes closer than most (see Figure 8).

Although aimed at criticality toward the dominant Islamic terrorist discourse, differentiating terrorists as mistaken or pretending Muslims set aside from other, nonterrorist Muslims, the cartoon, nonetheless, frames Islam and terrorism to- gether, and the other praying Muslims are not the focus of the cartoon. At most, the focus is on one Muslim merely watching a terroristic false Muslim in his midst. In summary, although these representations certainly bear some relation to truth and reality, they reflect an incredibly narrow minority of Muslim experiences and practices, focusing on the normalized, stereotypical conception of Muslims as terrorists. Reflecting popular beliefs and ideas, no African American Muslims are featured, for instance, nor are any women or reasonable or ordinary nonviolent Muslim. Overall, then, there is a close, commonplace associating of Islam and Muslims with terrorists in mainstream media images today, and a lacking of many popular representations of Muslims not aligned to the common stereotype.

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In summary, although the media does not appear to actively aim to vilify real- life Muslims, lacking any major representations of Muslims doing good things, or being ordinary members of society, emergent from their major presentations are predominantly sinister, scary, and threatening sorts of Muslims, representing only the narrowest margin of Muslim experience. Given such a common pattern in mainstream media representation, it is unsurprising that many Americans know little that is not negative about Islam and Muslims, but can easily identify them as threatening and as international terrorists. However, without a more balanced understanding of Muslims that incorporates marginal and more mainstream experi- ences of Muslims within the United States and abroad, US citizens are ill-equipped to navigate a diverse world and society of which Muslims are a significant part. As I draw out in the next section, educators must provide additional information to chal- lenge the picture of Islam provided by media, and a thematic, analytical, and critical media literacy should be a part of a critical multicultural social studies education.2

CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY EDUCATION

As stated previously, critical media literacy for dealing with representations of controversial groups such as Muslims should be thematic, analytical, and critical. Here I briefly outline what I mean by this, and discuss some examples of best teaching practices in effectively managing and using resources to elaborate the implications of this framework. Given the common consensus among educators that ideal resources for teaching about minorities and particularly Muslims are lacking in the formal curriculum and otherwise challenging to find and use in the classroom (Kaviani 2007), I highlight here that, in general, it is not necessary to have access to or knowledge of the best resources or information about a group, such as Muslims, to effectively teach an important, crucial lesson in understanding others in society: that the representations prevalent in the mass media constitute only one sort of understanding or framing of the subject, and that for an informed perspective one must consult various sources of evidence to develop a critically distant point of view.

Although an approach that analyzes the news as a particular form of media or a sort of production might be best in a class on citizenship education that incorpo- rates lessons involving critical media literacy, when teaching about controversial minorities in social studies coursework a thematic approach is best, which explores various representations of a particular subject: the minority group that is being explored in the formal curriculum, simultaneously. By examining the group as rep- resented in multiple forms of media—from film and television to the radio, music, and so on—student are best able to capture the broadest possible view of existing perceptions and perspectives on the group in question, and, therefore, best able to develop an informed, independent, critical view of the group for themselves. The

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key here is that teachers also allow for presentations of a variety of perspectives within resources. Multiple perspectives, both internal and external to the group, must be provided, to demonstrate to students how an autonomous perspective can be better developed through a thorough examination of sources of evidence, and is not simply provided to them by a text or newspaper article.

Hijab, or head-covering, is a very common contemporary issue related to Islam for students to consider using multiple perspectives, given that it is connected to negative associations of Islam with gender inequality and female oppression, and also constitutes a common cultural norm that is seen as different within a Western context, that many students are naturally ignorant, if not curious, about. Comparing it to other similar phenomena and considering alternative perspectives on it available in various media is one effective way to help students gain more balanced and less partial perspectives about it:

For her contemporary world problems class, [Hilda] used newspaper and magazine articles and surfed the Internet for news that “pushed the button.” She looked for current high profile controversial issues that had graphic images and made a de- liberate effort to include them in her lessons. She believed that images were really important in telling a story because students could “grasp easily” what was going on. Her students visited a photo bank of images on the Internet, showing Muslim women in various degrees of body covering and they compared those images to clothing for traditional Catholic women and explained how traditions influenced fashion and in turn, the Islamic fashion could be seen as a form of political statement. (Kaviani 2007, 116)

Hilda finds media that is both critical and positive toward hijab, from Muslim women and others, as well as images of religious dress more generally, to provide a wide variety of personal, political, and more large-scale and broad perspectives about this topic in the classroom. By using this method, Hilda helps her students realize that whether one views hijab as a marker of cultural distinction, as an expression of faith common to many belief systems, or as a symbol of female oppression depends on one’s frame of reference and what is included in one’s lens. Such an approach is clearly preferable to discussing any one of these perspectives on its own, for enabling students to recognize and learn to grapple with multiple points of view and sources of reasoning.3

Alternatively, teachers can approach the managing of resources by assigning particular sorts of projects to their students that require their use and presentation of resources embodying multiple perspectives, such as a “structured academic controversy” (Kaviani, 2007, 57). Similar to a debate, this sort of lesson involves students researching alternative perspectives on one issue—the clash of civiliza- tions thesis (Huntington, 1993) might be a good hypothesis for upper-level students to explore—and presenting their findings to one another. Such research-oriented

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class projects, although time-consuming (taking at least a few days, if not a week or more), requires students’ active discovery and more independent (and collabo- rative) analysis and critical consideration of different points of view. In Kaviani’s (2007) observations, readings from Said, Huntington, and Lewis, and from main- stream and alternative and international news sources are commonly used for these sorts of projects.

An analytic, process-oriented perspective should be also be basic to the ap- proach taken, which examines media representations as the products of many different individual and group choices. Tracing how a real-life event becomes a media event is the key lesson here, and students can understand this as a straightfor- ward, linear process, at the outset, regardless of the more nuanced understanding of the media’s relationship with reality laid out earlier in this article. Students should understand as choices the creation and reproduction of images, and the words used (and those not used) in discussing an event or group. Additionally, different parts of media production should be understood as discrete acts and choices of message producers.

The following example represents a common lesson plan in critical media literacy, which could be applied in a discussion of hijab or of stereotypes of Muslims, whose format could also be changed as well for the analysis of the text, plots, or themes of news stories, movies, and other media. Roughly mirroring my analysis of images of bin Laden here, such lessons can enable students to think through how particular kinds of representations rather than others come to prevail for themselves within a democratic setting.

The students are clustered in small groups. Each group is given a different black and white still image to study. All of the photos relate to the topic they are exploring.. . .

The students study their photo and jot down everything t hey notice. They are asked to consider such characteristics as: the type of shot (close-up, medium shot, long shot); the angle (high angle, low angle); light and shadow; and placement of elements (objects, people, etc.) in the picture (foreground, background, juxtaposition). Then they describe how the images makes them think and feel.

Using an overhead projector, each image is projected for the whole class to see. The students who first analyzed the images present their ideas. After they are finished, others contribute to the analysis. Students collectively explore questions such as

• Who do you think took the picture? • How are the people in the photos represented? • What caption would you write for that photo? • What kind of message is the photographer trying to convey? • How do the different elements in the image contribute to get that message

across?

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• How might the message of the photo change if it were taken from a different angle, or cropped differently?

• Who might be the intended audience for the photo? • How might different audiences respond to the photo? • Where do you think the picture appeared? (Goodman 2005, 212–213)?

Similar lessons could be created with newspaper clippings, which ask students to understand the point of a text or image in connection to its use of language, quotations, facts, and so on.

Although many educators use a variety of resources in the classroom for ed- ucating about controversial or complicated topics, not all use of media and other diverse resources are effective for teaching with critical distance, however. For instance, some teachers have been observed using media as a reward for students engaging in learning activities, presenting popular films at the end of a term; others simply replace historical lessons with documentaries or other televised or film accounts, letting their producers do the task of educating their students for them (Hobbs 2005). Although such uncritical uses of media may serve purposes of community building or creating learning incentives, such should not be regarded as a learning activity without an analytic or critical aspect to the viewing—not just a list of basic comprehension questions, but an evaluation of content and methods.

Thus, criticality about messages received should be required, meaning here an independent, distanced perspective from others’ knowledge claims, which can be developed in introductory lessons through comparing images, messages, or sources, and asking students to evaluate them in terms of their persuasiveness. For instance, during a presidential election, pictures and information about different candidates provided from different sources can be compared to demonstrate how subjective judgments are involved in presenting images (Hobbes 2005). In the case of Islam, images of, and information about, Muslims in mainstream and independent sources, and Western and Muslim news sources, can be compared with the assistance of a teacher to uncover how value judgments are made in media production, that convey certain perspectives. By requiring criticality in media literacy lessons, students can gain experience weighing in on the meaning, significance, and validity of different media messages, identifying sources they find better and worse about a given topic, issue, person, or group.

Bringing in historical or cultural texts, such as academic texts, alternative his- torical analyses such as Howard Zinn’s (1995) A People’s History of the United States, or historical or contemporary narratives, such as autobiographical accounts by Muslims living in different places at different times, helps students to further respond to predominant media themes with critical distance.4 By comparing edu- cational resources with mainstream media, or mainstream media with alternative and international media sources, students can see how different groups choose dif- ferent images, use different words, and quote different people, and finally go on to

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evaluate the effects of these choices on their persuasive power. Analyzing how an article about Muslim anti-Americanism in a newspaper compares to one in a text- book can enable students to be more critical about media as sources of information.

Being critical here does not mean that one learns to recognize mediated informa- tion as susceptible to bias and therefore develop a tendency to reject news media or popular culture as a whole (Semali 2005). Rather, it means asking students where they, and their sources, got the information informing their perspectives, for in- stance, related to Muslims, and isolate and evaluate independently the information their sources use as evidence for their claims. As mentioned several times here, comparing two sources on one issue, or multiple perspectives on a more general situation, from one form of media, or from a variety, are all very easy ways to add critical media literacy as a component of one’s lessons about controversial subjects such as Islam

In summary, using resources encompassing a wide variety of views in the classroom, rather than just the textbook, a single supplement, or various sources of similar orientations can help enable students’ critical distance and development of their independent reasoning skills through the exploration of different perspec- tives . . . so long as these materials are accompanied with guidance on critical media literacy. To engage in projects involving multiple perspectives and weigh- ing alternative viewpoints, students must be given some guidance to understand how knowledge claims are evaluated as reasonable or unreasonable, and teachers also should be equipped to judge the validity of various sources available for use in classroom discussion. Teachers need not cull from classroom discussions per- spectives and data they observe as unreasonable or poorly argued, but they must educate their students to evaluate sources using critical literacy, as I elaborated here. Although there are, to be sure, barriers that exist to emphasizing such lessons in US public schools today (see Hobbs 2005), only through the inclusion of critical media literacy lessons like those mentioned here can public school teachers effec- tively guide students to recognize media images of Islam and Muslims for what they are: highly biased representations of a diverse cross-section of humanity.

CONCLUSION

Overall, representations in US media of Islam and Muslims hardly scratch the surface when it comes to the diversity of the community, worldwide: in the Mid- dle East, in the United States, and in other Western and Eastern countries. As this review has shown, out of heterogeneous images and narratives ultimately emerges a common, normalized associating of Islam and Muslims with terrorism and/or conflict, violence, irrationality, and vengefulness. Although the attack of Septem- ber 11, 2001, in the context of the mainstream media’s tendency to feature the extraordinary—the ordinary just is not seen as news—informs, inevitably perhaps,

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such an association, in later events involving Muslims mainstream media imagery also frames them as unnecessarily antagonistic or violent or otherwise associates them with terrorism.

The result is that even if media do not teach students to associate Muslims with terrorism, they will, nonetheless, learn that it is normal to do so, that it is recognized in the mainstream media as reasonable or acceptable, rather than as harmful to Muslims, who face discrimination, prejudice, and hatefulness when the breadth of their realities is not considered newsworthy or entertaining, lacking an education that critically responds to the predominant stereotype. Thematic, analytic, and critical lessons in media literacy must complement the formal curriculum about Islam to optimize the active awareness and critical reception of what is ultimately portrayed as normal to think about Muslims in the mass media. What particular resources are used is not as important as what is expressed through their inclusion: that mainstream messages are incomplete or biased, and that informed members of a democratic society must grapple with multiple perspectives when it comes to difficult, controversial topics to act autonomously and in an informed way within society.

Notes

1. I do not exaggerate bin Laden’s effects as a single man in the world, but I do call attention to his notoriety as an actual person expressing anger and opposition to US society, who did, with 9/11, make apparent his potential to call upon others and inspire in them hatred and anti-American actions. Here, in the case of bin Laden’s iconography, Islam is represented by a real, rather than a fictional, villain. This is a more powerful, more compelling sort of enemy than any in a movie or television show; however his effect and position are certainly exaggerated in fearful discourses that are normal and typical in mainstream US media. I mean to call attention to this use or framing of reality as it perpetuates fear—not to further this fearful discourse, myself. 2. Similar work is being done to protect other minorities from similarly negative me- dia stereotyping by multicultural educators; see, as instances, Cortés (2005), “How the Media Teach” for stereotypes of Hispanics; the essays by Richard Butsch, Robert Lichter and Daniel Amundson, Peter Nardi and Debra Baker Beck in Ore (2007), Social Construction of Difference and Inequality, on critical media literacy and media stereo- types of class and gender, Hispanics, gays and lesbians, and feminists, respectively; and McCarthy (1998), “Reading the American Popular,” in Uses of Culture, on racial resentment in mass media. 3. Of course, one should not presume that teachers necessarily know much about cultural and religious diversity in such cases, themselves. Indeed, teacher preparation today seems highly inadequate for the purposes of training teachers to teach such lessons; see, for instance, Subedi (2006), “Preservice Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices”; Noddings (1993), Educating for Intelligent Belief or Unbelief ; and especially Sensoy (2006), “‘I Wouldn’t Want to Be a Muslim Woman,’“ which documents White female preservice teachers’ commonly biased views against hijab. Although I discuss this elsewhere, it is important to keep in mind here that teacher education students should gain experience studying

EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 23

phenomena related to minorities in-depth in the course of their own education in order to effectively teach their students. 4. Islam Today and Islam in Africa feature narratives by Muslim children; see the Council on Islamic Education, Teaching About Islam and Muslims for a wide variety of autobio- graphical, historical, and political works putting forward different Muslims’ perspectives.

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