mechanisms and agency implementation of ethnocentrism through the media

8/14/2019 Mechanisms and Agency Implementation of Ethnocentrism Through the Media

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Candidate Number: 90554

Mechanisms and Agency: Implementation of

Ethnocentrism through the Media

Today, bookstores in the U.S. are filled with shabby screeds bearing

screaming headlines abut Islam and terror, Islam exposed, the Arab threat and the

Muslim menace, all of them written by political polemicists pretending to knowledge

imparted to them and others by experts who have supposedly penetrated to the

heart of these strange, Oriental peoples over there who have been such a terrible

thorn in our flesh. Accompanying such warmongering expertise have been the

omnipresent CNNs and FOXs of this world, plus myriad numbers of evangelical and

right-wing radio-hosts, plus innumerable tabloids and even middle-brow journalists,

all of them recycling the same unverifiable fictions and vast generalisations so as to

stir up America against the foreign devil. (Edward W. Said 2003 pg. xv (1))

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Ethnocentrism is an explanatory description of a system of relatedness for group

perceptions about the other, and the specific case of ethnocentrism describing the East

from the position of the West is historically explained by Orientalism. Neo-Orientalism

and the rise of ant-Arab-Muslim feelings are reconsidered by looking at the agency that is

furthering the facets of ethnocentrism itself. Because ethnocentrism is at the basis of

Orientalism, ethnocentrism makes the historical continuation of Orientalism appear

natural, but in actual fact it is artificial and constructed by the same Western power that

maintains this perspective of the East.

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Ethnocentrism is an attitude or outlook in which values derived from ones own

cultural background are applied to other cultural contexts, where different values are

operative. The ethnocentric attitude is representative of an outlook that can take account


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of multiple points of view but nevertheless regards those of other cultures as incorrect,

inferior and immoral. (2)

Groups can develop collective symbol systems that arouse the ethnocentric

emotions shared by individuals in a population. (2) I will try and show that symbols

(9/11) and stimuli (9/11 and other terrorist events) can be used or created and associated

with the out-group, the neo-Orientalist situation is still that of the rational west against

that of the irrational East, however this time it includes the concept of conflict and today

this is especially valent.

Social scientists have, for more than a century (2), been primarily interested in

collective actions and institutions that could be termed ethnocentric; actions and

institutions augmenting order, solidarity and co-operation within a group or violence and

antagonism between groups, and in the connections between such actions and the

ethnocentrism of attitude and ideology.

Concerned with relations among groups defined by religion, race, ethnicity and

language, social scientists have long debated the question of:

Are ethnocentric attitudes and ideologies autonomous forces that can lead to war

and discrimination or are they merely mobilized to support warlike and discriminatory

policies that have been caused by other factors? ((2) pg 1-2)

W. G. Sumners (1906) opinion was that ethnocentrisms of attitude, ideology, and

action were inextricably linked together, and mutually reinforcing, this is also my

contention (2). The evaluation of the effectiveness and the degree of agency hinges on the

extent that stereotyping and automatic attitudes are natural, if they are malleable, and, if

so, are there examples of them being intentionally mobilized today?

The way in which I will try and answer this is by firstly stating that inter-group

bias and prejudice are natural processes, and then I will explore the natural reaction to

9/11 and the implicit association between these events and the out-group. I will then show


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that these associations are malleable and can be activated at will by just the mention of

these events. After this I will attempt to show that the media alone can be deemed as just

a social agent reproducing the ignorance and ideology of the community mouth-piece,

but also it can act through other institutions with intention.

Ethnocentrism and agency

There are many facets of ethnocentrism which signal its existence, these are

present and exemplified in the case of the West and the East by an Orientalist outlook.

Every situation is specific therefore some theorists actually define the ethnocentric facets

by the outcome of perceived conflict. The generally common facets of ethnocentrism can

be reviewed on table 1.1 ((2) pg.12.).

Perceived threat of the out-group towards the in-group can result in dislike of the

attacker (4; 5, p.45), whilst at the same time has also been noted to lead to an ethnocentric

ideology (2) so it would be logical that if increased ethnocentrism were the goal, then a

perception of a constant and explicit conflict would be effective to this end.

The question of agency is important, as it is an old trick to use false perceptions

of threat from out-groups to generally create in-group solidarity and out-group hostility.

((6), p. 137) Simultaneously this may be creating some kind of phenomenal absolutism

(7) which is the tendency to assume that the world is exactly as one sees it, and that all

the other persons really perceive it in the same way but behave the way they do out of a

perverse wickedness or incompetence.

The attempt at a creation of a phenomenal absolutism (7) tendency could be

exemplified in the critical assessment of post 9/11 discourse by Muscati (2003). This

study could be shown to say how this process of intensifying ethnocentrism is something

we are being led through because we are being persuaded that it is a natural occurrence

for the Muslim population to fit the persona of evil. Argues how the manufacture of

ethnocentrism comes through leading social and political figures in the west presenting


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the perceived conflict as good versus evil, and Muslims as inherently irrational,

singled out, as uniquely fundamentalist, as subhuman, and as a homogeneous threat

(2003). This discrimination of the inhabitants of the East is very similar to Saids (1978)

concept of an Orientalist outlook.

Historical power relations Orientalism perspective

Without a well-organised sense that these people over there were not like

us and didnt appreciate our values the very core of traditional

Orientalist dogma - there would have been no war. (Edward W. Said 2003

pg. xv)

An idea central to Edward Saids (1978) book Orientalism is that the western idea of

the East is not generated from facts or from a balanced perspective, but rather that it is

often a romanticized imagined community constructed from the western essentialised

view of eastern societies as, for example, fundamentally similar. Said argued that

Orient and Occident (the West) worked as oppositional terms, so that the orient was

constructed as a negative inversion of Western culture. Put simply Orientalism is A

Western style for dominating restructuring, and having authority over the Orient ((1) pg.

6).

Said also warned against the falsely unifying rubrics that invent collective

identities, referring to such terms as America, the West, and Islam, which were

leading to what he felt was a manufactured clash of civilisations (2003)(1). These

collective identities, which are being created in the minds of the public, could be

dangerous as they could aid the inter-group paradigm of us versus. them. As Perdue

(1990) suggested; even the minimal group paradigm of we and they can activate the

hardwiring for inter-group bias in people (9).


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Throughout history, Eastern cultures have long been seen as different, inferior,

exotic, and in many cases, sensual. Dividing the world into us versus them, the

West and the East, the Occident (the West as it views itself) and the Orient, all

serves to homogenize the Other as unusual, uncivil, and evil whilst proclaiming the

dominant Western ideology as normal, civil, and good (10; cited in 44). Modern neo-

colonialism has also been justified by the impression that Arabs are inherently aggressive,

chaotic and irrational, and that the West (colonial forces) were and are rational, organised

and good, spreading democracy, and human rights (1). This is a good example the

ethnocentric standpoint where the assessment of our own values, against those of the out-

group, can be seen as universal and right. (2).

This was explicitly believed in the past, and the idea that Arabs needed our

values imposed on them can be an example of this happening, then, and today. A kind of

benevolent execution of power over the East (e.g. Iraq), it is my contention that this

ethnocentric view is being expressed intentionally, and especially through the mainstream

media, as it is the cultural tool which reaches us all. Parallel to the general facets of

ethnocentrism exemplified by Sumner (1906)(3), what I am positing here is the notion

that, through the psychological pathways described later, the media is exaggerating the

threat of an out-group, and the impression of an official conflict with the Orient.

Therefore what follows is an illustrative analysis of how the media has been

treating the image of this out-group.

The social psychology of prejudice approach

Categorization is an in inescapable feature of human existence, as the world is simply

too complex to deal with without the ability to simplify and order it, and in this sense the

average human being simply doesnt have the capacity to respond differently to every

person they meet (11). So important to prejudice is the categorization process that some

have argued that without it prejudice just wouldnt exist (12; 13). The two fundamental

effects of categorization are the exaggeration of inter-group differences and the

enhancement of intra-group similarities (Brown, 1995). For example, Jones et al., (1981)


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asked members of university clubs to rate members of their own club and others as to

how similar they were on a number of trait dimensions, as a result they found a consistent

tendency for members of out-groups to be seen as more similar to one another than

members of the in-group (15). Another important facet of stereotyping is highlighting

contrast between groups. This is exemplified by Doise et al. (1978), in a study on

priming school children with the category of gender, they showed that when the category

was salient there were reliably more differentadjectives used to describe photographs of

male and female children, and correspondingly more identicaladjectives used to describe

photographs of the same gender (16).

So why is there seemingly out-group similarity in the eyes of the in-group?

Linville et al., (1989) suggested that this perceived out-group similarity stems

from the different amount of information that we gather about in-group as opposed to

out-group members (17). This is said to be true because in-group members tend to

interact more with other in-group members than out-group members, so differential

familiarity is important. Park et al., (1991) suggested differently, they claimed that the

amount of information about a number of exemplar from the group with whom some

interaction is not as important as the estimated nature of the category as a whole (18).

They suggested that people internalise a more abstract conception of the categories as a

whole, which is modelled on the prototypical member of the group and some estimate of

the variability around this person.

These theories, when associated with perceptions of Arab-Muslims, for

example, could be used to partially explain assumptions about members of this social

group, obviously there are far more important items to keep in mind, but physical

distance could parallel the Wests general lack of interaction with Arab-Muslims

occupying the Middle East, and prototypical members could be exemplified by the

actions of terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden, perceived variation around this

prototypical member could also be narrowed by the apparent actions of terrorists and

horrific events associated with the Arab-Muslim social group. This argument is supported


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by Blair (2002) in the sense that when the group members are well known, more abstract

qualities, such as likeability, may also influence automatic attitudes (35). In studies on

this, this effect occurred automatically and whilst the participants were explicitly focused

on the individuals race (2002). Indeed it is specifically argued by Muscati (2003) that

Muslims are often judged en masse by the standards of their worst representatives, and

where Muslim practices and individuals contradict these negative judgements they are

often presented as the exception, not the rule (8).

A study which could be relevant to the judgment of the Arab-Muslim, Turner et

al., (1987) suggested that, in general, the basic level for categorising people is that of the

social group, and in situations of rare contact this can be important (19). Bruner (1957)

suggested that the categories most likely to be used are those which are most accessible

to a person, and those which best fit the stimuli prevalent at the time (11). Brown (1995)

suggests that there are three features of the immediate situation which are important for

the choice of categorization(14). The entativity, meaning the appearance of the group as

an entity in the mind of the perceiver, of potential category members, their perceptual

distinctiveness, and the recent external evocation of a category. The way in which people

(as a stimuli) actually stand in relation to one another influences whether they are

perceived as members of the same group (20), therefore if a social group (i.e. Arabs) is

perceptibly similar and if they dont come into contact with the in-group often then they

will be categorized together, and as similar to some extent. And, it is not just the stimulus

characteristics of the situation which can activate one category rather than another, if

some event has occurred very recently which is evocative of a particular characterization

then it is likely that situations orevents happening subsequently will also be interpreted in

terms of that same category system (14).

Other studies have shown that inter-group bias and categorization are natural

phenomena, for example Ashburn-Nardo, Voils and Monteith (2001) demonstrated that

automatic inter-group bias can occur even in the minimal group situation, and where

there has been no history of conflict exists between the two groups, and also Perdue et al.

(1990) who argued that inter-group bias occurs so naturally that it can be obtained even


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with vaguely defined in-groups (e.g. we) and out-groups (e.g. they) (9). People are

hardwired for inter-group bias, but that exposure to information about in/out groups

serves to develop and strengthen implicit associations that may contribute to inter-group

bias (39). Absent of the event of 9/11 it is possible that prejudice could be activated by

other prevailing traits of the group, for example this would be true of religion as an inter-

group difference.

Religion as a group identifier.

From using a predominantly Christian sample Rowatt, Franklin and Cotton (2005)

showed that as anti-Arab racism increases, self reported attitudes towards Muslims can

decrease sharply, however this could only be a function of inaccurate cognitive

stereotypes. For example, thinking that most Muslims are Arabs when there are over 200

Muslim groups around the world (23) or thinking that many Arabs are cunning, warlike,

cruel, irrational, or unkind to women (24). As it was a predominantly Christian sample,

however, the strong association between anti-Arab racism and attitudes towards Muslims

could also be due to pervasive in-group/out-group biases (25).

Although much academic research has addressed racism, religious discrimination

has been largely ignored (26). Rokeach (1960) argued that what could possibly matter

more than categorization as a basis for prejudice was the degree of similarity or

congruence between our belief system and that of the other person, from this it follows

that disagreement can lead to dislike because of a perceived threat to our belief system

(27).

Hunsberger and Jackson (2005) exemplified this in a study showing how belief or

meaning systems can act as a frame of reference for inter-group difference in values. As

difference can be seen as threatening, it is interesting that meaning systems were

emphasised in the media just before the U.S. attacked Iraq (28). Hunsberger and Jackson

(2005) suggested that downward societal comparisons by the perception of owning

religious truth may generate prejudice against members of other religions, and that


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identification with a group that has comparatively more of a higher societal status can

also have a similar effect. Tensions are also likely to be intensified if perceive themselves

to be in conflict with other religious or non-religious groups. (28)

This prejudiced outlook or a religion-central world view also has an effect in the

intellectual field. In a review of physiological literature associated with Muslims and/or

Islam, Sheridan and North (2004) found that the religious background of the author

affected the tone of the abstract, Sikh-named authors were found to be most likely to

publish balanced works (95%), followed by those with Hindu names (89.6%). Authors

with Jewish and Christian names were the least likely to publish works of a balanced

tone (71.2%) and (74.5%) respectively(29).

9/11 and empirical studies on resulting explicit prejudice

A very powerful illustration of the external evocation of a category (see above)

associated with a recent event, was the tragic events that occurred in New York on the

day of September 11th, 2001. Passenger jets carrying many innocent civilians and 19

hijackers, with Muslim-sounding names, pentagon and the flew into the twin towers, the

latter then crumbled to the ground, taking with them the lives of around 3000 more

innocent people. The events of that day were played repeatedly, shocking the world, the

seemingly tranquil existence of millions of people was perceptively shattered and indeed

social-political reality was never the same again.

Following the events of 9/11 the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and

Xenophobia anticipated a rise in Islamophobia and produced a Summary Report on

Islamophobia in the EU after 11 th September, 2001 across the 15 EU member states (30).

This report identified a rise in what it termed ethnic xenophobia, which it described as

being distinctly separate from the xenophobia that exists within both Islamophobia and

indeedanti-asylum seeker sentiment (30). Here within all this, expressions of

Islamophobia found justification in what the report identified as a catalytic justification

with regard to both latent and active prejudices (31). What is being referred to here, one


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Psychological pathways linking Ethnocentrism as an ideology and prejudice

Cunningham et al., (2004) agreed that there is a prejudice associated with

ethnocentric views of the world; it is a predictor of certain views towards several

culturally disadvantaged out-groups. Cunningham et al., (2004) suggested that models

that depicted constructs of stereotypes and prejudice as ordinary tended to ignore the

broader network of ideology that represents ones political and social view of the world

and the place of social groups in it. They found that prejudices towards specific groups

are manifestations of a generalised underlying ethnocentrism, and that those who hold

negative attitudes toward one disadvantaged group also tend to hold them toward other

disadvantaged groups. (2004)

Cunningham et al., (2004) go on to discuss a possible psychological pathway in

which prejudiced implicit associations can go on to create rigid thinking; this could be

done through the social justification theory and an ethnocentric ideology. They also

posited another pathway in which rigid thinking can in turn affect the implicit evaluation

of social groups. Rigid thinking could also predispose one to a right-wing-ideology

(seeing the world in black and white). (33) These ideologies with their positive regard to

the status quo could be maintained by social justification (34), which could maintain this

positive regard for the outlook presented to them by authorities.

In the next section I will exemplify these implicit attitudes towards Arab-Muslims

can be changed and associated strongly with events such as 9/11 (i.e. social information

associating Arab-Muslims with terrorism), and also that evocation of these implicit

associations/attitudes can be brought about by reminding the individual of this event.


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Implicit Attitudes towards Arab-Muslims and the moderating effects of social

information.

Blairs (2002) review (cited by 36), showed that many researchers have found that

automatic attitudes or stereotypes are malleable, Devine (1989) suggested that repeated

exposure to information (i.e. 9/11) that associates members of a social group with

evaluative attributes might form automatic attitudes and beliefs towards them. In this

respect, repeated exposure to the event of evaluative attributes such as irrationality,

fundamentalism and terrorism associated with Arab Muslims may affect automatic

attitudes towards them.

Implicit Association Tests have also been shown to demonstrate that automatic

attitudes and stereotypes towards social groups are likely to be influenced by the valence

of stereotypes salient in a given situation associated with the social group (43). For

example Wittenbrink et al. (2004) showed that exposure to a positive stereotypic situation

about black significantly reduced the magnitude of the IAT effect, whereas exposure to a

negative stereotypic situation (e.g. a gang incident) did not.

As cited in (36) Information in immediate environments (38), and social influence (37),

have also been shown to have an effect on automatic attitudes and stereotypes toward

certain social groups.

So if repeated exposure to information regarding social groups can serve as a

basis for automatic attitudes and stereotypes then how strong is this associative effect?

Recent studies (38; 39) have shown that the IAT may be quite sensitive to changes

in the situational context, therefore, if the implicit associations are sensitive enough to

reflect social information regarding blacks in situations paling in comparison with recent

terrorist attacks associated with Arab-Muslims, then the strength of the associations

between Arab-Muslims and the recent negative events is likely to be stronger than those

associated with blacks.


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As the study by Park, Felix and Lee (2007) is one of the few studies done on the

implicit associations with Arab-Muslims and of the few which especially also concerns

the moderating effect of social information I will cover this in greater depth as it reveals

many interesting items, therefore much is drawn directly from the paper (36).

The purpose of this study was to examine the relative valence and strength of

implicit attitudes towards Arab-Muslims whilst exploring the moderation of such implicit

attitudes by social information. The three studies (a) investigated the relative valence and

strength of implicit attitudes toward and beliefs about Arab-Muslims and (b) tested

whether the implicit attitudes could be moderated by valenced social information.

The first study out of three was designed to find out what implicit attitudes and

beliefs people held with regard to Arab Muslims in relation to whites using the IAT and

explicit attitude measures. As expected from IAT results the participants showed a strong

pro-white attitude compared to that towards Arab Muslims. What was particularly

revealing however was the analysis of the open ended question that asked the participants

to provide what they knew or heard about Arab Muslims. Out of 75 answers the most

common responses, not surprisingly, involved terrorism or related characteristics, such as

violent or destructive, at 27%. 23% reported deep religiosity, 13% described

discrimination against women, and polygamy, etc., 12% suggested personality traits not

directly associated with terrorism, such as smart, hard-working, untrustworthy, or close-

minded, and responses towards physical features or outfits were 9%. As terrorism was the

most salient and representative attribute about Arab Muslims, it was concluded that this

was likely to have influenced the IAT results showing preference for whites over Arabs.

This conclusion was reinforced by the finding that the greater IAT effects were

demonstrated by those participants who yielded answers related to terrorism that those

who did not. (36)


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Studies two and three demonstrated implicit preference for black over Arab

Muslim names, with again almost identical ratios of specific types of responses to the

question of remembered attributes found in study one.

What was especially interesting was that the results to study three indicated that

implicit and explicit anti-Arabic prejudice could be moderated when participants were

primed with positive and negative information about Arab Muslims before the IAT task.

Participants were exposed to the information about the terrorist attack against the

twin towers in New York. Even though no Arab names were given in the information,

participants showed a greater anti-Arab bias than those in the neutral information

condition. The results here showed that automatic stereotypes and prejudice, which had

been previously believed to have been fixed and unavoidable (40; 41; cited by 36), could

be influenced by moderating variables, and that stimulus cues in the surrounding contexts

of social information could affect automatic responses. (36)

With respect to this study, theses results are especially important as the

unashamedly repetitive exposure to the atrocities of 9/11 by the mainstream media, would

in theory have repeatedly exposed the public viewer to an evaluative association between

the events and Arab-Muslims, and in turn created a strong implicit association with

Muslim Arabs of terror, destruction and anger.

The Role of the Media

From an early age almost all people are exposed to information associated with

particular groups, perhaps even prior to forming personal beliefs (41). Greenwald and

Banaji (1995) defined implicit attitudes as introspectively unidentified () traces of

past experience that mediate favourable or unfavourable feeling, thought, or action

toward social objects (42) (p. 8. cited by 39)


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Analyses of media content consistently document that racial minorities, across a

wide variety of media contexts, if represented at all, are portrayed stereotypically and in a

narrow range of peripheral roles (44).

As stated above research on control of automatic stereotyping shows that certain

situational/contextual and motivational factors can moderate implicit attitudes and

stereotypes. (35; 36; 41; 45; among others, 44)

Keeping in mind that racist feelings are artefacts of shared cultural norms (46)

rather than individual idiosyncrasies, it is important to understand that socio-cultural

forces such as the mass media, among others, help form, mediate, activate and transmit

cultural stereotypes. It is especially effective when there is little or no other type of

contact with the social groups concerned, when they are at a great distance away for

example. (Linville et al., (1989 brown book)) Here the mainstream media can substitute

personal contact and create and reinforce cultural stereotypes about people and places

when there is little other scope for comparison. (47)

As I will exemplify later, through continual habitual exposure across genres and

media sources, whatever stereotypes are repeated in media discourse become part and

parcel of a generally dominant symbolic ideology (48; 49). Even exposure to a single or

small number of examples in the media, can be powerful enough to create impressions

about issues, peoples and places (50; cited in 44). As the studies on implicit associations

and the malleability of these implicit associations and automatic attitudes have suggested,

this can be done with few exemplars if the valence of the information (i.e. 9/11)

associating the social group with salient evaluations (e.g. terrorists) of the group is strong

enough, and repeated to send home the message (41).

Jo and Berkowitz (1994) provided the neo-association model in which an

associative network of related concepts in the cognitive structure can provide the basis

for which a particular stimulus can trigger a chain of related thoughts and feelings

through the process of spreading activation (51). And as the activation-recency


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hypothesis put forth by Hansen and Hansen (1988) suggests, prolonged exposure to

biased media content makes these notions highly automatic (52). As I will point out later,

the recent reality is that racist dispositions are being added to by media hype over

situations involving Arab-Muslims, sometimes with unfounded evidence.

The Media before 9/11

Negative stereotypes of Muslims and the Islamic world were surprisingly

prevalent in the west before 9/11, for example Madani (2000) analysed newspaper

headlines from between 1956 and 1997, finding that the U.S. media depicted Muslims

and Arabs more negatively than Western Europeans and Israelis (53). Altareb (1998)

examined attitudes toward Middle Eastern Muslims held by non-Muslim undergraduates

in the United States (54). It was discovered that although participants possessed little

information about Muslims and Islam, they did hold definite attitudes toward Muslims,

and it was found that much of this information was gleaned from film and media sources.

Importantly in this study it was noted that both stereotypical and sensationalist depictions

of Muslims were expressed in the mainstream media at the time. (1998)

Religious Discrimination in England and Wales

From 1999 to 2001 an interdisciplinary research team based at the Religious Resource

and Research Centre of the University of Derby carried out the Religious Discrimination

in England and Wales Research Project (55 cited in source (56)). Amongst the studies

aims was to assess the evidence of religious discrimination in England and Wales, both

actual and perceived, and to describe the patterns shown by this evidence, including its

overall scale, the main victims, the main perpetrators, and the main ways in which the

discrimination manifests. ((55) pg. 308.) The projects findings were based mainly on

the results of a postal questionnaire survey of 1,830 religious organisations throughout

England and Wales, of which 300 were Muslim.


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The empirical findings included a consistently higher level of unfair treatment

reported by Muslim organizations than other religious groups, both in terms of the

proportion of respondents indicating unfair treatment was experienced and was frequent.

Respondents were asked for their personal view of how serious their experience was of

various aspects of discrimination and unfair treatment, including ignorance, indifference,

hostility, verbal abuse, physical abuse, damage to property, policies of organisations,

practices of organisations and media coverage. Muslim respondents were more likely

than those from other religions to identify very serious problems in nearly every area.

Importantly a large majority of Muslim respondents regarded ignorance as a very

serious or quite serious problem, with other evidence indicating that the very high

concern in respect to media coverage was also largely related to a perception of ignorance

and bias in the media. Muslim respondents were also the most likely to think that

problems had grown worse in the last 5 years1. Consistently the majority of Muslim

respondents thought that hostility, verbal abuse and unfair media coverage had all

become more frequent. Muslims also reported that other people based their views on

preconceived ideas and stereotypes, and, those who said that they practised their

religion most often said that they were made to feel awkward and that they experience

pressure to conform.

Relevantly, in every religious group, but especially Muslims, questions about the

media tended to produce more claims of unfair treatment than any other area of life

covered in the survey, with relatively more Muslim organizations reporting that this

unfairness was frequent rather than occasional. (56)

Interestingly enough, although there had been considerable media interest following

the project during 1999 to 2000, the projects report ultimately received little media

coverage. (56)

This study highlights many important items, including the role of the media,

subsequent stereotypes and prejudice, and of Muslims being a primary target in relation

to other religious groups. Referring to preconceived ideas and stereotypes (55) and

related abuse raised alongside unfair media representation, the study itself did not clearly

indicate whether this was intentional, so, for the benefit of the doubt this must be

1 Important to note that the research was conducted in 1999, the 5 years were leading up to September 11th,

2001


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assumed to be a form of incompetence and irresponsibility on the medias part, with no

due attention drawn to the type of representation given and their influence on the publics

attitudes.

The Media as just social actors, mirroring the ignorance of the community.

As an example here I will provide an empirical study of two Australian

newspapers by Akbarzadeh and Smith (2005), named The Representation of Islam and

Muslims in the Media (The Age and Herald Sun Newspapers). The report examines

the extent of negative images reproduced in The Age and theHerald Sun (57).

Akbarzadeh and Smith (2005) created a database of 451 items generated from a

search for the words Islam and/or Muslim from The Age andHerald Sun newspapers

from September 11, 2001 December 31, 2004. From an analysis of these items they

concluded that these newspapers were not Islamophobia but the representations of

Muslims were not free of problems. Like the Religious Discrimination in England and

Wales report the project revealed that there is a certain level of ignorance in the

Australian community in relation to Muslims and Islam. They then suggested that

ignorance can end up leaving a feeling of unease, and this is an issue which finds its way

to the pages of the press; they theorised that journalists, being social actors in their own

right, are affected by political and ideological influences themselves, some of which are

openly hostile towards Islam. Whilst Akbarzadeh and Smith (2005) argue that the

negative images of Islam and Muslims are not solely due to the construction of the news

stories, the content of such stories have a significant impact on the overall impression

they leave behind; news stories about terrorism, for example, are anchored in the

shocking negativity of the events (57). They explained that even an informed journalist

with a high sense of professionalism and a commitment to avoiding stereotypes would

find it difficult to avoid the negative impression that links Islam with violence and

carnage (57 pp. 36).

If what they say is true and media representatives are just reproducing the

ideology and political leanings, then other findings from the paper are interesting as they


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show how an ethnocentric ideology can be reproduced via the agency of individuals with

a certain outlook.

The Media, the security services, and the government.

I will now attempt to address the issue of cases where the media has shown itself to

be outright inaccurate. The examples shown could only be construed as an attempt by the

media to heighten negative attitudes towards Arab-Muslims. This is done through

imagined convictions of guilt of representative individuals of the Arab-Muslim group

attaining to fundamentalist versions of Islam. This next section will show how the media

has outright falsely represented cases of supposed extremism.

Trial by media and crimes of association.

These examples were drawn from the same 58 and cited as such.

Amazingly throughout the world, only one person, Mounir al Motassadeq, has

ever been convicted in relation to the September 11th attacks. However even that

conviction has now been deemed as evidentially unsafe, as the judge criticised the US

authorities for refusing to allow testimony from a key al Qaeda captive that could prove

crucial in establishing the defendants guilt or innocence. On top of that the case does not

appear to rest on any substantial material evidence, except that he was a friend of the

Hamburg September 11 hijackers. In this case and in many like it, the bias of the

intelligence services, the police and the media has combined with the current

political/ideological agenda to create a culture of suspicion against Muslims (58).

Trial by media

The cases (cited from (58)) below illuminate how intelligence services and the police

are often the only sources of information for the media, which in turn then feed off them

to construct alarmist and distorted pictures of spectacular threats. Speeches are made in


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parliament demonising the accused, and police and intelligence services are praised for

foiling devastating plots and preserving national security. The mainstream media are a

substitute for the court, as the press becomes not only the arena where the suspect is tried,

but judge and jury too.

The first example is the case of 28 Pakistani street vendors arrested in Naples in

January 2003. These people were arrested on suspicion of association with the aim of

international terrorism, possession of illegal explosive material, falsification of

documents and trafficking. (59) The press instantly reported that an al-Qaeda terrorist

cell had been uncovered, saying that an anonymous police source claimed that a plot to

assassinate Britains chief of defence staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce had been foiled,

alongside plots to attack the US consulate in Naples and nearby tourist spots from

Pompeii to Capri. The explosive material found could, said the police official, have

blown up a ten-storey building. (59) It was ominously added that religious texts in Urdu

and other documents had also been found in the mens apartment, as well as photos of

martyrs of the Jihad.(59). Friends told the press that the street vendors had been living

in appalling conditions in a room in a building rented from the local mafia, one of the

substances seized was a kind of sugar sent from Pakistan, and the fanatical texts cited

by the police were nothing more than laminated prayer cards from the Koran. Needless to

say, the judge ordered the release of all twenty-eight two weeks after the arrest. There

was no evidence of any link to al Qaeda and they had not been aware of the explosives in

the flat, probably planted there by the mafia owners. (58)

Another case, the so-called ricin plot to poison commuters on the London

underground, is a good demonstration of the hysterical nature of the interplay between

the intelligence services, media and government (60). This story first emerged in the

UK on 17th November 2002, when the Sunday Times claimed, on the front page, that MI5

had foiled a poison gas attack on the underground. Due to the Terrorism Act (2000)(

source this to the home office website) six men were arrested as they were said to be part

of an al Qaeda network operating out of Europe, and had been planning to release a gas

bomb on a crowded tube train. Home Secretary David Blunkett described the men as part


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of a terrorist cell. (61) When the six men appeared in court no allegations were made

about explosives or chemicals and no claim was made that they had any materials to

make the bombs, later Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott had to admit that there was

no evidence of any plan for a gas or bomb attack (62). Even though the results of the

ricin trials came to nothing, the story of the ricin plot had developed a life of its own,

being linked to, and verifying many other instances of supposed terrorist activities. For

example, the security services in Ireland told the press that anti-terrorist and military

intelligence were on full alert after fears that associates of those charged in the ricin plot

were moving to Ireland to escape the huge police pressure in British cities.(63). In

January 2004 in France, a Muslim family was arrested on suspicion of providing

logistical support for Muslim fighters in Chechnya, were linked to the ricin plot (64). The

Spanish case of the 16 North Africans, whom died in jail with no cases drawn up of their

manslaughter, (65) was linked to a major ricin scare which was immediately linked to

the UK ricin plot, the defendants were said to be in possession of a white powder. A

press release followed this up by claiming that these men had provided information and

support to other Islamic terror groups, had explosives, used chemical products and had

connections with terror cells in Britain and France (66). The president of Spain at the

time, President Aznar, declared at a press conference that the men comprised an

important network of terrorists connected to al Qaeda and that their arrests brought to

attention the importance of the danger of terrorist groups getting hold of [weapons] of

mass destruction (66).

This pre-emptive action was congratulated as such by president bush, and, in a speech

to the UN Security Council, US secretary Colin Powell presented in a slide show linking

the suspects to the London ricin plotters, and also as an example of the links between

Baghdad and bin Laden. After all this prejudicial coverage the case against these 16

North Africans collapsed before it was even brought to trial, as the flasks and bottles

containing what was said to contain explosives and chemical products contained nothing

more that household ammonia, washing powder, cologne, olive oil and honey. (67)


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Many similar cases have had similar results before and since, but are too numerous to

list here (58). Gareth Peirce, a UK human rights lawyer noted the tidal wave of

contemptuous coverage, putting in jeopardy any hope of a fair trial, and in the

punishing climate, media fury stands in for due process, for so weak are some of the

cases initiated, many do not come to trial at all. (68)

This stating of the details of the cases, for example is important, as I have

demonstrated above, when the details of the cases are not presented and only the titles of

the media reports are empirically analysed then a different evaluation could be reached.

Discussion:

Through trying to highlight the possible psychological mechanisms and

implementation of ethnocentric perspectives through the media, I have attempted to

provide a possible answer to question of the usage and the effectiveness of agency, as

compared to autonomous ideologies and attitudes. It is true that there are psychological

relationships between implicit associations and explicit prejudice, and a broadly general

conclusion would be that ethnocentric ideology can be thought of as a possible facilitator

in this degree. The power of suggestion can be a useful tool to those inclined to benefit

from an ideology shared by the public. Here the point that Sumner (1906) made all those

years ago about the ethnocentrisms of attitude, ideology, and action being inextricably

linked together, and mutually reinforcing, can be argued to be as true today as it was back

then. The question of agency on public opinions and feelings of the in-group towards the

out-group opens up a whole barrel of worms, as we ask ourselves, is the old Orientalism

as genuine as the neo-Orientalism?

The media record can to a certain extent provide a veritable record of the political

and social-psychological relationships, and would make an interesting study. This could

also give much depth to current studies. What this study opens up are more questions

about a possible informational conflict than should be evaluated, this is a relevant

question to ask as this dissertation shows quite clearly the physical and explicit

discrimination and physical actions felt by the Arab-Muslim community. Biased


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information can build upon inter-group bias and legitimise latent prejudice; this is

something which has to be dealt with. Nowadays it is almost expected of the media to

produce spin and scandalous story telling to grip the observer and to sell newspapers,

however what is most interesting, let alone worrying, is how the government figureheads

are treating the media spin as evidence. This is quite revealing as to the purpose of that

spin, if its creation has in itself been associated with security and governmental

institutions.

This may all serve to discredit the mainstream media for some, and more and

more people are turning to alternative sources of information. If there is much scope to

the proposed psychological possibility of implicit prejudice leading to the creation of a

close-minded person (33), then there could be some split in the opinions of the public,

between those taking heed of historical warning signs and those being lulled further and

further into the ethnocentric status quo. This information war, as suggested above, can be

exemplified by the case of the al-Jazeera journalist released recently, after being held in

Guantnamo Bay without charge for 6 years. This has been described by the International

Federation of Journalists as the continuation of a concerted campaign against the Arab

Media in general, and al-Jazeera in particular (69).

Greeting the news of his release, Clive Stafford Smith said, "This is wonderful

news, and long overdue. The US administration has never had any reason for holding Mr.

al-Haj, and has, instead, spent six years shamelessly attempting to turn him against his

employers at al-Jazeera. We at Reprieve send him our best wishes as he is reunited with

his wife and his seven-year old son Mohammed, whom he has not seen since Mohammed

was a baby." (70)

As this example, along with others being held without trial, alongside the 16

North Africans suspicious deaths, and the many killed in the Iraq war, the question is

what exactly is this irresponsible agency prepared to put up as truth in that hypnotic

box we call the TV?


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As Rokeach (1960) strongly suggests through empirical evidence brought from an

analysis of the level of perceived dogmatism, suggests the more real the threat the more

real the dogmatism. Dogmatism here is expressed by both the severity of punishment

towards deviators and the degree of absolutism of the threat. His data set is of a 1200-

year period from the Papal Encyclicals; maybe we should therefore pay heed to this

analysis and ask the questions, which may seem silly at this point: if there is some degree

of agency behind the perception of conflict, then to what degree is this the case? And,

how real is the threat going to get?

Either way I argue that we cannot remain limited to the discussion of how media

images inform definitional imperatives (72) and how in turn these definitional

imperatives inform the dissemination of media images, as this discourse leaves out the

evaluation of the extent of agency. If we are to predict with greater accuracy through

social, anthropological, political and psychological perspectives of the impact of the

forces at work then an analysis of the degree of intention is imperative.

The question therefore remains, how natural is Arab-Muslim prejudice?

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Home Office, 2001). Also available at the Research Development and Statistics Directorates

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59. Guardian (8 and 13 February 2003).

60. See Prejudice and contempt, op. cit. in - Liz Fekete.Anti-Muslim Racism and the European

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61. Ibid.

62. Ibid

63. Irish Independent (18 January 2003).

64. Guardian (12 January 2004).

65. European Race Bulletin (Nos 33/4, 2000).

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Class, Vol. 46, No. 1, 3-29 (2004)

67. Ibid. Following the Madrid bomb attack of 11 March, four of the sixteen North Africans,

including Smail Boudjelthia, have been placed under administrative detention. It is alleged that

they manipulated their mobile phones in a way similar to the Bali and Madrid bombers. An initialaccusation that they provided logistical support to a French Algerian cell that planned to bomb the

Strasbourg Christmas market has also been resurrected. From - Liz Fekete.Anti-Muslim Racism

and the European Security State. Race & Class, Vol. 46, No. 1, 3-29 (2004)

68. Cited in Prejudice and contempt: terror trial by media, CARF (No. 69, winter 2002/3).

69. Guardian (15 September 2003).

70. The Huffington Post May 1, 2008

71. Rokeach, M. The open and closed mind. New York: Basic Books, 1960.

72. Beyond Orientalism and Islamophobia: 9/11, Anti-Arab Racism, and the Mythos of National

Pride CR: The New Centennial Review - Volume 6, Number 2, Fall 2006, pp. 245-266
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mechanisms and agency implementation of ethnocentrism through the media

Documents