Addressing Islamophobia in the Media

This is the third lesson in a unit designed to help teachers have conversations with their students about contemporary Islamophobia in a safe, sensitive and constructive way. Use these lessons to help your students reflect on Islamophobia – how it manifests in contemporary society and its impact – and consider what needs to be done to challenge it.

In this lesson, students explore how Islamophobia manifests and is spread in the media, both in the news and in the entertainment industry. In the first part of the lesson, the activities provide students with the opportunity to reflect on media bias; to explore literary devices used in the media to provoke emotional reactions and spread Islamophobia; to analyse the portrayal of Muslims and Islam in the media; and to reflect on how humanity’s negativity bias impacts responses to Islamophobic news content. In the second part of the lesson, students reflect on film as an art medium; discuss the representation of Muslims and Islam in the film industry; consider the impact of this representation; and finally reflect on what shapes people’s responses to Muslims and Islam. 

Giving students the opportunity to reflect on media bias helps students be critical consumers of news, who understand that journalists and organisations are not objective in how they report stories, while teaching students about the literary devices used to spread Islamophobia helps students understand how language can be used to shape and provoke certain reactions in audiences. Applying this learning to analysing Islamophobic news content can help students understand the real-world relevance of what they are learning, while teaching students about humanity’s negativity bias helps them consider the consequences of exposure to Islamophobic news content. 

Encouraging students to reflect on film as an art medium helps them to think about its capacity to shape people’s views beyond the cinema, which is reinforced by sharing statistics on Muslim representation in film and its possible impacts. Moreover, giving students the chance to learn about the effect that Islamophobia has on some Muslims in the film industry can help them understand the human cost of Islamophobia. Finally, inviting students to reflect on what shapes people’s responses to Muslims and Islam highlights how the stories we consume in day-to-day life impact people’s world views. 

We recommend that you do preparatory work on discussing Islamophobia and Islamophobic tropes by teaching the lessons Confronting Islamophobia and Exploring Islamophobic Tropes if you have not already done so.

We also recommend that you revisit your classroom contract before teaching this lesson. If you do not have a class contract, you can use our contracting guidelines for creating a classroom contract or another procedure you have used in the past.

Before teaching this lesson, please review the following information to help guide your preparation process.

Activity 1 Reflect on Media Bias

Before you begin engaging with the content of the lesson, we recommend that you create a classroom contract or revisit a previously created one. You can use our contracting guidelines for creating a classroom contract or another procedure you have used in the past. 

Explain to students that you will be exploring representations of Muslims and Islam in the media and then share the following prompt with students, asking them to respond to the questions in their journal:

The scholar, author and professor Todd H. Green states,

The stories audiences read in newspapers or see on television about current events are not objective accounts of what happened. Journalists and editors make choices about the angle to adopt in telling a story. ... The news media creates frames of interpretation through which we understand “reality,” but the reality in question is a construction that reflects the biases and ideologies of individual journalists and the media organizations that employ them. The reality created by the media, moreover, is often constructed to attract consumers and to keep a newspaper, news website, or television network in business. The mass media, after all, is part of the corporate world, with ownership of most news organizations held by a handful of companies.

Profit is always a part of the picture, which means that the media faces immense pressure to present news stories that reinforce the assumptions and ideologies held by the dominant culture and its most powerful institutions. ¹

1. What does Todd Green state about the way that the media represents information?
2. What shapes the information shared in the media? 
3. Why might the need to make profit mean the media faces ‘pressure to present news stories that reinforce the assumptions and ideologies held by the dominant culture and its most powerful institutions’? 
4. What media do you engage with? 
   • How has it shaped your views?
   • What steps do you take to ensure the information you consume is reliable?

Invite students to share their responses in pairs or by leading a short class discussion. You might also invite students to share how far they agree with the content and assertions contained within the quote. 

Activity 2 Explore Literary Devices Used in the Media

Explain to students that they will now use the Gallery Walk teaching strategy to explore literary devices used to provoke emotional reactions in the media, many of which are used to spread Islamophobic ideas (these can be found in the Lesson 3 PowerPoint Addressing Islamophobia in the Media).

As students move around the room, ask them to respond to the following questions for each literary device:

1. What is the literary device? 
2. How has it been used to depict Muslims/Islam? 
3. What are the potential impacts of such depictions?
   • What emotional responses might they trigger? 

After students have reviewed all of the devices, lead a class discussion using the following questions, revealing them one by one:

1. How do these literary devices shape people’s responses to Muslims and Islam? 
2. Which Islamophobic tropes, if any, are spread using these literary devices?
3. Have you ever seen any of these devices being used in the media? If so, where?

Activity 3 Analyse the Portrayal of Muslims and Islam in the Media

Next, inform students they will analyse the portrayal of Muslims and Islam in some news outlets. 

Share the following information with students, explaining that they will be looking at specific news examples: 

The Centre for Media Monitoring’s report on the British media’s coverage of Muslims and Islam between 2018 and 2020 found the following: ²

• Almost 60% of online articles across all publications were identified as associating negative aspects and behaviour with Muslims or Islam.
• Over one in five online articles had a primary focus on terrorism/extremism.
• 47% of all clips on TV news broadcasts showed Muslims and/or Islam in a manner which presented negative aspects and/or behaviour.

Then, before you ask students to engage with the news content using the Big Paper teaching strategy, share the ‘Neanderthal Interbreeding’ ³ example  (slide 18 of the PowerPoint Addressing Islamophobia in the Media). This is partly to model the activity and partly to set the tone for when students connect with this news content independently.

Give students a few moments simply to observe the content. Then, lead them through the following prompts, calling on different students for each prompt to allow for an array of ideas to be contributed:

1. Which part of the content catches your eye?
2. Which part of the content raises a question for you?
3. How does the content depict Islam and/or Muslims? 
4. Which, if any, literary devices are deployed in the content?
5. Which, if any, Islamophobic trope(s) might this image promote?

Explain to students that this content promotes Islamophobic ideas in several ways. The article is about how Neanderthal interbreeding created genes that put people at greater risk from COVID-19. By choosing to use an image of a woman in the niqab, the article is dehumanising the Muslim woman and implying she represents this primitive and detrimental behaviour. As the media analyst Faisal Hanif points out, ‘an image of a primate would have been more apt for this story’. ⁴ This image choice reinforces the narrative that Muslim women in niqabs, or other head coverings, are an ‘other’ and are a threat to Western society. It is also important to note that despite the fact that very few women (between 0.003% and 0.01%) ⁵ in European countries wear the burqa or the niqab, media coverage of Muslim women often uses these images. 

Next, ask students to engage with the rest of the news content contained in the PowerPoint Addressing Islamophobia in the Media using the Big Paper teaching strategy.

Students should circulate to the different images and silently respond to them, using the following questions to guide their thinking:

1. Which part of the content catches your eye?
2. Which part of the content raises a question for you?
3. How does the content depict Islam and/or Muslims? 
4. Which, if any, literary devices are deployed in the content?
5. Which, if any, Islamophobic trope(s) might this image promote?

After students have analysed all of the newspaper content, lead a class discussion using the following questions, revealing them one by one:

1. Do you notice any themes or patterns in this group of Islamophobic newspaper extracts?
2. How does this news content appeal to people’s emotions and fears? 
3. Which Islamophobic tropes are promoted in each example?
4. How do you think these examples impact those who view them? How might they shape their world view?

Have you ever seen any news content like this? If so, where?

Activity 4 Reflect on the Impact of the Negativity Bias

Next, ask students to reflect on the following prompt in their journals before inviting students to share thoughts with the class: 

Humans have a negativity bias. According to researchers Soroka and McAdams, ‘people are more reactive and attentive to negative news than they are to positive news’ and ‘negative news content is likely to have a greater, and possibly more enduring, impact than positive news content’. ⁶ It is thought that this negativity bias had evolutionary benefits: ‘the potential costs of negative information far outweigh the potential benefits of positive information’. ⁷ In a world of constant media coverage, however, this bias can have detrimental consequences.

1. What detrimental consequences might this negativity bias have? 
2. Given the portrayal of Muslims in the media, how might this bias impact how people view Muslims and their treatment? 
3. What does it suggest about the idea that positive news stories can counter negative ones? 
4. What does it suggest about how we should approach our consumption of the news? 

• 1Todd H. Green, The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015), pp. 234–5.
• 2CfMM Report “British Media’s Coverage of Muslims and Islam (2018-2020)” Launched.
• 3This example has been taken from Hanif, British Media’s Coverage of Muslims and Islam (2018-2020), pp.150–2.
• 4Ibid., p. 151.
• 5Ibid., p. 150.
• 6Soroka and McAdams, ‘News, Politics, and Negativity’, Political Communication.
• 7Stuart Soroka, ‘Why do we pay more attention to negative news than to positive news?’, LSE, 25 May 2015.

Activity 1 Reflect on Film as an Art Medium

Inform students that they will start reflecting on Islamophobia in the film industry.

Share the following prompts, asking students to respond to the questions in their journals:

‘Of all art forms, film is the one that gives the greatest illusion of authenticity, of truth.’

  –Annette Insdorf, film historian ¹

1. How far do you agree with Insdorf’s statement? Explain your view.
2. Why do you think Insdorf might come to this conclusion?
3. What are the potential benefits to this illusion of authenticity?
   • What are the potential drawbacks?
4. What can this ‘illusion of authenticity’ mean about the impact of film? 

Invite students to share their responses in pairs or by leading a short class discussion.

Activity 2 Discuss Muslim Representation in the Film Industry 

Next, explain to students that they will be reflecting on the representation of Muslims in the film industry. 

Inform students that Muslims make up 6.5% of the UK population and 24% of the world’s population. Then, share the following statistics taken from a report that surveyed Muslim representation in the 200 top-grossing films released between 2017 and 2019 from the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand: ²

• 1.6% of the nearly 9,000 speaking characters were Muslim.  
• 23.6% of Muslim characters were female. 
• 90.5% of 200 films did not feature one Muslim speaking character.
• The Muslim characters were mainly portrayed in other places (46% were portrayed in the Middle East/Africa).
• 4.4% of Muslim characters, or 6 characters across all 200 films, filled primary roles.
• 53.7% of primary and secondary Muslim characters were targets of violence.
• 39% of primary and secondary Muslim characters were perpetrators of violence.
• Muslim characters are rendered ‘foreign’ or ‘other’. Of 41 primary and secondary Muslim characters:
  • 58.5% were immigrants, migrants, or refugees;
  • 87.8% spoke no English or spoke with an accent;
  • 75.6% wore clothes related to their faith.

Once students have reviewed the statistics, invite them to consider the following questions independently before inviting some students to share their responses with the class: 

1. Which statistic(s) most stand(s) out to you? Why?
2. What do you find surprising and/or troubling about these statistics? 
3. How might the way in which Muslims are portrayed/their lack of portrayal impact how people in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand view Muslims? 
4. How, if at all, do your reflections on Annette Insdorf’s statement – ‘Of all art forms, film is the one that gives the greatest illusion of authenticity, of truth’ – impact how you view these statistics?

Activity 3 Consider the Impacts of Islamophobia in Film

Next, show the talk by the actor Riz Ahmed called Muslim Representation in Film to help students reflect on the experiences of Muslims in the film industry. If you are limited for time, show students from 0:22 to 7:18. 

Invite students to take notes on the talk and on anything that particularly strikes them. If desired, you might also show students the questions before they watch the talk, to prime them on what to look out for.

After students have watched the talk, ask them to discuss some or all of the following questions in pairs or groups before leading a short class discussion (if you are pushed  for time, you may want to remove some of the questions before showing them to the class): 

1. What information shared in the talk did you find surprising and/or troubling? Why?
2. How does the Islamophobic trope of terrorism impact Riz Ahmed and his experiences in his work life and in his personal life? 
3. What three stages of representation for ethnic minorities in film does Ahmed identify? 
   • Have you seen these stages of representation in any films/TV shows you have watched? 
4. Ahmed states ‘Progress is not linear and it is not inevitable’. 
   • What evidence do you see in the world around you to support/undermine his statement? 
   • What does his statement suggest about what needs to be done to counter Islamophobia? 
5. Inspired by a speech on media diversity that Ahmed delivered to the House of Commons in 2017, two individuals unconnected to Ahmed launched The Riz Test:
   
   For a film to pass The Riz Test, the responses to all of the following questions must be no: 
   If the film/TV show stars at least one character who is identifiably Muslim (by ethnicity, language or clothing), is the character:
   • Talking about, the victim of, or the perpetrator of terrorism?
   • Presented as irrationally angry?
   • Presented as superstitious, culturally backwards or anti-modern?
   • Presented as a threat to a Western way of life?
   • If the character is male, is he presented as misogynistic? Or if female, is she presented as oppressed by her male counterparts?

   • How many films/TV shows have you seen that have passed The Riz Test?

6. At the end of the talk, Ahmed states: ‘It’s something that has to be changed and it’s something that we can’t change on our own. It’s a structural problem [...] [W]hat rewrites the rules isn’t exceptions [...] it’s when the oppressed and the oppressors, whether they’re aware of being oppressors or aware of their complicity in the oppression or not join hands, open their eyes and make a solemn commitment to take some concrete steps’.
   • What is Ahmed saying that can be done to counter Islamophobia in the entertainment industry? 
   • What do you think can be done to counter Islamophobia in the media in general?

Activity 4 Reflect on What Shapes Responses to Muslims/Islam

Next, invite students to discuss the following prompt and questions in pairs, revealing the questions one by one:

In 2012, journalist and former Yemeni Minister of Information Nadia Al-Sakkaf took part in a talk called ‘See Yemen through my eyes’ in which she discussed the limited representation of Yemen in Western media, explaining that it often focused on stereotypes and did not provide audiences with a real knowledge or understanding of the country and its inhabitants. Towards the end of the talk, paraphrasing a known phrase, she stated:

‘You fear what you don’t know, and you hate what you fear.’ ³

1. How far do you agree with Al-Sakkaf’s statement? Explain your view.
2. What does her statement suggest about ways that hatred can be challenged? 
3. Dalia Mogahed, director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, provides a different perspective: 

‘I reject the idea that people fear what they don’t know [...]. They don’t fear what they don’t know. They fear what they have been taught to fear.’

• Whose statement do you agree with more? Explain your view.
• How has learning about Islamophobia in the media shaped your response? 

If there is time, invite some students to share their thoughts and/or summarise their pair’s discussion with the class. 

• 1 Annette Insdorf, professor of film studies, in an interview screened in the documentary Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust by Daniel Anker, 2004.
• 2Khan, Pieper et al., Missing & Maligned: The Reality of Muslims in Popular Global Movies.
• 3Nadia Al-Sakkaf, See Yemen through my eyes, TED-Ed, 26 December 2021, accessed 6 February 2023.