Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Bc. Eva Klepárníková

Ethnicity in the Media

Master‟s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: PhDr. Jitka Vlčková, Ph.D.

2012

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Author‟s signature

Acknowledgement

I would like to express many thanks to my supervisor PhDr. Jitka Vlčková, Ph.D. for her valuable advice and kind support and to all my friends who helped me with the survey.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction...... 5

2. Ethnicity...... 6

3. Ethnicity and Religion...... 9

4. Ethnicity in the USA...... 11

5. Media...... 16

6. Ethnicity in the Media in the U.S...... 18

6.1 U.S. Media Policy...... 21

6.2 Role of the Media...... 23

6.2.1 Role of the Media in 9/11 and the Start of Anti-Muslim Rhetoric...... 26

6.2.2 Arab Americans and Muslim Americans and the New York Times...... 29

6.2.3 Arab Americans and Muslim Americans and the CNN...... 38

6.2.4. Ethnic Media…………………………………………………………………40

7. Movies in the U.S. ……………………………………………………………....45

7.1 Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in the Movies……………………….47

8. Research………………………………………………………………………….53

8.1 First Group……………………………………………………………………...55

8.2 Second Group…………………………………………………………………..57

8.3 Third Group…………………………………………………………………….60

8.4 Second Fake Article…………………………………………………………….62

9. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….64

10. Abstract…………………………………………………………………………68

11. Resumé…………………………………………………………………………69

12. Citations………………………………………………………………………...71

1. Introduction

The objectives of my thesis are to analyze the depiction of different ethnic groups in the media and to prove the influence of the structure of the news on the perception of different ethnic groups. The main attention is focused on the depiction of the Arab Americans and Muslim Americans and Arabs and Muslims in general in the media. I have analyzed the tendencies in the depiction of the life attitude, character and behaviour of these ethnic groups. Both present and past situation in the United States of

America and especially the situation before and after 11 September, 2001 have been analyzed. I have covered mainly newspapers and films, but I also examples from TV news are included. The major idea of my thesis as well as of my research is to demonstrate the way news is structured and what images are shown to us in the movies and how these things influence our everyday perception of ethnicity and how they support common stereotypes connected with race and religion. My thesis attempts to prove that our understanding of different ethnicities is not only influenced, but even created by the image given by the media. Therefore, we tend to associate different ethnic groups with what we know from the media and, if a certain ethnic group is presented in a restricted way, then our perception is limited as well. There were many investigations conducted in the field of media and ethnicity but most of them only analyze the way media depict ethnic groups but not the influence of these images on our own perception of different ethnic groups.

I have divided my thesis into two parts. First, theoretical part is dealing mainly with the general idea of ethnicity, several theoretical approaches on this topic, policies of the broadcasting networks and newspapers and also the importance of religion as one of the basic elements of ethnicity. I am comparing the role of media in past decades and nowadays. My research has been focused on the situation in the media before and after

5 the terrorist attacks on 11 September, 2001. These terrorist attacks seem to be one of the most documented events in the history and the way they were documented (words and images used) greatly influenced the general attitude towards Arab and Muslim

Americans and Arabs and Muslims in general. I am also analyzing major ethnic clashes in the USA in the 20th and 21st century and their reflection in the media.

Second, practical part is based both on examples of articles from the New York

Times and also on my survey among 300 native speakers, all students of Northeastern

University in Boston. Apart from these, I am also analyzing the way U.S. cinema portrays Arabs and Muslims and show real factual examples. For my survey, I have created a questionnaire containing two fake news stories and asked the respondents to describe their reaction to them. From their answers, I analyzed the way the structure and words used in the news stories influenced respondents‟ perception of ethnicity, race and religion. The analysis of major Hollywood films, depicting Muslims and Arabs living in the United States, discusses both the examples of stereotypical and inaccurate depiction as well as realistic movies. Similarly, several articles from the New York Times concerning the situation among Arab and Muslim Americans after the 11 September,

2001 were studied.

2. Ethnicity

The term ethnicity should be discussed preferentially, because it is the main element of my thesis. In this chapter, I explore mainly the history of ethnic groups and also conflicts connected with ethnicity. The importance of understanding the term ethnicity is crucial for my research, because we learn about the problems of ethnic communities mainly from media and this image might not be completely accurate.

Therefore, I want to outline the general problems of ethnic groups which should be taken into account whenever we deal with ethnicity in connection with media.

Although the term „ethnicity‟ is recent, the sense of kinship, group solidarity, and common culture to which it refers is as old as the historical record. Ethnic communities have been presented in every period and continent, and have played an important role in all societies. The sense of a common ethnicity remains a major focus of identification by individuals. Ethnic community and identity are often associated with conflict, particularly with political struggles in various parts of the world.

However, there is no essential connection between ethnicity and conflict, and relations may in fact be peaceful and cooperative. Unfortunately, the role of media strengthens the idea of conflict (Hutchinson 4).

In history, ethnic groups remained passive – although they were recognized communities they were of no political importance but with the appearance of the modern bureaucratic state and capitalism, ethnic communities take on a new political significance. In the modern rational state there was no room for an ethnic autonomy that conflicted with the requirement for all citizens to integrate into the new national state.

The new ideologies of political nationalism required all the members of a „nation-state‟ to be united and homogenous, and this produced new conflicts in most states which were composed of several ethnic communities (Hutchinson 11). Ethnicity has also become allied to issues of race especially in the so-called plural societies (e.g. USA).

Some states and regimes have gone even further, and employed racist ideologies to harden cultural cleavages so as to exclude and dehumanize minorities on the basis of colour, culture, religion, and physical stereotypes. This has brought about a century of forced population transfers, mass murder, and genocide. Even without racist categorization, ethnicity in the context of the modern state frequently provides the basis

7 for conflicts over the distribution of resources, with grave regional and geopolitical consequences (Hutchinson 121).

In the third millennium, the prospects for ethnicity are uncertain. On one hand, the homogenizing tendencies of advanced industrialism and nationalism leave little space for „sub-national‟ identities. Globalization, economic and cultural, tends to reduce ethnicity to the folkloristic margins of society; neither the multinationals nor mass electronic communications have any regard for ethnic or national boundaries

(Fenton 134). Thus, globalization does have the power to contest and dislocate national identities, in that it has a pluralizing impact, opening up new possibilities and positions of identification. But its general impact is highly contradictory, as different groups, let alone individuals, respond in a range of different ways to the diversification and concomitant politicisation of identity. Identities are in transition, involved in a multiplicity of crossovers and mixes (Gillespie 190). There is the argument that post- industrial, polyethnic states, particularly in immigrant societies like the USA, must develop purely civic identities and symbols if they are to remain democratic and secure the loyal participation of all their members. On the other hand, advances in electronic communications and information technology provide „sub-national‟ groups with dense cultural networks (Fenton 146).

When presented with certain Ethnic group there is often the connotation of ethnic movement. Ethnic movements have multiple functions for people in the society.

They are instruments for political pressure and rectification of historic wrongs and means of providing personal and collective identity. Even globalization may act to strengthen ethnic identities and differences (Hutchinson 346). Attempts to face national stereotypes in immigrant societies like the United States and Canada have also run into difficulties. Promotion of a civic, multi-cultural myth of immigrant nations has instead

8 served to provoke an ethnic backlash among sections of the core ethnic population

(Hutchinson 352).

Evidently, forced suppression of ethnic identities causes backlashes similarly as strong promotion of multi-cultural myth. The only „right‟ strategy seems to be the development of purely civic identities but even this strategy does not solve all the problems. It should be stressed that there is no ideal or perfect solution to ethnical problems.

3. Ethnicity and Religion

Ethnicity is quite clearly associated with religion and sometimes ethnicity is even confused with religion. In the case of Arab and Muslim Americans the problem is quite clear. Arabs are often referred to as Muslims although these two terms should be distinguished because Arab represents ethnicity but Muslim represents religion and not all Arabs have to be Muslims and not all Muslims have to be Arabs. Nonetheless, these two terms are often used in combination because, as it was stated above, ethnicity frequently provides the basis for conflicts and religion is often used as one of the impulses. In the following chapter, I would like to show the importance of religion for ethnicity and also describe the meaning and functions of fundamentalism and its great power. I would like to describe the term nationalism as opposed to the term fundamentalism, because these two terms are often used as examples of modern and archaic societies. While Arab and Muslim countries are often associated with fundamentalism, advanced countries (e.g. USA) are often associated with nationalism.

Therefore, Arab and Muslim Americans who were not born in the USA and might be used to certain types of fundamentalism, then feel pushed and oppressed by the demands of nationalism.

We make distinction between the „Great‟ religions (Hinduism, Islam,

Christianity, etc.) and the so-called „lesser‟ religions (animism, eclectic folk versions of the Great religions, etc.). The kind of religion as part of an ethnic group‟s communal package will determine how porous the ethnic boundaries are, how capable a group is of withstanding outside pressures to assimilate, and how prone the group will be to absorb outsiders through intermarriage or conversion (Hutchinson 198).

Ethnic loyalty does not appear to be lessened when groups are distinguished by certain differences rather than by major religious confessional orientations. Interethnic hostility, however, may be particularly discriminating when each ethnic group is convinced that its own interpretation of the basic theology is correct while the other‟s is not. Moreover, when the religious beliefs of two ethnic groups are relatively close the other differences may become especially important since they are necessary for boundary maintenance (Hutchinson 199).

One of the most important problems associated with Arabs and Muslims when presented in the media is fundamentalism. Therefore, it is important to understand the elements of fundamentalism and its importance for some Muslims. When talking about the events of 9/11 we are often presented with the problems of fundamentalistic Islam but its meaning and importance is hardly ever explained. It seems probable that an impartial visitor would see ethnic exclusiveness and conflict, xenophobia and fundamentalism as aspects of the same general phenomenon. Nevertheless there is one important distinction. Fundamentalism, whatever its religious version, provides a detailed and concrete programme for both individuals and society, even if it is one selected from texts or traditions whose suitability for the twenty-first century is not quite clear. Moreover, while fundamentalism can, at least to some extent, appeal to what remains of genuine custom and tradition or past practise as embodied in religious

10 practise, nationalism in itself is either hostile to the real ways of the past, or arises on its ruins. On the other hand nationalism has one advantage over fundamentalism. Its very vagueness and lack of programmatic content gives it a potentially universal support within its own community. Except in genuinely traditional societies reacting against the initial impact of modernity, fundamentalism appears to be, universally, a minority phenomenon. This may be concealed either by the power of regime which impose it on their peoples, whether they like it or not (as in Iran), or by the capacity of fundamentalist minorities to mobilize strategically placed votes effectively in democratic systems, as in the USA (Hutchinson 357-358).

4. Ethnicity in the USA

USA is considered as a great example of ethic country which is composed of people of many different ethnical backgrounds and races. However, as mentioned above, mixing of ethnicity brings about problems and conflicts. Therefore, in the following chapter I would like to describe the history of ethnical clashes in the USA. It seems that every period in modern U.S. history had its own „enemy‟ and nowadays these enemies are Arab and Muslim Americans. This idea of common enemy in the

USA is often reflected in the movies where the „bad guys‟ are often this common enemies of the USA. I would also like to add concrete numbers defining the number of citizens in the USA belonging to certain ethnic groups and major religious traditions in the U.S. as this shows the concrete number Muslims living in the USA.

Contestation over otherness – in the form of ethnicity and national identity – arose in the U.S. during World War I, culminating in the Red Scare of the 1920‟s. The demonization of immigrant-otherness became a mean of strengthening solidarity among

Anglo-Saxons, at a time when their cohesiveness was being challenged internally.

Against the discourse of Americanization, Randolph Bourne, the radical social critic, put forward a opposing talk of “trans-nationalism” to challenge both the ideas of 100%

Americanism and cultural pluralism, and to propose a new conception of American identity that was both ethnic and modern, American and cosmopolitan (Fender 443-

444).

Although USA is a typical example of ethnic or immigrant country there has always been present the idea of common enemy. During World War I, the public enemies were obviously Germans and this resulted into severe clashes with immigrants of German origin (Downing). Between the wars there was the period of Red Scare which refers to fear of communism in the USA and this brought about “Red hunting” and persecutions of people who communicated any leftist views. During World War II, the common intolerance turned to immigrants of Japanese origin and the notorious concentration camps are still considered a blot on the U.S. past (Downing). After World

War II, came the period so called “Second Red Scare” which lasted from 1945 until

1960‟s. This period as well as the following Cold War resulted in another wave of fear of communism. There were accusations of government officials, actors and other people of being communists (Downing). The post-Cold War period was hailed as an era of global peace and economic prosperity; a triumph of market capitalism and of globalization of Western democracy. One major political development of the post-Cold

War era was the replacement of communism as the pre-eminent threat to Western interests with a radicalized Islam. In this version of international politics, influenced by the discourse of the clash of civilizations and strengthened by the events of 11

September 2001, militant Islam represents characteristics that are inimical to a modern, secular and rational market-democracy (Thussu 2).

On one hand, this image of common enemy was influenced by political situation and politicians themselves but on the other by nationalism. American identity has always been inseparably related to questions of its ethnic origins. Depending partly on when one dates its founding, America‟s national identity is determined either to be ethnically pure, a mixed amalgam of different races and nationalities, or a mixed and fundamentally unmeltable entity. At stake in the debates over immigration and assimilation was the centrality of ethnicity to American identity itself. According to some scholars, American nationalism that did not take account of the diverse origins and multiple experiences of its members was a hoax. A nationalism that ignored immigration, an experience common to all Americans, failed to appreciate what it meant to be an American, a product of not one but several cultures (Fender 444).

Nowadays, USA is a multicultural country with more than 20 ethnic communities. Therefore, I have included a table (below) showing the racial and ethnical distribution in the U.S. in the last census in 2010 according to the United States Census

Bureau. It is important to realize that almost one third of U.S. population consider themselves to be of non-white origin and to belong to certain ethnic group. As you can see the total number of inhabitants is about three hundred million (current population:

313,338,921) citizens which makes the U.S. the third most populous country in the world. It is a very urbanized population, with 82% residing in cities. There were about

155.6 million females and 151.4 million males in 2010. Each of the categories includes people who identify their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino. People who identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino can be of any race but classify themselves in one of the categories listed on the questionnaire as “Mexican”, “Puerto Rican”, “Cuban” as well as “other Spanish”, “Hispanic” or “Latino”. The Arab Americans consider themselves either as Asian or Black but it was estimated that there are about 1.7 million

Arabs in the USA which is about 0.5 per cent (2010 Census Data). This is mainly important in connection with the data about religion which is presented in table below the one with the U.S. population‟s distribution.

The U.S. population's distribution by race and ethnicity in 2010 was as follows: Percentage of Race / Ethnicity Number U.S. population Americans 308,745,538 100.0 % White 223,553,265 72.4 % Black or African American 38,929,319 12.6 % American Indian or Alaska Native 2,932,248 0.9 % Non-Hispanic Asian 14,674,252 4.8 % Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander 540,013 0.2 % Some Other Race 19,107,368 6.2 % Two or more races 9,009,073 2.9 % Not Hispanic or Latino 258,267,944 83.7 % Non-Hispanic White 196,817,552 63.7 % Non-Hispanic Black or African American 37,685,848 12.2 % Non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native 2,247,098 0.7 % Non-Hispanic Asian 14,465,124 4.7 % Non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander 481,576 0.2 % Non-Hispanic Some Other Race 604,265 0.2 % Non-Hispanic Two or more races 5,966,481 1.9 % Hispanic or Latino 50,477,594 16.3 % White Hispanic 26,735,713 8.7 % Black or African American Hispanic 1,243,471 0.4 % American Indian or Alaska Native Hispanic 685,150 0.2 % Asian Hispanic 209,128 0.1 % Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander Hispanic 58,437 0.0 % Some Other Race Hispanic 18,503,103 6.0 % Two or more races Hispanic 3,042,592 1.0 % Total 308,745,538 100.0%

Table 1: The U.S. population's distribution by race and ethnicity in 2010 (2010 Census

Data)

In the next table, you can see the major religious traditions in the U.S. and the percentage of concrete ethnic groups belonging to them. I have included this table because, as it was stated above, religion is one of the major attributes of ethnicity and sometimes these two are mistaken. As you can see Muslims are in minority in the USA in comparison with Christianity. It was surveyed that there is only about 400,000

Muslims in the USA which in comparison with 1.7 million Arabs shows that a vast majority of Arab Americans are not Muslim, which contradicts the image given by the media where all Arab Americans are presented as Muslims or vice versa. But this conclusion is not completely correct because also people of other ethnic origin may belong to Muslim religion but it is considered that these are only few individuals rather than hundreds of people (2010 Census Data).

On the left side of the table you can see the type of religion and on the top the ethnic background.

Religion White Black Asian Other/mixed Latino Christian 78% 85% 45% 69% 84% Protestant 53% 78% 27% 51% 23% Catholic 22% 5% 17% 14% 58% Mormon 2% 0% 1% 2% 1% Jehovah's Witness 0% 1% 0% 1% 1% Orthodox 1% 0% 0% 1% 0% Other 0% 0% 0% 1% 0% Other religions 5% 2% 30% 9% 2% Jewish 2% 0% 0% 1% 0% Muslim 0% 1% 4% 1% 0% Buddhist 1% 0% 9% 1% 0% Hindu 0% 0% 14% 1% 0% Other world religions 0% 0% 2% 0% 0% Other faiths 1% 0% 1% 5% 0% Unaffiliated 17% 13% 25% 22% 15% Table 2: Major Religious Traditions in the U.S. (Statistics on Religion in America)

5. Media

Media play an immense role in our everyday life. In this chapter, I want to describe the history of media and its great growth to its present state. Most importantly,

I would like to stress the role of media in constructing ethnic and cultural identities and the problem of globalization. I would also like to add some nonconformist theories about the media like the one of Jean Baudrillard and other postmodernists.

Communication scholars like to say that mediated forms of communication – everything from smoke signals to the internet – reduce space as a barrier to communication. One of the great advantages of mediated communication over face-to- face conversation is that it can take place over distances much greater than the unaided human voice can be heard. In this sense the notion that the world has become a „global village‟ is surely right (Thussu 30-31).

The media and cultural consumption – the production, „reading‟ and use of representations – play a key role in constructing and defining, contesting and reconstituting national, „ethnic‟ and other cultural identities. One of the arguments about the role of media in the constriction of national identities from the historical perspective is that „print capitalism‟ was instrumental in forging the „imagined community‟ of the nation. According to some analysis the changed relations of time and space brought about by the Industrial Revolution, especially by the print media and most particularly by the newspaper, led to a heightened awareness of the „steady, anonymous, simultaneous experience‟ of communities of readers. The earliest newspapers connected people to the idea of a nation, and mass ritual and ceremony of reading the newspaper continues to contribute to the construction of an idea of the national community. If this is true of the newspaper, then it is yet mote true of the contemporary regulation of simultaneous experience through broadcast media schedules, perhaps especially as

16 regards the evening broadcast news on TV. New developments in media are arguably lessening the importance of geopolitical borders and spatial and temporal boundaries, and so threatening the vitality and significance, even the viability of national cultures.

The implications of these developments are much discussed in terms of postmodernism and globalisation (Gillespie 11-12).

Globalization is often viewed and named as Americanization, Westernization, or more colloquial, McDonaldization, Coca-Colanization, or Disneyfication. It is often suggested that the collective identities are easily transformed, and further, that we are living in an age of cultural convergence or homogenization, that the media globalization is leading to the formation of a singular global culture. But as Ulf Hannerz and John

Tomlinson, among many others, have argued, the evidence of global media flows and the manner in which media are interpreted and used suggest a far more nuanced and complex picture of cultural interaction than can be inferred from the master term imperialism (Thussu 32).

French postmodernist sociologist Jean Baudrillard, who commented on Gulf

War, said that the whole war was just an act of media which did not happen in reality

(Baudrillard). This is a great example of the media threatening not only the significance of cultures but our own perception of reality. He also comments on the violence in media nowadays: “Particularly in the case of all professional of press-images which testify of the real events. In making reality, even the most violent, emerge to the visible, it makes the real substance disappear. It is like the Myth of Eurydice: when Orpheus turns around to look at her, she vanishes and returns to hell. That is why, the more exponential the marketing of images is growing the more fantastically grows the indifference towards the real world. Finally, the real world becomes a useless function, a collection of phantom shapes and ghost events. We are not far from the silhouettes on

17 the walls of the cave of Plato. A wonderful model of this forced visibility is Big Brother and all similar programs, reality shows, soaps etc. Just there; where everything is given to be seen there is nothing left to be seen. It is the mirror of platitude, of banality, of the zero degree of everyday life. There is the place of a fake sociality, a virtual sociality where the Other is desperately out of reach - this very fact illuminating perhaps the fundamental truth that the human being is not a social being. Move over in all these scenarii the televisual public is mobilized as spectator and judged as become itself Big

Brother. The power of control and transvisuality has shifted to the silent majorities themselves.” (Baudrillard).

Other postmodernists argue that the acceleration of communications, and the associated time-space compression, have radically affected the transmission of social; values, meanings and identities. One of the characteristics is said to be that social identities are increasingly marked by fragmentation, multiplicity, plurality and indeterminacy. Our perceptions of self and other have been changed by the consumer lifestyle, by the constant stream of TV images and by the media‟s power (Gillespie 12-

13).

6. Ethnicity in the Media in the U.S.

Ethnicity is portrayed by the media in several different ways. Usually, media show certain ethnic groups in common stereotypical ways, nonetheless, in the previous years there have been tendencies to show ethnicity in more natural and realistic way, mainly in the movies. Although the stereotypical image offered by the media is firmly anchored in our minds, in the modern changing world where nations are becoming more and more multicultural we tend to look for something new and genuine.

In this chapter, the history of media in the U.S. is briefly introduced and also they huge impact on American society. There are mentioned the most influential and most watched TV networks in the USA. As I am dealing with the ethnicity in the media, it is important to find out about history of the media and its development. It is also important to realize that media are important element of American economy and, therefore, full-functioning and money making media are indispensable for the U.S. economy. Another important factor is that media reach about 90 per cent of the U.S. population and, therefore, their influence is immense (The Media in the United States).

U.S. media have travelled a long road since the first newspaper was published in Boston, Massachusetts in 1690. Within 50 years, magazines also began appearing in several major American cities. The first commercial radio at the beginning of the 20th century ended print's monopoly of the media in America, giving nationwide and, later, global audiences access to live audio programs. Television, an even more powerful medium, entered the scene shortly after World War II. Defying predictions of their decline, the other media have diversified to confront television's dominant appeal.

Satellite technology has allowed U.S. TV networks, especially cable networks, to reach overseas audiences anywhere on the globe. Interactive media, fuelled by the advance of digital technology and the growing importance of the Internet and the convergence of the computer, telephone and cable television, represent the principal trend of the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries (The Media in the United States).

The print and electronic media in the United States, offering wide news and entertainment options, are a pervasive element not only in American society. According to a recent survey by Mediamark Research (2011), 98% of Americans have a television;

82% of those watch "prime time" and 71% watch cable programming in an average week. 84% percent of Americans listen to radio regularly. 79% percent are newspaper

19 readers. 45% percent of the whole American population has access to the Internet, while for certain demographic groups that percentage reaches a high of close to 70% (The

Media in the United States). This means that media may affect a huge number of population.

Economics plays a major role in shaping the information served up to the U.S. public in newspapers, on radio and television, and now on the Internet. While non-profit and advocacy organizations have significant voices, most of the public's primary sources of information - major urban newspapers, the weekly news magazines, and the broadcast and cable networks - are in business to make money. Media and communications, with revenues of over $242 billion, are one of America's largest business groups. In 2000, adult consumers of media information and amusement products spent over $675 a person. Advertisers spent an additional $215 billion to bring their products to the attention of the American public. The media are a great engine in

American society, providing jobs for hundreds of thousands of technicians, writers, artists, performers and intellectuals and shaping attitudes and beliefs (The Media in the

United States).

It is clear that the media‟s power is immense but it also important to remark what are the most watched and, therefore, the most influential U.S. TV networks. There are four major over-air broadcast networks in the U.S. which are also the most watched

TV channels in the United States. These are ABC (American Broadcasting Company),

CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (National Broadcasting Company) and

Fox (Fox Broadcasting Company). Generally, depending on the time of the year these networks take turns at the position of the most watched TV channel, because of the shows like American Idol or reality shows which are only short-term programmes and, therefore, watched only over shorter period of time. On the other hand, when it comes

20 to evening news all these four major networks capture nearly the same number of viewers every day (List of Most-Watched Television Broadcasts). Apart from these four there is CNN (Cable News Network) which is also one of the most-watched and most influential TVs but it is a cable TV not over air TV. It is actually the Anglo-American connection that dominates the supply of global TV news today. It made itself visible mostly during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when it brought news twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. AP and Reuters are the two biggest wholesalers of raw audio- visual news material. CNN and BBC are the two most formidable international sources of packaged TV news delivered to viewers (Thussu 32).

As far as the newspapers are concerned, one of the most influential and the most read is the New York Times together with the weekly news magazine Time. I will deal with the New York Times later in this chapter.

6.1 U.S. Media Policy

Each TV network or newspaper has its own policies concerning politics, ethnicity, race, and religion. Generally, all of the major TV networks and newspapers try to remain unbiased and impartial in all situations, however, some of the minor media tend to be more biased or even tabloid. On national scale, there is no act regulating the content of any media but there is a Congress declaration about the U.S. international broadcasting and its standards and principles. Apart from these there are several acts valid for the media. In the following chapter you can find the history of the U.S. media policy and also some details about the Congress declaration of the U.S. international broadcasting.

In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the so-called “Communications

Act of 1934”. The stated purposes of the Act were “regulating interstate and foreign

21 commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, nationwide, and worldwide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority theretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is hereby created a commission to be known as the „Federal Communications Commission‟, which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this Act.” (Communications Act of 1934). As you can see there is no reference to the content of the news because then it would be violation of the First Amendment of the

Constitution of the United States which provides freedom of speech.

This act was replaced in 1949 by the policy of the United States Federal

Communications Commission that became known as the “Fairness Doctrine” which was an attempt to ensure that all coverage of controversial issues by a broadcast station is balanced and fair. According to the doctrine station licensees were “public trustees,” and as such had an obligation to afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues of public importance. The

Commission later held that stations were also obligated to actively seek out issues of importance to their community and air programming that addressed those issues. The doctrine disturbed many journalists, who considered it a violation of First Amendment rights of free speech/free press which should allow reporters to make their own decisions about balancing stories. In order to avoid the requirement to go out and find contrasting viewpoints on every issue raised in a story, some journalists simply avoided any coverage of some controversial issues. This “chilling effect” was just the opposite

22 of what the FCC intended and with the deregulation sweep of the Reagan

Administration during the 1980s, the Commission dissolved the fairness doctrine and in

August, 2011, the FCC formally removed the language that implemented the Doctrine

(Limburg). Although there was an attempt to include a doctrine controlling the content of the news, it was soon abolished and since then until nowadays there is no law controlling or specifying the content of the news.

In 1996, after almost sixty years the Communication Act of 1934 was amended by the Telecommunication Act of 1996. The act represented a major change American telecommunication law, since it was the first time the Internet was included. Later on, in

2006, this act was amended again by the COPE Act of 2006 which was entirely devoted to laws and orders dealing with the Internet (Limburg). All these amendments were specifying only the fees and broadcasting issues but not the content. Although there is no reference to the content of the news in the U.S. code, there is a declaration regulating the U.S. International broadcasting. This declaration is the only regulation of the actual content of the broadcasting in the U.S. Of course it is only appointed to international broadcasting, not national one (United States International Broadcasting). It is important to realize, that the content of the news is not regulated by any political body and, therefore, the use of the words and the distribution of the news is fully dependable on the TV networks and newspapers.

6.2 Role of the Media

In this chapter, I would like to have a look at the role of media in modern society and especially in military actions like war in Afghanistan and Iraq which helped to strengthen the position of media even more. I would also like to mention some conspiracy theories about media supported by many scholars like Noam Chomsky. As it

23 was stated above, media, and especially TV, reaches about 80 per cent of the U.S. population everyday and that is only on the national scale. Therefore, the media influential factor is great and in some events, the media usually create our only notion about the event. Nowadays, thanks to the internet and more advanced ways of communication our access to everyday news is much easier and, therefore, the role of the media has become even bigger but it is important not to exaggerate their role as well.

Nowadays, there is common the „adversarial‟ model for the media which suggests that the investigative reporters and committed journalists force governments to be more open in their justifications and more transparent mainly in their conduct of military operations. According to this logic, the recent expansion in the number of media outlets and volume of news has simply fuelled the „watchdog‟ role of the media.

Increased competition forces reporters to go beyond the handouts and briefings to discover an original story that their rivals may not have discovered. Truth, therefore, becomes an important commodity in the era of rolling news (Thussu 5).

In the most recent history, one of the important „events‟ for the media were the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and following wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is also important to realize the linkage between media and military and also the government. The events after 9/11 have strengthened both the role and position of the media. There is a significant number of examples that appear to support the argument that, for all the occasional tensions, the relationship between media and military remains a close one that impinges on reporter‟s ability to speak independently (Thussu 6). In March 2000,

Alexander Cockburn reported that a handful of military personnel, based in the psychological operations unit at Fort Bragg, were working as regular employees for

CNN and that, according to US Army spokes man, they would have worked on stories

24 during the Kosovo war. They helped in the production news. In the run-up to the planned invasion of Iraq in the late 2002 and 2003, hundreds of US reporters participated in Pentagon-organized programmes that taught journalists basic battlefield survival, military policy and weapons-handling skills. One of the most controversial examples of the convergence between military and media networks was the revelation in November 2002 that Roger Ailes, chairman of the conservative Fox News Channel in the US, had sent a note to President Bush shortly after 9/11 advising him to take “the harshest measure possible” in relation for the attacks (Cockburn).

It has also been argued that an increasingly market-led media largely ignores dissenting voices in favour of corporate and government tunes. This has led to a situation today where mainstream media accepts and reproduces dominant definitions of, for example, terrorism (what others do to us) and self-defence (what we do to others) in order to mobilize popular consent for military action against „rogue states‟. Noam

Chomsky sees the role of the media from even more horrifying point of view. He argued that populations have been effectively depoliticized with daily infusions of nonsense news by a media hell-bent on securing maximum profits. Chomsky accuses the media of indoctrinating the public with what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from destruction (Chomsky 85).

Among scholars of foreign policy and international relations, US dominance in the international flow of media and information is now identified as a strategic asset.

Joseph Nye, has given it a name: „soft power‟. For Nye, „soft power‟ is the ability to get others to want what you want through the expression and demonstration of values that others find worthy of emulation. As Nye says: “Hard power can rest on inducements or

25 threats while soft power co-opts people rather than coerces them. Soft power is more than persuasion or the ability to move people by argument. It is the ability to entice and attract. And attraction often leads to acquiescence or imitation.” (Nye 64).

However, it is important not to exaggerate the ideological grip that the corporate media exert over citizens. In the two countries with perhaps the most extensive

„propaganda‟ system, public opinion has proved to be reluctant to endorse the bombing of Iraq. In January 2003, British opposition to war was running at 47 per cent compared to 30 per cent in favour while in the US, despite an overwhelmingly sympathetic media, only a small majority (52 per cent) were prepared to support George Bush‟s war drive with 43 per cent against (Thussu 8).

As we can see, media play an irreplaceable role in our everyday lives. They are usually the only link between what actually happened and what information is available to us. The choice of the news and also the choice of the format of the news are fully dependable on the broadcasting networks. However, as it was stated above, the role of the media should not be exaggerated.

6.2.1 Role of the Media in 9/11 and the Start of Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

The date September 11 has a powerful resonance in modern history. On 11

September 2001, nineteen hijackers commandeered four civilian aircrafts owned by two major US airlines, and smashed three of them into the World Trade Center and the

Pentagon – nerve centres of US financial and military power – while committing collective suicide.

As images of the World Trade Center tragedy were flashed across the world, incessantly, day in and day out, dozens of commentators indeed compared that event to

Pearl Harbor again and again, until the analogy – the two great and evil attacks on

America - were indelibly inscribed in the minds of viewers, especially within the United

States (Thussu 25). President Bush‟s comments were also shown repeadtedly and sometimes caused waves of indignation - “those who carry out such acts in the name of

Allah blaspheme the name of Allah; they hijack Islam in the name of Islam; in the larger, largely humane world of Islam, they are a dangerous, fringe element.”

(Humphry). But all this was accompanied with hair-raising rhetoric, which tended at times to portray the attacks and also the war as a clash between the Judeo-Christian and

Muslim civilizations. Bush called his „war on terrorism‟ a „crusade‟ early on, with no sense of the historical meaning of that word. Only opposition from a wide spectrum of opinion in the Muslim world made him retract that stance and start saying that the war was not against Islam as such but only against certain Muslims (Thussu 17).

In the aftermath of 9/11, became visible the so called „CNN affect‟ which suggests that in times of policy uncertainty and elite dissensus there may be considerable space for typically marginal actors to influence the framing and interpretation of international events. This rally effect was ever present after 9/11.

Political elites and the American public lined up quickly behind the White House in a moment of intense patriotism. The press went along. TV news networks branded their coverage of 9/11 with screen crawls such as „America Fights Back‟ (CBS), „America‟s

New War‟ (CNN), and „America United‟ (Fox). Anchors and reporters wore flag pins and red, white and blue ribbons, and the cable news networks, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, projected a US flag onto the corner of the screen. Shortly after the attack, CBS anchor

Dan Rather made an emotional appearance on the Late Show with David Latterman.

“George Bush is the President,” said Rather, “he makes the decisions, and, you know, as just one American, if he wants me to line up, just tell me where.” No channel has been more outspokenly patriotic and vehemently in favour of a war effort than Fox News and

27 viewers have responded favourably: its audience is up over 40 per cent in the past year and it now routinely beats CNN for total viewership (Thussu 36).

In the week of 11 September, 2001, after two decades of declining news audiences, increased newspaper readership and skyrocketing ratings for network and cable news, was a relief to many. Professional journalist especially saw it as reassuring evidence that, when it really mattered, Americans still turn to them. This was especially true about cable news network like CNN mentioned above. After 9/11, the Pew

Research Center found, nine in ten Americans were getting their news primarily from

Television – but 45 per cent turned to cable, 30 per cent to the broadcast networks. On the other hand, almost half of all Americans now get news over the internet and over a third of them increased their reliance on online sources after September 11. It was concluded that post 9/11 coverage in American newspapers and televisions heavily favored US positions. In times of national crisis journalists are more likely to act as the voice of the state than as professionals searching out competing perspectives on the day‟s events (Downing 143).

It seems that in dramatic events, such as was the 9/11, media should act as cautiously as possible because of the great availability of the media any unconfirmed or biased news may cause mob hysteria. Great example of this is the unconfirmed news published shortly after the 9/11 attacks which stated that the attacks were committed by

Muslim Arabs although it was still unclear who actually was behind these attacks. This news caused a great wave of hatred and harassment against Arab and Muslim

Americans (Jamal 54).

6.2.2 Arab Americans and Muslim Americans and the New York Times

As it was mentioned above, the idea of common enemy is visibly anchored in

American history and nowadays Arab and Muslim Americans and Arabs and Muslims in general are considered these pubic enemies. In this chapter, I have analyzed the way one of the most influential U.S. newspapers, the New York Times, commented on the events after the 9/11 and what inaccuracies appeared in the articles in connection with

Arab and Muslim Americans. First, there is a brief outline of the way media usually present the Arab and Muslim Americans and Arabs and Muslims in general.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Arabs and Muslims in general and Arab

American and Muslim American citizens by association and by direct action have become increasingly targeted for discriminatory policies and practices in the United

States, fuelled by the „war on terrorism‟ media frenzy. We live in dangerous times, the media and public authorities drum daily. No threat is more imminent than that of Islam, no site more at risk than the American homeland, and no enemy more fearful than the enemy within, we are told (Jamal 229).

Unfortunately, one of the most influential US newspapers and also one of the most influential newspapers in the world, the New York Times (NYT), and some of the most influential TV networks like Fox News, CNN, and NBC narrates Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in ways that enable racial policing by associating them with terrorism and a demonized, globalized Islam. The NYT is widely considered a liberal newspaper, known for advocacy of civil and human rights, therefore such narrative makes it a critical site for examining and representation of Arab Americans and Muslim

Americans in print news media. Since the attacks, Arabs and Muslims have been frequently represented in the U.S. media as “other”. The media have increasingly represented Muslim Americans and Arab Americans as if they are not true members of

29 the USA, not even part of the national community. The marginalization of Arabs and

Muslims prompted the council on American-Islamic relations to place numerous ads in the NYT and other media in the aftermath of 9/11 with photographs of Muslims of all ethnicities and colours, declaring them to be “American” (Jamal 332). While the rhetorical manoeuvres used by the media are at times explicitly racial in their grammar, their organization of racial investments through other categories, such as religion, ethnicity, and nation have the effect of rationalizing religion, ethnicity, and nation

(Jamal 332).

Another problem with the representation of Arabs and Muslims in the media is that they rarely differentiate between “Arab” and “Muslim” as if these terms were both the same. In the newspapers, the titles of the articles often suggest that they are about

Arab Americans but the text concerns non-Arab people. For example, the article by

Matthew Purdy published in the New York Times on September 14, 2001, with a title

“For Arab-Americans, Flag-Flying and Fear”. The title suggests that the story is about

Arab Americans, but the story that follows is about Pakistani Americans. It discusses

Muslims generally, but not the “Arab-Americans” mentioned in the title. The same problem is the use of the word „Muslim‟ meaning Arabs in general although sociologists generally agree that the majority of Arab Americans are Christian (2010

Census Data). Describing events post 9/11 in the same article, Purdy quotes a mosque president speaking about the plane assaults: “I hoped it's not someone from the Muslim community.” Purdy does not make clear why all Arab Americans would necessarily be concerned about the Muslim community. This point needs to be explained because then the Muslim community and Arab Americans are assumed to be one in this article.

Below, you can see the whole article by Matthew Purdy published on 14

September, 2001. The parts mentioned above are written in bold.

For Arab-Americans, Flag-Flying and Fear

By MATTHEW PURDY

Published: September 14, 2001 PATERSON, N.J.— SAMI MERHI came here from Pakistan 27 years ago, and one of his second thoughts when hearing about the attack on the World Trade Center was this: ''I said to myself, truthfully, I hope this is not anybody connected to the Middle East.''

His first thoughts, though, were hardly political. His godson, 28-year-old Jude Safi, worked as a financial analyst on the 104th floor of 1 World Trade Center, and is missing. ''I'm so devastated, it's beyond belief,'' he said. ''You have a tragedy in your home, it's not a time for politics.''

As they have everywhere else, American flags have sprouted up along the strip of Arab-owned stores here since Tuesday. ''It's a contest,'' said one Arab businessman. ''Whose flag is bigger?'' Local Arab leaders issued a statement saying, ''Arabs, like all Americans, are horrified by this tragedy'' and ''are suffering from these despicable acts.'' Some Arabs, like Ibrahim Batca, the owner of a halal slaughterhouse here, have denounced the acts as an affront to their religion, saying, ''Whoever did this is not Muslim, even if they have Muslim names.''

Other Arabs said that they had thoughts similar to those of Mr. Merhi at the first news of terrorism. ''I was praying,'' said Waheed Khalid, a gas station owner and president of the Darul Islah mosque in Teaneck. ''I hoped it's not someone from the Muslim community. But I knew that chances are, it's someone Muslim.''

He had to acknowledge that the World Trade Center was a tip-off. ''I knew it was a very big target for people overseas that engage in these activities,'' he said.

(Purdy)

A similar problem is evident in Laurie Goodstein and Gustav Neibuhr‟s article

“Attacks and Harassment of Arab-Americans Increase” published on 14 September,

2001. The article discusses people of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent, while placing Sikhs, Pakistanis, and Afghans, under the sign „Arab‟. The article‟s title enables readers, who may be unaware of religious, ethnic, national, and geographic distinctions,

31 to associate these different ethnic groups into homogenized Arab American identity.

Another problem with Goodstein and Neibuhr‟s article is the first paragraph: “People of

Middle Eastern and South Asian descent -- or even those who appear to be -- are increasingly becoming the targets of harassment and violence by civilians and of intense scrutiny by police officers under pressure to track down suspects in the terrorist attacks.” (Goodstein). The title of the article makes the reader assume that both people of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent can all be presented as Arab Americans.

Although the article is trying to sympathize with these people and is trying to show the absurdity of the harassment, the fact that it puts all these groups and even those who look like people from this ethnic group under the heading Arab-Americans suggests indifference and lack of interest in these people and their problems.

Another example is the line of one of the article‟s informants, a chief of police in

Providence, who states that four “Arabic males” are being searched out as suspects in relation to 9/11. Naming a suspect group “Arabic males” suggests that males of Arab origin are primarily of suspicion and we are also not told how the search for Arabic males casts suspicion upon all people of Middle Eastern (who are not all Arab) and

South Asian (who are not Arab) descent. In this sense the heading is completely misleading and although it is trying to support the Arab American community, on the contrary, it shows them as all being the same and the fact that the newspapers mention that police questions only the people of Arab origin casts suspicion on all Arab and

Muslim Americans.

Below you can see the whole article by Laurie Goodstein and Gustav Neibuhr published on 14 September, 2001. Parts analyzed above are again written in bold.

Attacks and Harassment of Arab-Americans Increase

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and GUSTAV NIEBUHR

Published: September 14, 2001 People of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent -- or even those who appear to be -- are increasingly becoming the targets of harassment and violence by civilians and of intense scrutiny by police officers under pressure to track down suspects in the terrorist attacks.

From Texas to Chicago to Long Island, there have been reports of arson, personal attacks and the police stopping men in Middle Eastern-style head coverings.

The incidents are increasing despite many interfaith prayer services and calls from President Bush and other officials for the public not to single out anyone because of religion, race or ethnic origin.

The Justice Department has been receiving reports of harassment against Arab- Americans and Americans from South Asia, Attorney General John Ashcroft said at a news conference yesterday, and he added, ''Such reports of violence and threats are in direct opposition to the very principles and laws of the United States and will not be tolerated.''

The president said yesterday, ''We should not hold one who is a Muslim responsible for an act of terror.''

In Denton, Tex., the police are investigating a firebomb attack that damaged the Islamic Society of Denton's mosque early yesterday. In suburban Cleveland, Sukhwant Singh, a Sikh priest who lives at the Guru Gobind Sikh temple, awakened early Wednesday to find bottles filled with gasoline hurled in the temple's windows and flames pouring out. No arrests have been made.

In Louisiana, schools in Jefferson Parish were closed on Wednesday after officials reported that students of Middle Eastern origin were being taunted and harassed.

On Long Island, a market in Smithtown owned by a native of Pakistan was the target of what the police considered a probable arson attack Wednesday morning. In Ronkonkoma, a man was arrested on suspicion of waving a pellet gun and shouting obscenities at a South Asian gas station worker. And in South Huntington on Wednesday night, a man was arrested after the police said he tried to run down a Pakistani woman. The police said he screamed that he was ''doing this for my country.''

Early Wednesday in Manhattan, a Sikh man said he was pounced on by three white men yelling ''terrorist'' at Broadway and 52nd Street. Later in the morning, three Sikh men waiting at Grand Central Terminal for a Connecticut-bound train were stopped and had their bags searched by the police.

Scared, too, are people in New York working at the permanent mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations. Hours after the two airliners slammed into the World Trade Center, the phone at the mission began ringing with death threats, said Haron Amin, a mission spokesman.

Contributing to the problems for some ethnic Americans is that the police are searching for suspects of Middle Eastern and Indian origin.

When an Amtrak train from Boston was stopped in Providence, R.I., on Wednesday, about 10 people were removed, held by the police and questioned for an hour and 40 minutes while the train idled in the station, the police and passengers said.

Sher J. B. Singh, a telecommunications consultant, was one of three Sikh men escorted from the train at gunpoint, handcuffed and questioned about whether he had anything to do with the terrorism. The others held all appeared to be of Arab or South Asian descent, said Mr. Singh and Meera Kumar, a financial services officer at the Ford Motor Company, who was also held by the police.

Col. Richard T. Sullivan, chief of police in Providence, said his department had received a call from police and federal officials in Boston to search for men meeting a specific description. He said those detained included a Hispanic and an African-American. ''They broadcast four Arabic males, so four Arabic males is what we are looking for,'' Colonel Sullivan said. ''It's not ethnic on our part. We were acting on information given to us by other law enforcement agencies.''

(Goodstein)

The second pattern found was that Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are represented in many articles as intimately tied to their country of origin, perhaps more than they are to the United States, and more tied to their countries of origin than are other American immigrant groups. Indeed, there is the implication that Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are more closely affiliated with Arab or Muslim countries in

34 general, regardless of their specific ancestry, than they are to the United States (Jamal

240). One example is Susan Sachs and Blaine Harden‟s article entitled “A family, Both

Arab and Arab American, Divided by a War,” published on 29 October, 2001, where it is said that: “a perceptual chasm that is widening between Arabs and Americans … the pressure under which many Arabs, torn between old family and new flag, must now live.” (Sachs). The idea of difference between Arabs and Americans questions the citizenship of Arab Americans by comparing family and flag. The new flag represents the new, modern, United States, while the Arab family is presented as old almost out-of- date. This use of family/old versus flag/new not only shows the family loyalty as primitive and national loyalty as modern and progressive but also implies that those who continue to hold familial loyalty are suspect citizens. Also the fact that the author uses Arabs vs. Americans instead of Arab Americans vs. the rest of population implies that Arabs are actually not part of the U.S. nation, they are shown as those who still belong to their country of origin rather than to the USA. Actually, sometimes the author uses the words Arab Americans and sometimes just Arabs which makes unclear whether he is referring to Arabs in general or just Arab Americans.

Laurie Goodstein‟s September 12, 2001, article, “In U.S., Echoes of Rift of

Muslims and Jews,” connected the 9/11 attacks to Muslims and Arab Americans, while it linked the events‟ significance to Israel and Palestine. It is also important to note that

“there was no definitive information yet about who was behind the terrorist attacks that struck New York City and Washington yesterday,” (Goodstein) which clearly shows that all aggression against Arab Americans was caused only by the speculations of the media that the terrorist attacks were committed by Muslim Arabs. Although the article itself stresses that that there was no definite information available at that time, it also links the attacks with Israel – Palestine problem and by doing so it indirectly suggests

35 that the attacks were actually committed by the Muslim Arabs. Also the connection between the attacks and Israel – Palestine conflict as suggested by the American Jews is absolutely irrational and implies that the people involved in the Israel – Palestine conflict are somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Therefore, it should be stated in the article that such assumptions are illegitimate. This shows that the common wave of antipathy against Arab and Muslim Americans was may be intentionally, may be unintentionally supported by the public media and this contributed to the general, negative view of Arabs and Muslims.

Below, you can again see both articles mentioned above. First is the article by

Laurie Goodstein “In U.S., Echoes of Rift of Muslims and Jews,” published on

September 12, 2001 and second is the article by Susan Sachs and Blaine Harden “A family, Both Arab and Arab American, Divided by a War,” published on 29 October,

2001. All the important points mentioned above are again written in bold.

In U.S., Echoes of Rift of Muslims and Jews

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: September 12, 2001 Muslim women in headscarves were advised to stay indoors. Mosques and Muslim schools in Los Angeles were shut down, and Muslim leaders in Michigan and other states reported receiving telephone threats.

Even though there was no definitive information yet about who was behind the terrorist attacks that struck New York City and Washington yesterday, Muslims and Arab-Americans in the New York region and across the country immediately braced for the backlash with the grim panic of students rehearsing a duck-and-cover air-raid drill.

A terrorist attack on the United States detonates particular repercussions here among both Muslims and Jews, whose kin in the Middle East are locked in a bitter battle that many people immediately assume has now arrived like an unwelcome immigrant on American shores.

In the face of suspicion and discrimination, Muslims struggled to assert their identities as loyal American citizens and to say that their religion does not approve of violence against innocents. Jews, meanwhile, could not help linking the victimization of Americans to that of Jews in Israel.

Yasser Ahmed, manager of an Arab-owned candy and grocery store on Broadway in Upper Manhattan, said about 10 people had come in shouting, ''You guys did it!'' and other accusations.

At an Arab-owned grocery store on West 177 Street, a shouting match erupted among customers when a Palestinian woman blamed American support of Israel for the terrorism.

''I'm Arabic and Palestinian and I have just one thing to say,'' said Yasmeen Hindi, 19, a customer at Uptown Deli Grocery. ''I feel bad, but Americans have to understand something: If we're going to get killed, they're going to get killed back. Stop supporting the Israelis.''

(Goodstein)

A Family, Both Arab and Arab-American, Divided by a War

By SUSAN SACHS with BLAINE HARDEN

Published: October 29, 2001 CAIRO, Oct. 28— The Shaarawy family is divided these days not just by an ocean, but also by a war.

Here in Cairo, where most of the family lives, the Shaarawys and their in-laws are annoyed at what they see as America's self-righteous pushiness as it wages war in Afghanistan. They regard the war as typical American overkill. The attack on New York was unfortunate, as they see it, but understandable. To them, the United States is a bloated superpower that rides roughshod over other nations while manipulating events to suit its own interests.

But for the branch of the family that settled in Bayonne, N.J., the situation is entirely different -- not least because one of the family members, Baher Shaarawy, 58, a tax auditor for the State of New York, worked on the 86th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center. He had been waiting in the tower lobby for an elevator when the first plane hit, and fled as the sky rained glass, metal and flaming bits of paper.

Mr. Shaarawy and the rest of the American Shaarawys wholeheartedly support the war, with the sole caveat that Americans be careful not to kill innocent civilians. He says he feels blessed to be part of a country that accepts him, his wife and his four children as citizens.

As time and war muddy the worldwide meaning of the World Trade Center attack, the separation inside this extended family is a telling measure of a perceptual chasm that is widening between Arabs and Americans. It suggests, too, the pressure under which many Arabs, torn between old family and new flag, must now live.

(Sachs)

6.2.3 Arab Americans and Muslim Americans and the CNN

It was found out that CNN was the most-watched TV channel immediately after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 (Rydin 89). Therefore, images given by this TV network were the most influential ones. As it was mentioned above, in such dramatic events journalists tend to be more biased and, therefore, lot of statements presented immediately after the terrorist attacks had to be rephrased afterwards (Rydin 96).

Generally the description of the events of 9/11 and possible involvement of Arabs and

Muslims presented by the CNN was considered as impartial and unbiased but what was considered as completely inappropriate were speeches given by the president George

Bush (Rydin 102). He mentioned several times terms like “Islamo-fascism”, “The

Crusades”, “Murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals which is the great challenge of our new century”, “Extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christian and Jews”, or “Muslim enemy within.” (Humphry). Although

President Bush nearly always tried to change his words afterwards and tried to explain that “it is not war on Islam but terror” and that “no ethnic group should be punished for acts of individuals” his words have already done the trick and common intolerance

38 towards Arabs and Muslims grew by 47 per cent after the 9/11 (Humphry, Rudolph

154). Of course Gorge Bush‟s speeches were broadcasted not only on CNN but on all other TV networks. General stereotypical approach of the media towards Arab

Americans and Muslim Americans is to portray them as completely dependent on their country of origin, mainly wearing tradition clothes, living and growing up in dysfunctional families, treating women in a very harsh way, living as a secluded unit, and ascribing to a fundamentalist Islam. This image is used by all the major TV networks in a way that they tend to focus on the „negative‟ news concerning Arab and

Muslim Americans and avoiding the „positive‟ news, especially when dealing with

Arabs and Muslims living outside the USA. This includes the images from Iraq and

Afghanistan but also secluded traditional Arab families living in the USA (Rudolph

154). Nowadays, several years after the attacks, there are tendencies to present the news in more balanced way. But this generalizing used after the 9/11 has hardened life of millions Arab and Muslim Americans all over the United States. Almost 80 per cent of all Arab and Muslim Americans confessed that they found their life less comfortable and harder after 9/11 (Rudolph 156). About 16 per cent of Arab and Muslim Americans said that despite the negative image given by the media, their status has not changed that significantly and only about 4 per cent feels safe and welcome in the United States

(Rudolph 157). The majority of Arab and Muslim Americans also disclosed that after

9/11 media started to be much more interested in their everyday life, religion and relationships with other citizens and articles commenting on any event organized by either Muslim community or Arab schools started to appear in all newspapers which again suggested kind of abnormality in Arab and Muslim Americans‟ everyday life

(Brubaker 246).

For example, on November 14, 2001, one of the main news reports on CNN evening news was reportage from Arab school in New York City which showed children‟s PE class. This reportage was supposed to show how the life of Arab and

Muslim Americans has again come back to normal and also how „peaceful‟ they are

(What Happened on November 14, 2001). But quite the other way round it indicated that there is something abnormal and strange about Arab Americans‟ everyday life that their life is so different that it deserves to be on TV. By the way other stories shown on

CNN news that evening were: “Egypt Gay Trial”, “US – Price of Terror”, “Two

Suspected in Terrorist Money”, “Bush Officials Defend Military Trials in Terror

Cases”, “Patriotic, Religious Web Sites Fly High”, “US Warns War on Terror is Just

Beginning”, “The Taliban in Retreat”, “Rumsfeld Gets First look at Ground Zero”, “Aid

Workers Freed from Afghanistan”, “Ex Afghan President Heads to Kabul”, “Alliance

Forces Strengthen Control of Kabul”, and “Play Station 2 – Review”, “National Book

Rewards.” (What Happened on November 14, 2001). As you can see all the news was concerned with either war on terrorism, 9/11, or Arab Americans, apart from the Play

Station review and Book Awards. Another interesting thing about this sample of news is that „negative‟ news prevails.

Generally, it could be said, that Arab and Muslim Americans are portrayed by the major TV networks in the same way. Nowadays, unbiased and balanced depiction prevails but the stereotypical view of Arab and Muslim Americans is still clearly visible.

6.2.4. Ethnic Media

So far, I have studied only the major and most-followed U.S. media, but recent researches show that among various ethnic groups in the U.S. grows the popularity of so

40 called ethnic media which are directly aimed at certain ethnic groups, sometimes even broadcast in their native language and are engaged in local problems of these ethnic groups. It is important to compare the ways mainstream and ethnic media present news concerning various ethnic groups. First, I am briefly introducing the results of research done by Angela Spadafora among various ethnic groups. Second, I am analyzing the great phenomenon of Al-Jazeera.

The study reveals striking impact of ethnic media in the United States. Forty-five percent of all African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American, American Indian and

Arab-American adults prefer ethnic television, radio or newspapers to their mainstream counterparts. These “primary consumers” also indicated that they access ethnic media frequently. This means that a staggering 29 million adults (45 percent of the 64 million ethnic adults studied), or a full 13 percent of the entire adult population of the United

States, prefer ethnic media to mainstream television, radio or newspapers. In addition to the 29 million people classified as ''primary consumers,'' ethnic media reaches another 22 million ethnic adults on a regular basis. These adults prefer mainstream media, but they also access ethnic television, radio or newspapers on a regular basis.

Therefore, our study indicates that the overwhelming majority (80 percent) of the ethnic populations studied (64 million adults) are reached by ethnic media on a regular basis.

The 51 million Americans reached by ethnic media represent about a quarter of the entire U.S. adult population. More than half of all Hispanic adults are primary consumers of ethnic media. Approximately two-fifths of African-Americans and Arab-

Americans and a fourth of Asian-Americans and American Indians prefer ethnic media to mainstream media (Spadafora).

The Arabic media reaches three-quarters of all Arab-Americans. Television is the preferred medium. Internet access among Arab-Americans is higher than it is for

41 any other ethnic group studied. Three-quarters of all Arab-American adults have access to the Internet and a majority of them visit Arabic websites (Spadafora).

The example of insufficient interest in ethnic issues by mainstream media could be illustrated on the protest against immigration reform in 2006. The holes in mainstream media coverage were never more obvious than in the coverage of the debate on this reform. It took 250,000 people marching in protest on the streets of Chicago

(and 500,000 in Los Angeles and 125,000 in New York a few days later) for the mainstream press to discover an issue that had been roiling in the pages of El Diario/La

Prensa and the ethnic press for months (Downing 182).

Journalistically, the consolidation of mainstream media has increased the homogenization of outlets and led to a loss of independent sources with distinctive personalities and viewpoints. It has also increased the distance, literal and figurative, between those who decide what is news and those who live it, particularly with regards to growing immigrant communities (Downing 47).

By contrast, ethnic media has remained, by and large, close to the communities they serve. And the challenge is to step up the journalistic coverage of the struggles facing the communities - immigration, civil rights, economic opportunity, cultural diversity - which also happen to be some of the most fundamental and divisive issues facing the broader society. At the same time ethnic media also remain a good business.

At a time when English-language newspapers are losing readers, El Diario/La Prensa's audited daily readership increased by more than 25 percent to 266,812 over the past year (Downing 50).

One of the main reasons for a continuous growth and impact of the ethnic media is the fact that foreign news as a percentage of total news has shrunk in the U.S. since the end of the Cold War. In 1998, only two per cent of total newspaper coverage

42 focused on international news, a drop from ten per cent in 1983. The amount of time that network TV devotes to international news shrank from 45 per cent of total coverage in the 1970s to 13.5 per cent in 1995 (a decline of more than 70 per cent). Time magazine covers devoted to foreign affairs dropped from 11 in 1987 to zero in 1997, and foreign reports in Time between 1985 and 1995 dropped from 24 per cent to 12 per cent. Newsweek’s coverage of foreign affairs shows a similar decline. In general, foreign news is „domesticated‟ – it is less about the world than about America in the world (Friedman 96).

The research shows that members of ethnic groups prefer ethnic media to mainstream media but what is also important is that a vast majority of U.S. citizens are consumers of mainstream media, therefore the mostly stereotypical images given by the mainstream media which wave the ethnic issues aside are still much more influential than a more realistic and genuine images given by the ethnic media. Majority of white population also admits that they are not interested in issues of ethnic groups living in the same city or even the same street and, therefore, they prefer mainstream media

(Friedman). Still, the growing importance of ethnic media should not be underestimated but their influential status is much weaker than that of national TV networks.

When it comes to typically Arab and Muslim Americans ethnic media, one of the most important is definitely Al-Jazeera, which is not American ethnic media but still one of the most favorite among Arab and Muslim Americans. Al-Jazeera, operated out of Qatar, is kind of a match for CNN or the BBC. Since its inception in 1996, Al-

Jazeera, has made its name by offending Arab governments that routinely treat the notion of free press with contempt and by scooping all TV news networks with its broadcasts of interviews and tapes of Osama bin Laden and press releases put out by Al-

Qaeda. This ability to give airtime to the opposing viewpoint has made Al-Jazeera a

43 distinct voice in Arab, and increasingly, international broadcasting (Thussu 149). But what is most important, in the current context, is that it offers Arab households a close visual encounter with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on a daily basis unfiltered by

Western agencies. A decade ago, the conflict would not have received the same airing on television – the means were not yet available. But in the last ten years, the use of direct broadcast satellites has dramatically altered the audio-visual space of the Arab world, creating a rich mixture of private and state-owned channels that is often called

„Arab broadcasting space‟. The Arab world may speak with nearly one voice on the matter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but there remain significant political and cultural differences between broadcasters and the public they address. With that said, it is still an environment where state-owned broadcasters routinely work at the behest of their paymasters, and where states can exercise a chilling degree of scrutiny and coercion over private broadcasters. And though it is true that many of the private pan-

Arab broadcasters have adopted some of the idioms and formats of Western broadcasters, it would be hard to claim that the system is in the process of being

Westernized (Thussu 34).

The coverage of the tragic events of 11 September, 2001 and their aftermath provided Al-Jazeera with a unique opportunity to make its presence felt outside the

Arab world. Its capacity to provide live coverage from the theatre of war in Afghanistan and its determination to show pictures of death and destruction not seen on Western television networks angered the United States government, which tried in a number of ways to put heavy pressure on the channel to tone down its coverage (Genov 176).

It is clear, that mainstream media are still more influential and important than ethnic media on the national scale. However, the growing impact of the ethnic media

44 should not be underestimated as well as the importance and influential factor of Al-

Jazeera.

7. Movies in the U.S.

Film industry is one of the most important components of U.S. economy and also one of the most influential medium (Bryant 56). To find out how big is the target audience it is important to outline the number of spectators who regularly go to the cinema. These numbers also show to what extent is the U.S. society influenced by the movies. In this chapter I am just briefly introducing the history of film industry in the

USA and I am concentrating on the number of spectators who visit the cinema nowadays.

At first, the U.S. film business was mostly concentrated on the East Coast, in

New York, which was also where most of the new immigrants from Europe arrived.

Jewish entrepreneurs and talents were particularly prominent in culture, media, and show business, for reasons related to the previous impact of anti-Semitism in Europe.

Filmmaking, however, needed good and constant lighting conditions, a varied landscape, spacious lots, and cheap labor, none of which were available in the bustling metropolis of New York. So the center of the emerging film industry soon moved to

Los Angeles on the West Coast, and particularly to its suburbs, Hollywood. The “dream factories” built there soon turned it into the worldwide capital of make-believe

(Ginneken 7).

The original studios continually split and merged, but most survive to this day on one form or another. Today, the major studios control almost 80 per cent of the movie business in the United States, and 50 per cent in many European and Asian countries. With the explosion of television channels that needed to be filled, the value of

45 film libraries has risen twenty-fold in only twenty years, to an estimated $8 billion around the turn of the twenty-first century (Ginneken 8).

Although fewer Americans go to the cinema than they did decades ago – and those who do go less often – the theatrical release of blockbuster movies is still decisive for the whole pattern of exploitation that follows. Around the last turn of the century, less than a third of the U.S. population over age twelve went to the movies once a month, whereas more than quarter never went at all. Children, adolescents, and young adults prevail (Rydin 89). Nowadays, there are tendencies to download movies on the internet rather than going to the cinema. Unfortunately, because of illegal downloading it is nearly impossible to get detailed numbers of people who watch or download certain movies. Since this, the only possible way to get at least partially accurate numbers is the official theatrical researches. These researches show that number of spectators has been slowly declining in past six years (Bryant 98). Another problem with the concrete numbers is also that many people watch movies only on TV or buy a DVD and do not go to the cinema. Therefore, the target audience of individual movies is very variable.

Although, researches show that blockbuster movies are generally watched by 7 out of ten Americans (Bryant 102). Blockbusters are mostly seen by the less educated; college students often favor art house films. But recent researches have shown that in a class of ten-year old, with students from all over the world, hardly anyone remembered having seen a film from a fundamentally different continent (Ginneken 9).

As you can see from the results above, although less people go to the movies nowadays, they will get to see the movies anyway either on TV, DVD or by downloading on the internet. Therefore, the movies still remain together with television one of the most influential medium.

7.1 Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in the Movies

Hollywood‟s remarkable presence in virtually every overseas market and its recent penchant for Arab bad guys amidst a long-standing tradition of foreign villains is another problem for Arab and Muslim Americans (Thussu 35). Generally, in each period of time the „bad guys‟ in major Hollywood movies were always foreigners. As it was stated above in the 20th century there were periods of common hatred against concrete ethnic groups and this hatred was also portrayed n the movies. Although the type of common enemy is still changing, Hollywood movies tend to stick to these common types and permute them from movie to movie. I have not found a single movie where the main villain is middle aged, white, male, Christian from middle class without any mental disorder and is of course American. Mostly, the villains are either German

(Die Hard I, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, On Her Majesty’s Secret

Service, Beverly Hills Cop II etc.) or Russian (The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes

Only, Octopussy, A View to Kill, The World is Not Enough – and other James Bond

Movies, Salt, Police Academy – Mission to Moscow, Rocky IV etc.) or Asians (Die

Another day, Fast and the Furious, Pearl Harbor, Bad Guy etc.) and mainly Arabs and

Muslims who are nearly always portrayed as terrorists and fanatics (The Siege, The

Mummy, Executive Decision, Never Say Never Again, Team America, American Ninja 4 etc.) As you can see although the wave of intolerance for example against Russians was mainly visible after the World War II and during the Cold War the image of Russian

„bad guy‟ appears also in more recent movies. Of course also other ethnic minorities are typically portrayed as bad guys. For example gagster would be always Italian and a member of a street gang must be African American or Hispanic etc.

Hollywood in particular has played a consistent role in spreading images that inculcate racist attitudes toward Arabs. As Jack Shaheen points out in a study of this

47 issue, two groups, Arabs and Muslims (frequently, the two are erroneously collapsed into one identity), stand out as persistent targets of negative stereotyping in American cinema. By contrast, representations of other ethnic groups have gone through major positive changes since the late 1960s (Handman).

In Hollywood films the image of the Arabs is all too familiar: dark-skinned men with large noses and black beards, wearing headscarves and dark sunglasses, and in the background a limousine, women in a harem, oil wells, and camels. A variation on this stereotype is the man with gun in hand and hatred in his eyes uttering "Allah" or incomprehensible words. Arab women are mostly silent and ugly, or beautiful belly dancers and slaves who are often vindictive. Another typical pattern is dysfunctional family with father who treats mother and other female members of the family in a very harsh way; all of them are strictly religious and wear traditional clothes. In hundreds of

Hollywood films Arabs are the bad guys, and the good guys are out to eliminate them.

The extent to which this stereotypical image of Arabs and the Arab world has influenced Western attitudes toward Arab cinema itself, even among film scholars, is a subject for further discussion. At a minimum, Arab cinema continues to be largely relegated to the margins of English-language film studies; whatever scholarly work on

Arab cinema does exist is disproportionate to this cinema's influence in the Arab world itself and in major areas of Africa and East Asia. Yet, since the 1990s, Western interest in films originating in Arab countries has increased. More than ever before, Arab films are making the rounds of film festivals and repertory or art cinemas in Europe and

North America. Recently, the Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad's film Paradise

Now (2005) won major festival awards including the Golden Globes (2006) and the

Berlin festival (2005). The film was also nominated for Best Foreign Film at the

American Academy Awards (2006). Along with this wider exposure, Arab cinema has become of increasing interest to film critics and scholars (Handman).

Inauthenticity in depicting members of ethnic group or foreigner can lead to erroneous interpretations of their beliefs and values as well as the scenarios in which they are playing (Friedman 363). In John Milius‟s film The Wind and the Lion,

Americans in Tangiers at the turn of the century are attacked by hordes of seemingly merciless Arabs from which one protagonist clearly emerges as distinct and distinguished compared to the others. This main character and Arab leader is played by

Sean Connery. This does not, however, help the uninformed non-Muslim American viewer to understand Arabs. If anything, it hinders any understanding because the one character from this group of outsiders who contradict our stereotyped expectations for the group as a whole is in fact played by an actor who has nothing in common with that ethnic, cultural, or religious group except for his dark hair, dark eyes, and a beard.

Despite the film‟s intention to depict at least one Arab as more honorable and courageous than an Americans, the spectator in fact sees and hears a Scotsman (with an accent that is both distinct and atypical of English-speaking Arabs). All the other Arabs, are depicted as murderous maniacs, therefore this inauthencity cannot change stereotypes of Muslim fundamentalists as “crazy,” but it serves the important function of separating “them” from “us” (The Wind and the Lion).

Actually, whenever there is an Arab or Muslim in a Hollywood blockbuster who is the “good guy” he is always played by a man of different ethnic origin. For example in the movie called The 13th Warrior where the only Arab character is played by Antonio Banderas. The Arab character is pictured as very timid, kind, educated and also very brave and honorable man (The 13th Warrior). But the fact that he is played by a Hispanic man makes the viewer believe that man of Arabian origin would not be good

49 enough for such role, because people of Arabic origin play only those “bad guys”.

Another example could be the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. In this story the only “good Arab” is played by Morgan Freeman and all the other Arab characters, who are the “bad guys”, are played by Arab actors. Morgan Freeman‟s character is pictured as very honorable, trustworthy and brave man while the other Arab characters are shown as typical bloodthirsty murders that kill in the name of Allah (Robin Hood:

Prince of Thieves). This depiction again shows that it is kind of a social phenomenon in

Hollywood that heroes of Arabic origin are never played by an Arab or Muslim. No other ethnic group seems to be so deeply marked down as the Arab and Muslims.

Unfortunately, the psychological effect of this prejudiced image given by the

Hollywood is immense and irretrievable.

On the contrary and ironically enough the 9/11 has brought about not only enhancement of the stereotypical view of the Arab Americans and Muslim Americans but also an effort to improve the position of Arab and Muslim Americans in the media.

Therefore, in the recent years we can see also movies which try to show the Arabs and

Muslim in more favorable and realistic light.

For example the movie Babel which tries to show the Arabs and Muslim as normal people who live their lives as anybody else in the world. In a remote desert location in southern Morocco, Abdullah, a goatherder, buys a rifle and a box of ammunition from his neighbor to shoot the jackals that have been preying on his goats.

Abdullah gives the rifle to his two young sons, Yussef and Ahmed (played by local non- professional actors Boubker Ait El Caid and Said Tarchini), and sends them out to tend the herd. Competing between themselves, they decide to test it out, aiming first at rocks, a moving car on a highway below, and then at a bus carrying Western tourists. Yussef's bullet hits the bus, critically wounding Susan Jones (Cate Blanchett), an American

50 woman from San Diego who is traveling with her husband Richard Jones (Brad Pitt) on vacation. The two boys realize what has happened and flee the scene, hiding the rifle in the hills. Glimpses of television news programs reveal that the US government holds the shooting to be a terrorist act and is pressuring the Moroccan government to apprehend the culprits. The two boys see the police on the road and confess to their father what they have done. (They believe at the time that the American woman has died of her wounds.) The three flee from their house, retrieving the rifle as they go. The police corner them on the rocky slope of a hill and open fire. After his brother is hit in the leg,

Yussef returns fire, striking one police officer in the shoulder. The police continue shooting, eventually hitting Ahmed in the back, possibly fatally injuring him. As his father rages with grief, Yussef surrenders and confesses to all the crimes, begging mercy for his family and medical assistance for his brother. The police take him into custody (Babel).

Meanwhile, since Susan cannot travel by bus in her condition, Richard threatens the tour group to wait for the ambulance, which never arrives, and eventually the bus leaves without them. The couple remains behind with the bus's tour guide, Anwar, still waiting for transport to a hospital. Political issues between the US and Morocco prevent quick help, but a helicopter comes at last. After five days in the hospital, Susan recovers and is sent home (Babel). This movie shows that whatever nation or ethnic origin we are, the only problems are the political issues. All Arabs and Muslims in this movie are played by Arabs and are pictured as being very helpful, kind and loving and surely not as fundamental terrorists, such image is given only by the media which are presented in several glimpses all through the movie.

Another example is the movie AmericanEast made in 2007. This movie follows the lives of several Arab Americans after the 9/11. It is actually the only movie shot in

51 the USA after 9/11which shows the real life of the Arab Americans who are played by the Arab Americans and which did not lapse to common stereotypical images of the these citizens. The story follows the life of Mustafa (Sayed Badreya) who is a widowed

Egyptian immigrant and the owner of Habibe‟s Café, a popular hang-out for people from Los Angeles with Middle Eastern backgrounds. He is devoted to providing his son

Richard Chagoury with a moral upbringing despite the pressures of contemporary

American urban life. He also finds himself cast in the role of protector to his unwed sister Salwah (Sarah Shahi), for whom, by family and tribal custom, he is responsible for finding a husband. But his respect for tradition comes up against his own aspirations to adapt to the American Dream when he decides to open a new restaurant with a

Jewish partner – his friend Sam (Tony Shalhoub). This unholy alliance is unpopular amongst the customers of his café and the Arab community in which Mustafa resides

(AmericanEast).

Salwah, Mustafa‟s sister, must also reconcile her traditional values and familial obligations with new American realities. The arrival of the arranged husband, her older cousin Saber (Al Faris), throws her life into chaos and makes her question her own beliefs and faith. Secretly, she is attracted to an American, Dr. John Westerman (Tim

Guinee), a young and attractive non-Arab. She becomes tempted to experience intimacy with the young doctor outside of marriage. While she undergoes this internal conflict, her future husband Saber is staying as a guest at the home she shares with Mustafa and his children, and the incompatibility between this traditional man, her future husband, and Mustafa‟s Americanized family is another source of irritation adding to the mounting tensions (AmericanEast).

Mustafa‟s friend Omar (Kais Nashef) is a young Egyptian man who supports his dream of becoming a movie star by working as a part-time cab driver for Mustafa‟s

52 ragged, one-car taxi company. Because of his Middle Eastern looks and accent, however, he is constantly cast in the role of a terrorist in American TV shows that portray only a shallow understanding of Arabs and their culture. When an opportunity for a non-racially-designated role arrives, Omar feels his chance for success - to be seen as an actor first and not a Muslim - has finally arrived. It is the break he has been waiting for on many levels: a chance at the financial freedom necessary to marry and support his pregnant American girlfriend Kate (Amanda Detmer), and a chance for him, and his future child, to be embraced as an American. But misunderstandings and prejudices related to his Arabic background cause that he loses his opportunity – which is like a reminder of the pressures under which Arab and Muslim Americans live in the

United States today (AmericanEast).

From the facts stated above, it is clear that way the Arab and Muslim Americans are portrayed in Hollywood movies is slightly changing. Although, the classical stereotypical image still prevails, ironically, thanks to the big influence of 9/11 the cinema has moved to more exact and natural ways of portraying the Arab Americans.

Hopefully, this trend will continue and we won‟t see the Arab actors playing only terrorists and oil magnates. Concerning the other ethnic groups, the situation is quite similar but with the changing distribution of the ethnic groups in the USA, the cinema is changing as well and hopefully to the better.

8. Research

To find out whether the form in which the news is presented influences the way we perceive other ethnic groups, I have formed a questionnaire consisting of two main questions and send this to 300 students of Northeastern University in Boston. I also asked them to fill in some personal information like name and sex and also their race or

53 ethnicity but the majority of the respondents unfortunately did not fill in this box and, because of the time reasons I did not have time to send an extra email to those respondents and wait for their answers. To fulfil all the criterions necessary for a proper survey I asked three hundred people to fill in this questionnaire because one hundred respondents is considered as minimum to get legitimate results. The two questions were actually two fake newspaper articles. I have divided these 300 respondents into three groups, each group had 100 respondents, and each group got a little bit different fake news story. First newspaper article was:

First group: A female University of Southern California student was killed Wednesday morning when a young man open fire near the USC campus.

Second group: A female University of Southern California student was killed

Wednesday morning when Afro-American man open fire near the USC campus.

Third group: A female University of Southern California student was killed

Wednesday morning when Arab American man open fire near the USC campus.

I have asked each of the respondents to explain what he or she thinks about the man who committed this murder. I asked them to describe what they think about his background, his family and his possible motive and why do they think so and also in the instance of the first group I also asked them to guess his ethnical background. First, I would like to have a look at the results of the first group.

8.1 First Group

There were 66 men and 34 women in this group and their age was approximately between 20 and 35. Below you can see the table showing the race or ethnical background of those respondents who answered this question. Unfortunately, only 57 respondents filled in this box. As you can see in the table below, the respondents claimed to belong to four ethnical groups. These were white, African American,

Hispanic, and mixed ethnical background, which means that the respondent belonged to a mixture of two or more races. From the results, it is obvious that majority of respondents in this group belong to white race. Actually, this category is a bit unclear because white is just appellation of the color of the skin but not ethnical background, which could be also mixed. So it is not absolutely clear whether the responds were responding to their color of the skin or their simply meant that they are of American-

European descent and consider themselves to belong to a white race. The other figures show that three of the respondents consider themselves to be of Afro-American origin, five respondents consider themselves to be of Hispanic origin and one respondent answered that he or she feels to be of mixed origin.

Race/Ethnicity Respondents White 48 African American 3 Hispanic 5 Mixed 1 Table 3: Race/ethnicity of the respondents in the first group

All of the respondents answered the question where they were asked to describe what they think about the man who committed the crime and what they think about his background, his family and his possible motive and why do they think so and also what they think about his ethnical back ground. Nearly all of the respondents (83) except for

17 assumed that the man was white because, as they said, otherwise they would expect the newspapers to state his ethnical background. The remaining 17 respondents (and all of them claimed to be white) answered in a similarly way that the murder could be of any ethnical background and nothing in the short part of the article points out what ethnicity he could be. Sevety-six of those 83 respondents, who answered that the man is white, also added that the fact that this crime was committed near the university campus and the victim was a student could indicate that the criminal was probably a student of the university too and therefore white, because vast majority of students studying at

Northeastern University is white and the situation is, according to the respondents, very similar at other universities.

Concerning the other part of the question about his family and possible motive, all of the respondents (83), who answered that he is probably white, identically answered that presuming that he is white then his motive was probably some dispute with the girl, love gone sour or maybe debts. Interestingly, all of them assumed that the man and the girl knew each other. What was also interesting was that 36 respondents answered that the man was probably suffering from some serious mental disease and that unfortunately these kinds of attacks are quite often at the universities in the USA.

They also agreed that the rising violence at American high schools and universities is a big problem and something must be done to prevent them. Twelve of these thirty-six respondents also mentioned that legal possession of gun should be completely banned in the U.S. and illegal possession of gun should be punished more severely. Remaining 17 respondents, who answered that the man might be of any origin, answered that the motive could be dispute, love or money but 9 of them answered that if he is of different ethnical background than white then the reason could have been also ethnical problems.

From the facts stated above, we can see that the way media present the news influences readers‟ or viewers‟ points of view. When there is an article about somebody of different ethnical background than white his ethnicity or race is, according to respondents, always stated in the article, but if he or she is white then the newspapers and other media deliberately omit this information. Therefore, our main associations with different ethnicities are connected with murders, thefts, harassments etc. Of course, sometimes we may connect the ethnicity also with some positive news but these are in terms of ethnicity usually connected only with the sports results (Everett). Also, a common trend is that bed news sells better and, therefore, majority of news in the newspapers is negative (Everett). On the other hand, white ethnical background is not usually stated in the news at all and, therefore, leaves the reader or viewer to assume by himself what ethnicity the newspapers might be referring to.

8.2 Second Group

In this group, there were 68 men and 32 women and their age was similarly as in the first group between 20 and 35. Below, you can see once again a table showing the race or ethnical background of those respondents who answered this question. In this group only 28 people filled in this box. As you can see, the majority of 25 respondents claimed to be of white ethnical background. Only one respondent filled in that he or she is of Hispanic ethnical background and two respondents are of mixed ethnical background.

Race/Ethnicity Respondents White 25 Hispanic 1 Mixed 2 Table 4: Race/ethnicity of the respondents in the second group

As in the first group, all of the respondents answered the question where they were asked to describe what they think about the man who committed the crime and what they think about his background, his family and his possible motive and why. This time, obviously, was omitted the question about his ethnical background, because it was clearly stated in the article. Just to remind, in this group, all the respondents were clearly aware that the man who committed the crime was of Afro-American origin. This time an absolute majority of 84 respondents answered that the motive of the man must have been ethnical disputes, war of the gangs or drugs (most of the respondents mentioned several motives and usually included also love). Most of the respondents also added that these street gang fights are quite common in all bigger cities in the U.S. but mainly and most recently in Southern California. Those who thought that the reason for the girl‟s death were drugs, added that most of the murders committed by Afro-

Americans, according to the respondents, happen because of drugs or money from drug- selling. Only 4 respondents assumed that the motive could have been anything from love, money to ethnical disputes. The remaining 12 respondents answered that the girl was probably only an accidental victim in a gunfight of street gangs. All these 12 respondents assumed that although the man was of Afro-American origin the girl must have been of white origin because otherwise the newspapers would have stated her ethnical background. Therefore, they assumed that her death might have been just coincidence, not a planned murder. The rest of 84 respondents did not mention the girl‟s ethnical background at all. Most of the respondents also assumed that the man probably comes from a broken family and that it is very probable that one or both parents are in jail. They also answered that he might have grown up on the streets and was brought up just by his mother. Interestingly, nobody mentioned that the man could be a student of

58 the university as well. Also, nobody mentioned the problem of legal possession of gun as distinct from the first group where this problem was mentioned by 12 people.

It is obvious, that when a reader or viewer is presented with a concrete ethnical background then he immediately associates it with the stereotypical image given by the media. What was interesting was that in the case of the first group nobody actually answered what he or she thinks of the man‟s family (only a few respondents answered that his family background could be simply any background and that we cannot tell this from the given piece of article) but in the case of the second group all but five respondents answered what they think about his family background. All the answers were very similar and all suggested that the man‟s family background cannot be

„normal‟. Another interesting thing was that nobody thought of any mental disease in connection with Afro-American. It seems that when a suppositional white man commits a crime people tend to think that it must have happened because he is not mentally okay but when the same crime is committed by Afro-American he is perfectly conscious of his actions. This is again result of the media influence which manipulates the perception of different ethnicity and races. Since the articles about committed crimes tend to mention the person‟s ethnical background, we then associate this with that ethnicity and perceive those people as criminals. As Anna Everett suggest in her research, movies play a big role in our perception of different races as well. In the mainstream blockbuster movies we can rarely see a movie about Afro-Americans living happily lives but mainly about problems of Afro-American community and their everyday struggle to survive on the streets, selling drugs and committing crimes (Everett). It was also interesting that nobody suggested that the man might be a student as well, as it was mentioned in the case of the first group, probably because most of the students at the universities in the U.S. are white. Also, the fact that nobody mentioned the problem of

59 legal possession of gun suggests that when Afro-Americans possess a gun it is something unassailable and normal but when white person possess a gun something should be done because it is abnormal and dangerous. The results show that media have a great impact on our perception of different ethnicity and race.

8.3 Third Group

There were 58 men and 42 women in this group and their age was approximately between 20 and 35. As you can see, below is again a table showing the race or ethnical background of those respondents who answered this question. In this group only 33 people filled in this box. Similarly as in the previous groups also here the majority of respondent were of white ethnical background. Fortunately, there is at least one Arab-

American is in this group, although there could be more Arab-Americans but they decided not to state their ethnicity. Three of those respondents who answered this question are of mixed origin.

Race/Ethnicity Respondents White 29 Arab American 1 Mixed 3 Table 5: Race/ethnicity of the respondents in the third group

In this group, respondents were also asked to describe what they think about the man who committed the crime and what they think about his background, his family and his possible motive and why. This time, once again, was omitted the question about his ethnical background because it was clearly stated in the article. Just to remind, in this group, all the respondents were clearly aware that the man who committed the crime was of Arab American origin. This time most of the respondents, seventy-six, agreed that motive must have been some ethnical problems. But most of those 76

60 respondents also added that some religious problems or tradition might have been the motives as well. In this group, 16 respondents (including the one who answered he is

Arab American) answered that his motive could have been anything, most of them mentioned a quarrel between two lovers as most probable. But 11 of these 16 respondents also added that religion might have played a significant role in this murder, whatever the motive was. The remaining 8 respondents, except for one, suggested a planned attack which was a revenge on the girl who might have been Arab American as well and her family wanted to punish her. The last respondent just answered that the motive could have been anything and nothing in the article suggests what this could have been.

Concerning the man‟s family nearly all respondents (87), apart from thirteen, answered that he probably comes from a rich Muslim family. They supposed that he is from a rich family only because he is studying at the university and absolutely nobody doubt this although in the article it is said that only the girl was a student not the man.

Six of the remaining thirteen respondents (including the one who answered that he is

Arab American) answered that his family background could be like any other family background and the one Arab American respondent said that just the fact the an Arab

American had killed a girl does not tell anything about his family and, therefore, we cannot judge. Seven remaining respondents mentioned that he might be from a fundamental Muslim family where religion plays the main role. This time once again, nobody mentioned the problem of legal possession of a gun or mental disease.

From the results shown above, it is evident that people‟s perception of other ethnicities is remarkably influenced by the media. For example the connection of Arab

Americans and Muslim religion and poor knowledge of their culture and traditions

(strengthen by the media) all contribute to incorrect understanding of this ethnic group.

As we can see from the results any crime committed by Arab American is immediately connected to religion or tradition although violence is not part of the Muslim culture more than it is part of Christian culture (Ryndin 28). Interesting was, that unlike in the second group, nearly everybody assumed that the men is a student although it is not stated in the article. This was probably, because there are more Arab Americans than

Afro-Americans on the U.S. universities, according to the respondents. Another interesting fact was that seven respondents suggested that the murder might have been a punishment for the girl for her disobedience. These seven respondents also immediately connected this „punishment‟ with religion. This again shows how bandy about women who are severely punished in Arab countries influences people‟s opinion on Arab

Americans who might have never even been to Arab countries and might not be

Muslims at all.

8.4 Second Fake Article

As I have mentioned above, the questionnaire was formed by two fake newspaper articles or in the case of the latter rather a fake headline. The first article was different for each group of respondents to find out whether mentioning of ethnical background in the newspaper influences our perception of different ethnic groups. The second fake article was same for all 300 respondents. They were given a following newspaper story headline:

Men threw acid into the beautiful face of his ex-girl friend.

I have chosen this newspaper headline because a month ago the same incident happened in the Czech Republic and when I read a discussion about the article nearly

62 everybody assumed from the headline that the man must be of Arab origin without reading the article itself where it was clearly stated that he was white (Gabzdyl).

This time, I have asked all the respondents to comment on the man‟s ethnical background and also to suggest where (in which country) this accident happened. Not surprisingly, vast majority of respondents assumed that the man‟s ethnicity was Arab or, as some of the respondents answered, Muslim, although this refers to religion and not ethnicity, but I counted these answers as if they answered Arab ethnicity. There were

234 respondents who agreed that his ethnical background was Arab. The remaining 66 respondents could be divided into two groups. One group, comprised by 43 respondents, agreed that the man was probably of Arab origin but generally, he could be of any origin and only used a technique which is generally ascribed to Arabs. Twenty-two respondents only answered that the man could be of any origin and although the technique he used suggests a concrete type of origin it should not be assumed that he was an Arab. Most of all respondents also added that these incidents when acid is used are well followed by the media especially when such incident happens outside Arab countries and is usually connected with a person of Arab origin and, therefore, it is expectable to associate these incidents with Arabs. Most surprisingly, one respondent, and it was the only respondent who confessed to Arab American ethnicity, answered that the man must be Jewish, though he also explained that majority of people would assume from such headline that the man must be Arab and he does not like such generalizing and that is why he answered the way he did. Concerning the second part of the question about the country where this accident happened, the results were a bit different. This time, the majority of respondents answered that this accident might have happened in nearly any country in the world. Exactly 257 respondents answered in this way. Most of the respondents also added that citizens of Arab origin nowadays live all

63 around the world so the incident could have happened anywhere from USA to Russia.

The remaining 42 respondents answered that one of the Arab countries is the most probable possibility, but also added that generally it could have happened anywhere in the world. One respondent, and it was again the only respondent who confessed to Arab

American ethnicity, answered that it surely happened in Israel. But he also added that similarly as in the case of the first part of the question he does not like generalizing and, therefore, answered in this way.

From the results stated above, we can see that the way we perceive other ethnicities is strongly influenced by the stereotypical image created by the media. The fact that when such incident happens it is in detail followed by the media makes us immediately associate such incidents with people of Arab origin. One of the most interesting things is the answer of the respondent who is Arab American. It seems that he is a bit tired of being perceived only in the way media present him. This clearly shows that even though the ethnical background is not mentioned in the headline, the incident itself is typical for certain ethnic group and, therefore, immediately makes the reader associate this incident with concrete ethnicity.

9. Conclusion

The objectives of my thesis are to analyze the way media portray different ethnic groups in the media and to prove how structure of the news influences our perception of different ethnicity and race. Attention has been paid to the depiction of Arab Americans in the US media. I focused on the newspapers, movies and partially TV news. The analysis of these media was backed up with my own research done among three hundred students of Northeastern University in Boston. The major idea of my thesis as well as of my research is to show the way news is structured and what images are

64 shown to us in the movies and how these things influence our everyday perception of ethnicity and how they support common stereotypes connected with race and religion.

Results of my research show that our understanding of different ethnicities is not only influenced, but even created by the image given by the media. Structure of the news is formed to attract bigger audiences rather than to remain unbiased and, therefore, supports common stereotypes associated with ethnic groups.

The date 11 September, 2001 became a turning point in the U.S. history and media played an important role in it. The structure of the news after the 9/11 contributed to the wave of hatred against Arab and Muslim Americans but the event also caused change in the approach of the media towards Arab and Muslim Americans. Both TV news and newspapers started to be interested in everyday lives, traditions and also religion of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans and also in Arabs not living in the

USA. However, most of the news concerning Arab and Muslim Americans and Arabs and Muslims in general is often presented in negative way mainly thanks to the images from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore, common stereotype is to associate all

Arabs and Muslims with terrorism and militant Islam as presented by the media.

General practise of the media is to present mainly „negative‟ news since this attracts bigger audiences than the positive news (Everett).

Concrete examples of inaccurate terminology used in association with Arab

Americans were analyzed in the New York Times. I have discussed four articles published shortly after the 9/11 and all dealing with the Arab and Muslim Americans.

Although all of the articles were commenting on the difficulties and problems Arab and

Muslim Americans had to cope with, the words used were not appropriate (e.g. confusing Arabs with Muslims) and supported common stereotypes like dependency on the country of origin or religion. The way TV news depicts Arab and Muslim

Americans and Arabs and Muslims in general is very similar to the style used by the newspapers. The important factor about TV news is repetition. Continuously repeated images, which show Arabs and Muslims in negative light, cause that these images become anchored in our memories and strengthen negative connotations in association with these ethnic groups.

Apart from the newspapers, I also analyzed trends in portraying the Arab and

Muslim Americans and Arabs and Muslims in general in the movies. Movies mainly follow a common pattern, when depicting Arabs and Muslims. Typical image is terrorist, fundamentalist or wealthy businessman. If there are more realistic depictions in the movies then the Arab characters are usually played by non-Arabs. For example in the movies The Wind and the Lion or the 13th Warrior, where the roles of Arabs are played by a Scotsman and Hispanic man, respectively. These inauthenticities can lead to enormous misinterpretations and obviously outrage Arabs and Muslims all around the world. In recent years, there have been tendencies to change this image to a more realistic and genuine one and films displaying real Arabs and Muslims are becoming more and more popular.

To find out, whether the form in which the news is presented influences the way we perceive other ethnic groups, I have formed a questionnaire consisting of two tasks and send this to 300 students of Northeastern University in Boston. I tried to analyze, whether the way media present their news can influence our perception of different ethnic groups. First task was to describe what assumptions the respondents would make when reading just one sentence from a newspaper article. I have divided these 300 respondents into three groups, each group had 100 respondents, and each group got a little bit different piece of news story (each included reference or no reference at all to different ethnic group). Then, I asked the respondents to comment on these articles and

66 to suggest what they think about the ethnicity of the people mentioned in the article, of their background, family and possible motives.

The research has proved following results. When there is an article about person of different ethnical background than white his or her ethnicity or race is, according to respondents, always stated in the article, but if he or she is white then the newspapers and other media deliberately omit this information. Therefore, we tend to associate most of the ethnic groups with events carrying negative connotations, though mediated.

Another important finding was that respondents tend to associate certain types of crimes with concrete ethnic groups. For example, Afro-Americans are often associated with gang fights and drug selling and Arab Americans with religious problems.

Second task was similar to the first one. Respondents were asked to react to a newspaper headline and guess information about people mentioned in this headline.

This survey proved that events repeatedly shown on TV or mentioned in the newspapers make us associate certain ethnic groups with concrete crimes or social problems.

Therefore, public view of different ethnic groups is strongly influenced by the images given by the media and sometimes could be even created by the media.

Results of the survey proved that we tend to judge other ethnic groups according to the image given by the media. To ensure completely unbiased news, ethnicity of the concerned person should be left out, when it is relevant, and all discrepancies which might cause ambiguous interpretation should be explained or further discussed.

10. Abstract

My Master‟s Diploma Thesis deals with ethnicity in the media. I have analyzed the tendencies in the depiction of life attitude, characterisation and behaviour of certain ethnic groups in the media. My analysis is focused on the Arab Americans and Muslim

Americans living in the United States of America as well as Arabs and Muslim in general. My research has focused on the different situations before and after 11

September, 2001, in newspapers‟ articles, and TV news.

My thesis is divided into two parts. First, theoretical part describes the general term ethnicity and its different attributes like religion. Some theoretical approaches towards media explaining their state and influence were discussed as well. Since my thesis is focused on the USA, I have given some general information about ethnicity and the media in the USA. There are some U.S. policies concerning broadcasting and newspapers as well as the official U.S. standards and principles concerning mass media presented. I have also described the situation in the media before and after the terrorist attacks on 11 September, 2001, and also the way the news was and sometimes still is, presented to public.

The second, practical part is based on real examples of biased presentation from the New York Times and shows the inappropriate usage of words in the articles about

Arab and Muslim Americans. Apart from the newspapers‟ articles, I have also analyzed the way major Hollywood cinema depicts Arab and Muslim Americans and Arabs and

Muslims in general. I backed up the analysis of these media with my own research done among three hundred students of Northeastern University in Boston. I created a questionnaire containing two fake news stories and asked the respondents to describe their reaction to them. From their answers, I analyzed how the structure and words used

68 in the news stories influence the way the respondents perceive ethnicity, race and religion.

11. Resumé

V této magisterské diplomové práci se věnuji prezentaci etnik v médiích.

Zaměřila jsem se především na popis životních postojů, vlastností a chování určitých etnických skupin a na jejich prezentaci v médiích. Středem mého zájmu byly jak

Arabové a Muslimové žijící ve Spojených státech amerických, tak Arabové a

Muslimové žijící v jiných zemích světa. Věnovala jsem se situaci před a po teroristických útocích ze dne 11. září 2001 a jejímu vlivu na vyobrazení těchto menšin v novinových článcích a televizních zprávách.

Práci jsem rozdělila na teoretickou a praktickou část. V teoretické části se zabývám termínem národní a rasové příslušnosti, a s tím souvisejícími termíny, jako je například náboženství. Podstatnou část práce tvoří odlišné teoretické postoje k médiím a jejich propojení s etnickými skupinami. Jelikož je práce zaměřena na USA, prezentuji zde také oficiální americká nařízení týkající se televizního vysílání a oficiální standardy a principy mezinárodních sdělovacích prostředků. Také se konkrétně věnuji roli médií a etnik v USA. Popisuji také situaci v médiích před a po teroristických útocích a také způsob, jakým zprávy byly, a občas stále jsou, prezentovány veřejnosti.

Praktická část, je založena na konkrétních příkladech z tiskovin (konkrétně New

York Times). Demonstruji zde nevhodné užívání určitých výrazů ve článcích pojednávajících o Arabech a Muslimech žijících ve Spojených státech. Kromě novinových článků se zabývám také vyobrazením těchto menšin v hollywoodských filmech. Celá analýza je navíc podpořena vlastním výzkumem mezi třemi sty studenty

Northeasternské univerzity v Bostonu. Vytvořila jsem dotazník se dvěmi smyšlenými

69 novinovými zprávami a požádala účastníky výzkumu, aby popsali svoji reakci na oba

články. Na základě jejich odpovědí jsem se posléze pokusila zjistit, jak struktura a slova používaná novináři ovlivňují způsob, jakým účastnící vnímají nejen ostatní etnické skupiny, ale také rozdílné rasy a náboženství.

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