3 things I would like to get from the BFI :

1- Find more information and quotes on the Woolwich attack so I can go back and link every paragraph back to my primary text.
2- Need more quotes in general
3- need more information so my essay is more of an essay rather than a story and explaining what happened during the three terrorist attacks

Linked production idea

Who are you working with ? Jinan, who's critical investigation about how women are represented negatively in reality TV programmes. My critical investigation is about the representation of terrorism and how Muslims are portrayed negatively in British media due to incident of 9/11, Woolwich attack and so on. We have collaborated both ideas and decided to work together on a reality TV programme called 'Young, Muslim and rich' which portrays how Muslim girls are in today's society and the influences which influence each Muslim individual today. our reality TV show will consist how a young Muslim girl acts at home with her family and how she acts outside her household with friends. This is a good collaboration as Jinan's critical investigation is TV reality show whereas mine is the stereotyping of Muslims and how it causes a moral panic which has a link between both critical investigations. 

Task 3 - Historical text.

Brighton IRA bombing : 1984

. Five people died and 34 were injured.

. Those killed were Anthony Berry MP, Roberta Wakeham, Eric Taylor, Muriel Maclean and Jeanne Shattock.

. The bomb had been planted several weeks earlier by Patrick Magee, who checked into the hotel under a false name.
. He was caught and sentenced to 35 years. Four members of an IRA "active service unit" were also jailed for involvement in the plot.
. In prison Magee got a first class Open University degree in fiction and its portrayal of the Troubles.
.  He was released in 1999, under the Good Friday Agreement, a move described by one Downing Street spokesperson as "very hard to stomach".
. It was a direct bomb attack on the British Government at the Conservative party conference in Brighton.
. The blast tore apart the Brighton Grand Hotel where members of the Cabinet have been staying for the Conservative party conference.
. The statement read: "Today we were unlucky, but remember, we only have to be lucky once; you will have to be lucky always. Give Ireland peace and there will be no war." - shows the terrorists were not Muslim.

Oklahoma bombing: 1995 

. The Oklahoma bomb killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured more than 500 others.

. It took rescuers almost six weeks to recover the bodies of all the victims from the rubble.
. Timothy McVeigh, a 33-year old Gulf War veteran, was convicted of the attack and sentenced to death by lethal injection after a two-month trial. He was executed at Terre Haute federal prison in Indiana on 11 June 2001.
. The execution was watched via cctv by about 30 people including 10 survivors of the bombing and members of the media.
. The motive for the attack was apparently retaliation against the US Government for the bloody end to a siege near Waco, Texas, in which 82 members of the Branch Davidian sect died.
. In December 1997 his former army colleague Terry Nichols was convicted of manslaughter and conspiracy and sentenced to life in jail.
. A third man, Michael Fortier, confessed to knowing in advance about the bombing and was sentenced to 12 years after agreeing to be a key witness for the prosecution.
. A huge car bomb has exploded at a government building in Oklahoma
. In an emotional speech, President Bill Clinton vowed "swift, certain and severe" punishment for those behind the atrocity.
"The United States will not tolerate and I will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards," he told a White House news conference this evening. 
. "The State Department would not discuss the possibility of this being a terrorist attack but the FBI and Oklahoma police put out an alert for three men believed to be of Middle Eastern origin driving a brown Chevrolet pick-up truck - They suspected it would be Muslims" - BBC news

World Trade Center bombing : 1993 

. A car bomb was exploded underneath the World Trade Center in New York 
. An emotional Mario Cuomo, New York's state governor, told journalists: "We all have that feeling of being violated. No foreign people or force has ever done this to us. Until now we were invulnerable."
. In May 1994, four men - Mohammed Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima and Ahmad Ajaj  were sentenced to life for bombing the World Trade Center, which killed six people and injured 100.

. In October 1995 Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric who preached at mosques in Brooklyn and Jersey City, was sentenced to life for masterminding the bombing,.

. He was also found guilty of the murder of extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane and a scheme to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak during a trip to New York in 1993.

. The bombing of the World Trade Center has been totally eclipsed by the events of 11 September 2001 which saw thousands killed, the collapse of both Twin Towers and an all-out "war on terror" declared by the Western world.

. Rahman's organisation, the Islamic Group, is believed to have links to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, accused of carrying out the 11 September attacks. 

Coverage of the three events : 

The Okhlama Bombing : 

http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=1980 

"Jumping to Conclusions in Oklahoma City? " - American Journalism review 

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0419.html - The okhlama bombing


"Clinton remembers victims of Oklahoma City bombing President leaves wreath at site of Murrah building"
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/keyword/oklahoma-city-bombing/featured/3

Primary text -

News coverage of Woolwich attacks. (BBC NEWS) 

A man was murdered in the street in broad daylight in Woolwich, London, on the afternoon of 22 May 2013. It was feared the incident was a terror attack, with reports of chants of Allahu Akbar. The victim was believed to be a soldier. Woolwich murder: 200 Islamophobic incidents since Lee Rigby's killing. Sharp rise in reported cases, including attacks on 10 mosques, raises fears of sustained targeting of Muslim communities. Fears that Muslim communities across the country are facing a sustained wave of attacks and intimidation have intensified after it emerged that almost 200 Islamophobic incidents had been reported since the murder of British soldier Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south-east London last week. One of the suspects is understood to be 28-year-old Muslim convert Michael Adebolajo, according to sources.
He and another man are under arrest in hospital after being shot by police after Wednesday's attack in Woolwich.Prime Minister David Cameron has said the UK will "never give in to terror or terrorism".Shortly after the killing a man, thought to be Mr Adebolajo, was filmed by a passer-by, saying he carried out the attack because British soldiers killed Muslims every day.Sources said reports the men had featured in "several investigations" in recent years - but were not deemed to be planning an attack - "were not inaccurate".They confirmed one of the suspects was intercepted by police last year while leaving the country.Speaking outside 10 Downing Street on Thursday, Mr Cameron said: "One of the best ways of defeating terrorism is to go about our normal lives."He said there was no justification in Islam for the attacks, which were "solely and purely" the responsibility of the individuals involved.Across London there are 1,200 extra police officers on duty in response to the attacks, Assistant Commissioner Simon Byrne said.Earlier officers raided a flat believed to belong to one of the attackers on a Greenwich housing estate.Neighbours said two sisters in their 30s, an older woman and a teenage boy were taken away in a police van.An address in Saxilby, Lincolnshire, is also being searched in connection with the attack.According to BBC sources, Mr Adebolajo, a Briton of Nigerian descent, comes from a devout Christian family but took up Islam after leaving college in 2001.He was described as "bright and witty" when he was at college. Witnesses said the soldier was attacked at 14:20 BST with knives and a cleaver in Artillery Place, near Woolwich Barracks, by two men shouting Allahu Akbar (God is Great). ( BBC NEWS)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAh7FEEsLpU - Woolwich soldier murder.

The language attributed to one of the men filmed at the scene, and brandishing a bloodied knife, was stark: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reasons we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We must fight them.
"I apologise that women had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don't care about you."
This is classic al-Qaida rhetoric, similar to the phrases used by suicide bombers who have left martyrdom videos. Though the man did not appear to mention Afghanistan, this is the only country in which British soldiers are now directly embroiled in a conflict.
More than 440 soldiers have been killed in the 12-year war in Afghanistan, including some shot by members of the Afghan security forces they are supposed to be supporting. British and Nato involvement in the fight against the Taliban is winding down, but the UK will still have a presence there until the end of next year.
The decision last night to convene Cobra, the Cabinet Office committee that deals with security emergencies, came after the home secretary took soundings from the new head of MI5, Andrew Parker, and the Scotland Yard commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe.
The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), which includes members from MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the police and Ministry of Defence, will convene to decide what conclusions can be drawn from what has happened, even at this early stage.
Crucially, JTAC will recommend whether to alter the national threat assessment level, which now stands at "substantial".
If there is any suggestion that this attack might be the start of a wave, the threat level will be increased to either severe or the highest level, critical.MI5 and Scotland Yard have warned repeatedly in recent years about self-starters – people who have been radicalised in the UK, affected, perhaps, by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or by Arab spring events, or by emerging al-Qaida networks in Africa.
Hundreds of Britons are known to have gone to Syria over the last two years to support the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian conflict is now the "jihadist destination of choice", according to Whitehall officials. Britons are also known to have been involved with the al-Nusra front, which is heavily infused with al-Qaida elements from Iraq and has been designated a terrorist group by the US.
Some of those people going abroad from the UK were already known to MI5 and MI6; some have now returned home. Many others will have come and gone without investigators knowing.
The same thing has happened in Somalia, where a smaller number of Britons have been in recent years, to support the al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabaab.
"What they do when they come back here is more worrying to us than what they do when they are out there," is how one official put it.
Even if those responsible for the Woolwich attack had not been abroad, they could have been motivated closer to home or online.
Security officials have highlighted the dangers posed by the al-Qaida online magazine, Inspire, which is constantly urging its readers to undertake attacks, rather than wait for training or orders from above.
Inspire, which is the work of al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsular (AQAP), has been causing concern since it was first published in 2010; the latest edition has just been published and is said to include an "Open Source Jihad (OSJ) section … for aspiring jihadists seeking to assassinate US and European leaders".
Though some academics have doubted whether Inspire is such a powerful tool, there is evidence that people inclined to commit violence have been tipped into action by such entreaties.
Some of the biggest counter terror operations of recent years have involved suspects who have turned by Inspire.
Three men from Birmingham were convicted this year of plotting the biggest potential terrorist atrocity than the 7 July attacks. They had read the magazine and been influenced by the preachings of Anwar al Awlaki, the now dead former AQAP leader.
Attempts have been made to shut down the magazine, and to disrupt it by cyber warfare. Two years ago MI6 and GCHQ hacked into an article which set out how to make a bomb, and replaced the recipe with one for cupcakes. However, the magazine is still disseminated via internet forums.
Other extremists who have used Awlaki as motivation to mount terror attacks in the UK include Roshonara Choudhry, who attacked the Labour MP Stephen Timms in his constituency surgery.
Choudry, who was jailed for life in 2010, is also said to have named a US-based website as a source of inspiration. In 2007 a group of extremists in Birmingham plotted to behead a British Muslim soldier to undermine the morale of the British army and inhibit its recruitment of Muslims. The leader, Parviz Khan, admitted the plot and was sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve at least 14 years.
Though the number of people arrested for terrorist offences have fallen in recent years, the police and MI5 still make arrests, and still uncover plots. "They haven't given up," an official said.
Last year, the Royal United Services Institute [RUSI] thinktank published a report which set out the difficulties now facing counter-terrorism officers; with al-Qaida fragmented and "franchised" across the Arab world and in Africa, identifying suspects was seen as harder than ever.
The report warned: "Though the death of Bin Laden began a succession of counter-terrorist victories in 2011, the threat from Jihadist terrorism has not diminished. If anything, the risk has evolved from plots carried out by organised cells within a leadership structure, to one carried out by lone wolves, radicalised by material on the internet.
"The latter is harder to track down and is potent given the uncertain international situation; where the outcome of the Arab spring has not been settled, and where there are frequent returns of British citizens from war zones such as Somalia and Yemen."
The institute noted the arrival home of self-radicalised fighters would coincide with the steady release from prison of people convicted of terrorist offences in Britain over the last decade. It says their sentences, for good legal reasons, typically have not been very long.
Michael Clarke, the director of RUSI, said: "More experienced lone-wolf terrorists are likely to be returning to Britain in the next couple of years, not from training camps in Pakistan and via airports in Karachi and Dubai, but from wars in Somalia, Yemen, or Nigeria, from the renewed violence in Iraq, and from destinations and via routes that will be far more difficult for security services to monitor."

Notes and Quotes.

QUOTES FROM PEOPLE ON TERRORISM :

Noam Chomsky.

. " Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: Stop participating in it"

 Tony Blair.

. " The purpose of terrorism lies not just in the violent act itself. it is in producing terror. it sets out to inflame, to divide, to produce consequences which they then use to justify further terror. "

. PAUL WILKINSON, London Daily Telegraph, Sep. 1, 1992 - 

"The first was that if you were interested in terrorism you must somehow sympathise with the perpetrators. The other was that if you were interested in how governments respond to terrorism, you must be to the right of Genghis Khan and in league with the secret services"


. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, International Terrorism

" We can't accommodate terrorism. When someone uses the slaughter of innocent people to advance a so-called political cause, at that point the political cause becomes immoral and unjust and they should be eliminated from any serious discussion, any serious debate "

.  RUDOLPH GIULIANI, CNN interview, Sep. 11, 2002

"If inciting people to do that [9/11] is terrorism, and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists"

. OSAMA BIN LADEN, interview, Oct. 2001

"Every leader, and every regime, and every movement, and every organization that steps across the line to terrorism must be banished from the discourse of civilized human life"

. NOAM CHOMSKY, 9-11

"It's not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it's not going to help. Then you might say, "Yes, it's terrorizing people, but it's worth doing because it will end terrorism." But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?"

. BARACK OBAMA, speech, Feb. 28, 2006

"The big threat to America is the way we react to terrorism by throwing away what everybody values about our country--a commitment to human rights. America is a great nation because we are a good nation. When we stop being a good nation, we stop being great"

. BARACK OBAMA, speech, Nov. 20, 2006

"The most powerful military in the world cannot invade, kill or capture a network or destroy every loose weapon on the planet. The best response to this network of terror is to build a network of our own -- a network of like-minded countries and organizations that pools resources, information, ideas, and power. Taking on the radical fundamentalists alone isn’t necessary, it isn’t smart, and it won’t succeed"

.JEAN BAUDRILLARD, The Spirit of Terrorism and Other Essays

"Serious research and development efforts are required to produce technologies, strategies, organizations, and trained personnel who can go into failed states, work with our allies and friends, and promote the political and economic reforms that will meet popular needs and reduce the sources of terrorism and conflict"

. JACQUES CHIRAC, speech, Sep. 24, 1986

"Terrorism, like viruses, is everywhere. There is a global perfusion of terrorism, which accompanies any system of domination as though it were its shadow, ready to activate itself anywhere, like a double agent"

. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, International Terrorism

"Terrorism has become the systematic weapon of a war that knows no borders or seldom has a face". 

BOBBY KENNEDY, O Magazine, Feb. 2007

. "Terrorism is carried out purposefully, in a cold-blooded, calculated fashion. The declared goals of the terrorist may change from place to place. He supposedly fights to remedy wrongs -- social, religious, national, racial. But for all these problems his only solution is the demolition of the whole structure of society. No partial solution, not even the total redressing of the grievance he complains of, will satisfy him -- until our social system is destroyed or delivered into his hands"

WESLEY CLARK, Winning Modern Wars

. "Our enemies are fully aware that they can use oil as a weapon against America. And if we don't take this threat as seriously as the bombs they build or the guns they buy, we will be fighting the War on Terror with one hand tied behind our back".

JERRY SPRINGER, interview, Jun. 23, 2003

."Terrorism has replaced Communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country [America], for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties at home. It serves the same purpose, serving to create hysteria".

TERRY WAITE, London Guardian, Feb. 20, 1992

. "I opposed the war in Iraq because I did not believe it was in our national security interest, and I still don't. What we [America] did was akin to taking a baseball bat to a beehive. Our primary security threat right now is terrorism ---and by doing what we did in Iraq, we've managed to alienate a good part of the world and most of the allies whose intelligence and other help we need to combat and defeat terrorism".

SCOTT ADAMS, Dilbert Newsletter #58

. "The terrible thing about terrorism is that ultimately it destroys those who practise it. Slowly but surely, as they try to extinguish life in others, the light within them dies". 

Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

   "I believe we should try to move away from the vocabulary and attitudes which shape the stereotyping of developed and developing country approaches to human rights issues. We are collective custodians of universal human rights standards, and any sense that we fall into camps of “accuser” and “accused” is absolutely corrosive of our joint purposes. The reality is that no group of countries has any grounds for complacency about its own human rights performance and no group of countries does itself justice by automatically slipping into the “victim” mode"

Anna Lindh

"Terrorism can never be accepted. We must fight it together, with methods that do not compromise our respect for the rule of law and human rights, or are used as an excuse for others to do so".

Shirin Ebadi

"I hope the example of Saddam Hussein will give a lesson to leaders of other countries where human rights are not respected". 

Islamphobia: issues, challenges and actions, released in June 2004 by the UK commission on Britrish Muslims and Islamphobia argues that systemic discrimination against muslims and the recurrent negative portrayal of muslims has pushed UK muslims to the very margin of society

"That people are suddently more interested in islam could be a positive development, but if the knowledge that is produced only reinforces an orientalist perspective then this will be an apportunity lost" ( poole, 2002:3)

passive (see said, 1978). orientalism is "systems of representation framed by the hegemonic political forces of colonialism, post-colonialism and neo-colonialism, which act towards bringing 'the orient' into'western' consciousness, western dispensation and under western dominion" (Richardson,2004 :5).

"The orientalist approach to Islam can be summarised as essentialist, empiricist and historicist; it impoverishes the rich diversity of Islam by producing as essentialising caricature"(Richard 2004:5)

Kevin Dunn (2001:292) claims, " social constructions of identity are given life through their articulation"

Dunn (2001:293) claims that "muslims are one of the groups that have suffered from a worrying degree of racist violence in Australia, "which has led to a sense of vulnerability of Australian muslims"

Galasinki (2001: 7) argue that "texts are unable to police the meanings to be constructed from them"

Dunn (2001: 292) claims, "in Australia, local and national representations of Muslims are mutually reinforcing, and predominatly negative... there is an intertextualility between the local and national discourses, knitted together in a symbolic web"

Manning (2004) found the most images of Arabs and Muslims in Sydney newspapers come from foreign news media, and that most of this international coverage focused on the middle east; half on the Israel/palestine problem.

Dunn (2001) found that in discourse on the development of mosques in sydney stereotypes of Islam and Muslims were used in different ways to influence local perceptions. he concludes (2001:306) that " the representations of Islam lie at the core of the problems that Muslims in Sydney have encountered in establishing places of worship... (and that)... once muslims were constructed as different, as alien and treacherous, they could be treated as non-citizens"

Awass (1996) argued that news articles on Islam were derogatory and associated Islam and fundamentalism and terrorism.

'Muslims in melbourne denounce holy war' the age 11/10/2004
David Wroe with AAP
positive :
Islamic community leaders in Melbourne yesterday condemned the call for muslims worldwide to declare a holy war, saying Australian Muslims would not be swayed by violent rhetoric. sheik fehmi el-imaam, secretary of the Board of Imaama said Melbourne Muslims stood united against any form of holy war on terrorism. 'They won't be influenced by the message. They will repudiate the message immediately,'sheik fehmi said.'we have no room here for calling for jihad or making terrorist acts'

Kinders slap ban on santa, Herald sun 28/11/2001
Nikki Portyniak, leela de krester and ashley gardiner
positive :
more than a dozen centres across melbourne yesterday said they will not let father christmas in the door this year... ethnic community leaders also say the ban is wrong. they have called on the 14 kinders to bring sants back... "there is a muslim family in one of the groups and we didn't want to offend them" a worker said. But australian arabic council chairman Roland Jabbour said the no-santa ruling was going too far. Santa's part of the Australian way of life. We don't know how such a thing could be so offensive ".

Jinx fear on asylum ship, Herald sun 28/7/2004
Ainsley Pavey
negative :
Muslim asylum-seekers refused to let members of a sect stay abroad their doomed boat, a court heard yesterday.Sect members were kicked off the boat before it left indonesia for christmas island because passengers believed they were jinxed, brisbane magistrates court was told. muslims also tore out pages from the koran-- and threw them into the sea hoping the gesture would calm the waters.

Michael Beach from the Herald Sun 4/10/2001 writes of Muhammed Atta who played a lead role in the September 11 terrorist attacks :

Hijack ringleader mohammed atta left a will barring women from his funeral and instructing mourners not to cry. he also asked his fellow muslims to "pray that I will go heaven". the will was found in a bag left as boston airport along with five page instruction manual for his fellow hijackers... "the person who will wash my body near my genitals must wear gloves so that i am not touched there, i dont want a pregnant woman or a person who is unlean to come and say goodbye to me."i only want to be buried next to good muslims, my face should be directed east towards mecca. "women must not be present at my funeral or go to my grave at any later date."

The Age (23/11/2002)
"terror islamic militants from egypt with links to al qaeda and osama bin laden have successfully sought asylum in Australia to avoid arrest and interrogation by security forces. it is believed they have targeted Australia as a heaven since mid-1990s because of its relatively open immigration system and lengthy avenues for appeal, refugee review tribunal records show. while records show many were rejected by the tribunal after their claims of persecution were dismissed, the age believes a significant number were approved. immigaration minister philip ruddock said a man with links to the terrorist group suspected of the bali bombings was living in Australia."

In the Herald Sun (29/05/2002) reads, "religion led a devoulty muslim woman to join her husband in a plot to blow up their kebab shop, a court heard yesterday. fadime cubuk 24 always stuck strictly to the teachings of the koran- which included obeying her husband, mohammed ."

Critical Investigation Proposal.

WORKING TITLE :

' How are Muslims represented in the news ?  '

ANGLE :

The news is a massive source of media which contains loads of information about many topics which occur everyday around the world, one topic which has recently been in the news a lot has been the topic of terrorism/islam and terrorists/muslims and the latest illegal acts they have committed. I have chosen this topic because I am interested in how people view terrorisml/islam and from a student who wants to study International relations in uni, researching about terrorism/islam and the news will have a great impact on me. I believe that the news usually creates a moral panic as they tend to usually overexaggerate what happpens or usually 'suspect' that terrorists/muslims have a hand in any 'unusual illegal offense'. This is effective as it impacts the audiences thinking making them believe that islam is an cruel and violent religion.

HYPOTHESIS :

Islam is being portrayed negatively in the news.

LINKED PRODUCTION PIECE :

A short documentary about muslims and how they are portrayed in the news which will contain the typical terrorism convention features that will clearly demonstrate specificly the representation of muslims/islam in the media, and will identify aspects of stereotypical ideologies of muslims. Similarily, I could create a poster which would clearly portray the stereotyping of muslims.

MIGRAIN :

MEDIA REPRESENTATION :

Muslims are being represented through news in a stereotypical view as they usually 'assume' that muslims are the cause of many problems which occur around the world. some may argue that there are evidence that muslim's are violent and aggressive from reading about the Arab spring, 9/11 and many other stories, however I believe that the news create a 'moral panic' to a certain extent as they seem to overexaggerate what goes on and make thrill the audience from muslims making them believe that the only way forward according to muslims is violence.

NARRATIVE :

the narrative on news that represent terrorist attacts or muslim illegal acts are often centered on the words 'muslim' , ' islam' , 'terrorism'. For example, the stabbing of the british soldier who was stabbed to death , while informing the audience with what had happened they had repeated the words 'islam', 'muslim' and 'terrorism' many times. I believe the phrase 'terrorism' is over used in the news and has had an effect on society as they over use the phrase uncorrectly. people now know terrorists and 'muslims' and younger audiences often use the phrase ' terrorists' for fun or to mock one another.

MEDIA VALUES AND IDEOLOGY :

 ideologies are a set of beliefs that impact on a person's actions, expectations and goals. this is diffferent to the meaning of DOMINANT IDEOLOGIES as these are the widely beliefs by many members of a society. In marxist theory, this dominant ideology serves the interest of the ruling class.

 MEDIA AUDIENCES  :

 The assumptions created by these news stories are focused on how they can advertise their news to the audience, however some of the audience may disagree with the stereotyping of muslims/islam and terrorism. For example, extreme muslims may argue the case that terrorism is the way forward and would agree with the al-qaeeda group and osama bin laden and their views and would thus agree with what had happened to the buildings in New York due to the Americans been involved with Israel, however less religious people , chritsians , non- religious muslims, feminist and many other groups may disagree with violence and would agree with the way the news portray muslims.

GENRE:

According to my opinion I believe that there are no specific genre in the news, unlike films you can immediately pick out the genre.

ISSUES / DEBATES :

REPRESENTATIONS AND STEREOTYPING :

This is strongly connected to the issue I will be researching about as I will be investigating how muslims are represented in the news and the stereotypes that occur on a daily basis towards muslims. the news cause a moral panic which means that the news overexaggerates what has/is actually happening. A clear example would be libya and egypt, where they constantly talk about the killing that is taking place however in actual fact there is not much destroying going on. futher more, stories like terrorist acts are also over exaggerated which causes stereotyping as many people around the world think muslims/islam = terrorists/terrorism.

MEDIA EFFECTS :

 media plays a significant and effective role in society today. by broadcasting information on the internet giving people the opportunity to interact and share their views. More than that TV has a wide field of influence on audiences as it bombards the audience with information. according to the theory 'hypodermic syringe' the news is linked to this as it influences peoples views and thoughts and often can manipulate people into thinking differently. This s effective with what I will be researching about as without the media people can not put down what they think and their beliefs which influences the audience and their thinking.

OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL :

In many countries around the world the government controls the internet and what can/can not be posted online and the websites people can visit and can not visit. This is called censorship. For example, when I went back home last summer there were a few videos on youtube that I could not access because it was blocked by the government, like wise in the UK there are often some videos that may be blocked. From speaking to students and teachers I have found out that in America the government has access to what we visit online through the internet or our mobile phones.

MORAL PANIC :

after 9/11 terrorism has experienced a prominence in discourse across the U.S. The representations of terrorists and terrorism by the news media have contributed to the definition of terrorism as a “moral panic”.  The thematic frame is situated within Cohen’s stages of a moral panic.   terrorism and terrorists by the media and politi have contributed to unnecessary levels of panic and fear, misguided public consciousness, and the development of legislation creating negative social ramifications yet be seen.

POST 9/11 AND THE MEDIA :

THEORIES :

TV DOCUMENTARIES :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVh9WgGxuIY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uigJYUPigSk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zzDR4b1TPo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnHjYqIvtbY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okB2QECmIhg

ACADEMIC TEXTS/BOOKS :

. The looming tower : al qaeda and the road to 9/11 ( 2006)
. why terrorism works ( 2002 alan dershowitz)
. american jihad - the terrorists living among us ( 2003 steven emerson)
. Human Rights in Global Politics' by Tim Dunne and Nicholas J
.  Perilous Power' by Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achcar

 

feedback on terrorism in the media presentation -

Mr

Halsey feedback on my terrorism in the media presentation -

. Great choice of topic

. very wide topic

. too much text on the screen - no rehearsal? struggling to keep up with presentation

. not particularily clear because of the pace : too much to get through

. clearly plenty of good research but presentation needs much narrower focus, good lesson for critical investigation

. what is the argument ? does islam need to be the focus ? perhaps aim for one type of media

. presentation improves in terms of delivery but putting a youtube URL on screen does not really help us in an ignite presentation - we cant see it !.

Self assessment

Overall, I believe my presentation went well because I had a clear focus on my question and argued both sides of my question as well.  Moreover, my research helped me a lot with my presentation as I included real life stories which could be used as evidence in my critical investigation research , Furthermore, the reason why I chose to investigate this topic is because I have an interest in terrorism and how the media portrays terrorism therefore I wanted to focus on the way terrorism is portrayed in the media, however For my critical investigation I will need to narror the topic and focus on one topic which in this case will be 'the representation of muslims in the news'.