Media Influence and Orientalism

Orientalism tries to answer the question of the preconceived notion of the people of the Middle East, how do we come to understand people that are different and it began a discussion about the depiction of Asian and Middle Eastern cultures in art, literature, movies, and modern media and brings people to be more conscious of the racist undertones of stereotypical settings.

Orientalism is the idea that people in the West (white people) are very quick to make assumptions, judgments, accusations, therefore, build inaccurate stereotypes about Easterners when they are not able to fully understand and identify with their way of life. The privileged/dominant voice of the westerners make assumptions about Eastern living they felt justified in creating these stereotypes when in actuality a previous bias towards eastern civilization was at the forefront of these assumptions and judgments. More so, modern media in the United States often promotes untrue stereotypes of Muslims while erasing the realities of the Middle East, especially Islamic, culture. The media often associates Islam with terrorism in order to portray Muslims as a threat to Western society. This idea does not take into account the reality that most Muslins promote peace and a very small minority of Muslims advocate violence (against the scripture of Islam). What orientalism does is it creates an image outside of history that lasts forever and creates an ideal other.

Studies of media have found that most portrayals or descriptions of Muslims portray them negatively. Often media associates Islam with terrorism in order to portray Muslims as a threat to Western society. What I found interesting how the media sends very intense false promotions of Muslims, but Westerners still don’t get the same backlash for their terrorist attacks and crimes. Out of 136 terror attacks in the U.S. over a span of 10 years the authors studied, Muslims committed on average 12.5 % of the attacks, yet received more than half of the news coverage. According to research conducted at Georgia State University, “Terror attacks carried out by Muslims receive on average 357% more media coverage than those committed by other groups,”. The Islamophobic slash in media translates into Islamophobic actions in everyday life and cannot be resolved until Muslim people are represented in media and depictions of Islam, both good and bad, at the same rate other races and cultures are.

Orientalism is a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Eastern people and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U.S. It often involves seeing Eastern culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous, society, more specific Westerners needs to indulge in Orientalism, see through a truthful lens of reality and make opinions based on facts.