Muslims Making British Media

"Carl Morris draws on original fieldwork to examine Muslim cultural production in Britain, with a focus on the performance-based entertainment industries: music, comedy, film, television and theatre. It is a seminal study that charts the growing agency and involvement of British Muslims in cultural production over the last two decades. Morris sets this discussion within the context of wider religious, social and cultural change, with important insights concerning the sociological profile, religious lives and public visibility of Muslims in contemporary Britain. Morris considers the language and conceptual framing used to describe Muslim cultural production, arguing that the term 'Muslim popular culture' is simultaneously useful and problematic. He argues that there is a balance to be struck between recognising self-conscious expressions of Muslim subjectivity through popular culture, alongside a need to avoid essentialising and exceptionalising otherwise diverse Muslim narratives and experiences. Morris draws on theoretical considerations concerning the mediatization of religion and cosmopolitanisation in a globally-connected world. He argues that a new generation of media-savvy and internationalist Muslim cultural producers in Britain are constructing counternarratives in the public sphere and are reshaping everyday religious lives within their own communities. This is having a profound impact upon areas that range from Islamic authority and religious practice, through to political and public debate, and understandings of Muslim identity and belonging."--

Media reporting on Islam and Muslims commonly relate stories about terrorism, violence, or the lack of integration with western values and society. Yet there is little research into how non-Muslims engage with and are affected by these news reports. Inspired by the overtly negative coverage of Islam and Muslims by the mainstream press and the increase in Islamophobia across Europe, this book explores the influence of these depictions on the thoughts and actions of non-Muslims. Building on extensive fieldwork interviews and focus groups, Laurens de Rooij argues that individuals negotiate media reports to fit their existing outlook on Islam and Muslims. Non-Muslim responses to these reports, de Rooij argues, are not only (re)productions of local and personal contextuality, but are co-dependent and co-productive to the reports themselves.

Drawing on original fieldwork, Carl Morris examines Muslim cultural production in Britain, with a focus on the performance-based entertainment industries: music, comedy, film, television and theatre. It is a seminal study that charts the growing agency and involvement of British Muslims in cultural production over the last two decades. Morris sets this discussion within the context of wider religious, social and cultural change, with important insights concerning the sociological profile, religious lives and public visibility of Muslims in contemporary Britain. Morris draws on theoretical considerations concerning the mediatization of religion and cosmopolitanization in a globally-connected world. He argues that a new generation of media-savvy and internationalist Muslim cultural producers in Britain are constructing counter narratives in the public sphere and are reshaping everyday religious lives within their own communities. This is having a profound impact upon areas that range from Islamic authority and religious practice, to political and public debate, and understandings of Muslim identity and belonging.

The only detailed examination of how the British media treat Muslims Uncovering endemic racism in the British Media Ever since 9/11, Muslims and Islam have dominated the headlines in the UK. In this important book, several leading media commentators examine the phenomenon of ‘Islamophobia’ and ask how we can tackle it. Charting recent media controversies, from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments on Sharia law to the veil ‘debate’, the book argues that media hostility to Islam alienates Muslims and undermines efforts to combat extremism. With interviews from Muslim journalists and examples of press-fuelled myths about Islam in Britain, this is a captivating insight into how Muslims are depicted in the West.

Muslims have featured in many of the more significant news stories of the past few years - yet shockingly very few of these stories have been about anything other than the 'war on terror'. This urgently relevant book examines the role and representations of Muslims in the news media, particularly within a climate of threat, fear and misunderstanding. Written by both academic authorities and media practitioners, "Muslims and the News Media" is designed as a comprehensive and critical textbook and is set in both the British and international context. Bringing together a range of insightful perspectives on the subject into a coherent whole, the book clearly establishes the links between context, content, production and audiences, thus reflecting the entire cycle of the communication process. It reveals both the ways in which meaning is produced and reproduced in the news media, and the ways in which audiences themselves, both Muslim and non-Muslim, use or consume this media. Significant too and discussed here is the role of Muslims themselves in the processes of news production. Clarifying the circumstances and politics surrounding the representation of Muslims across a range of journalistic genres, "Muslims and the News Media" provides crucial insights into the representation - and misrepresentation - of Islam and Muslims today.

It is a widely held view that, since the end of the Cold War, attention has focused on Islam as a central force of disruption within a New World Order. Nothing has heightened this more than the assault on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and the reporting of these events. Reporting Islam is a timely contribution to this debate which looks at the ways in which Muslims are represented in the British news media. Elizabeth Poole examines the claim that Muslims are universally demonized in the British press and comes to some illuminating conclusions. Reporting Islam is of great value to students of media, cultural studies, Islamic studies and politics.

This book examines the social and political position of Muslims in Britain. Contributions from key scholars and policy makers explore issues of religion and politics, Britishness, governance, parallel lives, gender issues, religion in civic space, ethnicity, and inter ethnic and religious relations.