1999 22.1

Karen F. Dajani and Christina Michelmor
Islam and Time, 1944-1994
 

The U.S. media have been taken to task for portraying Muslims unfairly. This critique, which is an extension of earlier work on media images of Arabs, suggests that U.S media portray Islam as a religion of backwardness, terror, and hatred:

. . . it is the trend, perhaps even the policy of major

media, to downplay the voice of reason, the voice of

faith, and the voice of principle, in favor of the

shouts of the extreme, the wails of the grief-stricken,

and the threats of the treacherous. (El-Amin 1995, 8)

Both print and broadcast media, say the critics, highlight stereotypes which conflate Islam, Arabs, violence, and terrorism into a single, undifferentiated phenomenon (Shaheen 1985;Ghareeb 1977;Gans 1979;Slade 1981).

In 1981 Edward Said published the third volume in his trilogy analyzing the historical development of Western cultural ideas about the Islamic Middle East. (Books one and two were Orientalism and The Question of Palestine). This third volume, Covering Islam, is a scathing criticism of the American media’s treatment of Islam (Said l981). Since then others have analyzed the media coverage of a variety of Middle Eastern peoples, politics and problems. These studies have drawn their material from a wide range of media outlets.

There are two intertwined strands to this critique. First, critics argue that media coverage focuses almost exclusively on politicized Islamic fundamentalism. Not only does this focus exaggerate the influence of the few fundamentalists that exist, but it also reduces the religion and cultural identity of almost a billion people to a mere political movement. Islam is not treated as a religion at all but as a political threat: "Islam
equals fundamentalism equals bombs" (Vogel 1993, 45).

The second and related criticism is that the news media do not provide any context for this "Islamic terror":

Phrases like "Mohammed’s armies" or the "Islamic threat" suggest an emanation from out of the dessert into otherwise faceless societies; it is as if a tribe of aliens had suddenly appeared over the horizon and invaded a placid village. The reality is very different. (Said 1993, 62)

In this view, Islam is treated as an unchanging set of attitudes and beliefs that defines everything from the eighth century to the present. The Muslims’ world can be reduced to a small number of characteristics that "explain" all that goes on in that world. Georgraphy, economic needs, the interests of governments and rulers, the impact of colonialism, of historical development and contemporary circumstances are all ignored:

The word "Islamic" itself has acquired the bristling

status of a frightening, irrational monster. Every

article published about Hamas or Islamic fundamentalism

or Iran . . . describes an ahistorical world of pure despotism,

pure rage, pure violence. . . . (Said 1996, 32).

While with other groups, the media usually make a credible attempt to look beyond the surface violence to its root causes, in stances of violence by Muslims such explorations are foregone in favor of an "Islamic" explanation:
. . . would it ever occur to a Western magazine to cover

David Koresh, the Waco cult leader who claimed to have

the ‘‘true faith,’’ as a Christian terrorist? . . . Just

because Abdel Rahman claims to represent the ‘‘true

Islam,’’. . . [the western media] assume the right to

write about ‘‘Islamic terrorism’’ (Vogel 1993, 45).

The use of simplistic stereotypes and the lack of context creates a "brand of media distortion that demeans the intelligence of American viewers as much as it savages the dignity and humanity of Arabs and Muslims"("Media cast . . .’’ 1993, 36). There is a danger that both media and consumers will feel that their stereotypes constitute knowledge. The meaning and perceptions that might be derived from categorical, reductionist, black/white characterizations vary tremendously. Explanations for such distortions vary but they generally fall into four categories.
1. The portrait of Islam reflects the nature of news reporting in America. The media thrive on noise, change, speed (Ahmed l993).

2. The media image of Islam builds on a tradition that has been dominant in the West since the Middle Ages. It is the modern expression of medieval perceptions of the Saracens as violent and perverted (Daniel 1993; Hourani 1974).

3. The foreign and military policy establishment has manufactured the Green Peril to replace the Red Peril. The "Islamic threat" helps to mobilize popular support for defense expenditures and to excuse American interventionism (Hadar l993; Miller l993; Fabio and al-Ghamri l994; Hunter l992; Rubinstein 1992).

4. A small minority of people with pro-Israeli convictions or domestic political ambitions have actively promoted a distorted image of Arabs and Muslims. Their efforts have been particularly effective because there is little domestic or diplomatic pressure to counter the negative stereotypes (Said 1981).

The existing analyses of the media coverage of Islam move selectively through time period and media outlet. This study is a longitudinal analysis of coverage between 1944 and 1994 in one media outlet, Time magazine. A rigorous longitudinal content analysis permitted a more objective evaluation of both the coverage and its critics. Time was chosen for a variety of reasons. First, it is a mainstream, prestige publication with the largest circulation of any news magazine. It has covered religious activities since it began publishing. Second, because Time articles are generally written by teams of writers and editors, there is considerable stylistic continuity over time. Team journalism also makes it harder for individuals to consistently shape news. The nature of coverage and any changes in it therefore reflect a wider and more institutional understanding.

The study addressed the general question: How and in what context has Time magazine constructed Islam for Americans over the last 50 years? That general question was broken down into two sub-questions. First: Is Islam constructed as a religion or as a political problem? What are the occasions that produce articles on Islam? How does that shape the image of Islam that emerges over time? And second: Is there an orthodox formulation of Islam that is so one-dimensional that it ‘‘bears little resemblance to the enormously varied life that goes on within the world of Islam’’ as Edward Said contends(Said l981, 3), or are there more varied opinions? Are contemporary Islamic movements provided with a context?

Researchers carefully examined the Table of Contents for each issue of Time published from January 1944 to December 1994. They selected those articles that had the word Islam or Muslim in the title or whose title suggested that either of those terms might be focal points in the article.(Variants like Moslem or Mohammedan were included). This method eliminated specific ‘‘event’’ bias. In the 2,600 issues examined, 309 articles were identified. Some issues contained more than one relevant article.

Two coders independently recorded the date of each article and completed a coding sheet for each article. The coding sheets were pre-tested and the content categories refined several times. Intercoder reliability was high; coding discrepancies occurred in only twenty-three of 309 cases. In those cases, the discrepancy most often occurred on only one item included on the coding sheet.

Throughout the period under review, Islam was treated almost exclusively as a political issue, almost never as an individual or institutional belief system. Only ten of the 309 articles appeared in the Religion section. According to the coders, 256 or 83% of the articles had a political focus while only forty articles, or 13% dealt with religious issues.

In order to determine whether Islam was treated differently than other non-Judeo-Christian religions, a sample of reconstructed months was created for Time for 1945 to 1995. In 1945 all issues dated in January and July, in 1946 all issues dated in February and August, etc. were analyzed for references to Buddhism and Hinduism. Articles were counted and the sections in which they appeared were noted. In 446 issues, there were fifty-two articles on either Hinduism or Buddhism: twenty-six articles with references to Buddhism and twenty-three with references to Hinduism. There were three articles that discussed both Hinduism and Buddhism in the same articles. In no sample issue was there more than one article on Buddhism or Hinduism.

Only eight out of the fifty-two articles, or 15% were found in the Religion section, while thirty-seven articles or 71% were found in the World and Foreign News sections. In other words, the issues that produced coverage of Hinduism and Buddhism were not liturgical, or doctrinal conflicts or disputes within the religious hierarchy as they were in Time’s coverage of Judaism and Christianity (Hart, Turner, and Knupp 1981, 60). Like Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism were reported on when they became political forces. Of the fifty-two articles, thirty-eight or 73.53% of the sample had a political conflict focus.

Buddhism and Hinduism were treated as topics in 11.67% of the sample of Time issues between 1945 and 1995. This compares to Islam, which was treated in 11.89% of Time issues in the same period. However, after the Iranian Revolution, from 1979 to 1994, Islam was discussed in 69.44% of the issues, while Hinduism and Buddhism were mentioned in twenty-two or 42.37% of the sample. Such figures would suggest that religion was increasingly seen as a powerful political force in general, and that Islam was significantly more important than either Hinduism or Buddhism. Islam was not an issue until the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini to power in Iran in the 1970s.(There were fifteen articles in l975 and fifty in l979. In l980, forty-one articles dealt with Islam). Until then, although Muslim was used as a communal label in Lebanon and the Indian sub-continent there was no ‘‘Islamic’’ content to the label. Islam was not used to explain events in the Middle East or elsewhere.

After 1979, the Iranian revolution and its leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, became the yardstick for measuring Islam. In the initial aftermath of the ouster of the Shah, there was no immediate sense of Islam as an explanation for or cause of the revolution or its anti-Americanism. Indeed, the role of Islam was favorably compared to the role of Catholicism in Poland: ". . . it is the counter to the government—it is the refuge for freedom. It has become the umbrella for all manner of movements"(Time 12 March 1979, 54). The April 1979 cover story on the world of Islam looked sympathetically at Islam as a vehicle for reform: "Much of Islam’s resurgence can be seen as a quest for stability and roots, inspired by a disdain for Western values and for a kind of modernization that exacerbated economic and social problems in many Third World nations (Time 16 April 1979, 43).

The hostage crisis of November 1979 was the turning point in Time’s coverage of the Iranian revolution and its construction of Islam: "It was an ugly, shocking image of innocence and impotence, of tyranny and terror, of madness and mob rule"(Time 19 Nov. 1979, 14). The attitude toward Khomeini and the hostage crisis soon attached to Islam as a religion and a culture: "Khomeini has done more harm to the Islamic image in one month than all the propaganda of the past 215 years"(Time 17 Dec. 1979, 41).

What began as a conflict between Iranian revolutionaries and the U. S. quickly generalized into a conflict between Islam and the West. Of the forty articles that had a religious focus, more than half explicitly discussed the hostile relationship between Islam and the West and Islam and the modern world. In part, this reflected Khomeini’s rhetoric, his repeated statements about the need for a ‘‘struggle between Islam and the infidels’’ (Time 7 Jan. 1980, 13). But it also reflected the growing tendency to see Islam as the cause of the conflict, to root anti-westernism not in contemporary conditions but in religious attitudes. In an article entitled "Precautions Against Muslim Anger," Time reported:

A wave of anti-American violence continued to sweep

through the Muslim world. . . . Why do the world’s Muslims

seem to harbor such hostility for the U.S.? . . . The

explanation for the anger cannot be strictly historical. . . . It is hard to escape the conclusion . . . the explanation lies as much in culturaldifferences as in history. Many Muslims feel a profound ambivalence toward the West, and especially toward the U.S. (Time 10 Dec. 1979, 42)

But coverage of Islam in Time was not as one-dimensional or as unchanging as Said and others contend. There was discussion of western stereotypes and a rejection of them:
Islam is frequently stereotyped as unmitigatedly harsh

in its code of law, intolerant of other religions,

repressive toward women and incompatible with

progress. . . . Defenders of the faith further argue that

Islam is not monolithic, that it is compatible with

various social and economic systems, and that far from

being a return to the Dark Ages, it is wholly

consonant with Progress. (Time 16 April 1979, 45)

Over time, Time’s coverage of Islam did include the history of relations between the Islamic world and the West. It did discuss basic doctrines of the Islamic religion, competing interpretations of those teachings, and the ways in which Islam is and has been lived—practices, institutions, social realities. There was a "good Islam" represented by Anwar Sadat, "a devout Muslim" who has "denounced Khomeini as a lunatic and forthrightly condemned the seizure of the hostages. ‘This is not Islam,’ he said, ‘Islam teaches love, tolerance and mercy’" (Time 26 Nov. 1979, 32).

Moreover, Time did make distinctions between Sunni and Shi’a Islam, between fundamentalist, traditionalist and modernist Islam, and among the experiences of different countries. It is those

. . . many differences that make it not only inadvisable

but impossible to generalize about Islam as if it were

a single, coherent bloc. . . [T]he Islamic world is very

much fragmented. . . . Furthermore, the world of Islam

extends far beyond the Middle East. (Time 17 Dec. 1979, 41)

Nor was Islam used to explain everything that has gone on in the Islamic world. Time discussed the historical and contemporary problems and pressures that have brought fundamentalist Islam to the fore as a political force:
Islam is, as much as anything else, the repository for

grievances, envies and hatreds that Third World have-

nots harbor for the privileged of the globe. Islam

gives cohesion to complaints about the injustices of

the world. The Muslim tradition provides the language

and symbolism to express a wide social message: it is

not necessarily a religious phenomenon. (Time 17 Dec. 1979, 38)

The coverage made clear the socio-economic context of fundamentalism’s rise amid the failure of secular regimes to solve the chronic unemployment, corruption, and hopelessness that plague the Arab world:
The emotional wellsprings of Islamic extremism lie in

the social displacement and alienation of the modern

Arab world. Discontent runs deep in Muslim countries

where poverty is endemic, unemployment keeps growing,

prices soar. Migration to urban areas has created

vast slums without the most basic services, as well as

a profound sense of rootlessness. Poorly educated,

poverty-stricken peasants are obvious recruits to

fundamentalism. But so increasingly are the younger

members of the middle class who find themselves

jobless and poor, with no promise of a better future.

(Time 4 Oct. 1993, 63)

Time was not unaware of the problem or of the inadequacy of western stereotypes but the nature of news made those concerns academic. Time’s news format highlights excitement, action, dramatic personalities, and conflict. More than anything else, the occasions and issues that created interest in Islam shaped the picture painted of it. Almost exclusively, violent political crises produced coverage of Islam. There were statements to the effect that most Muslims, indeed most fundamentalist Muslims are not violent:
. . . the building fear of Islamic fundamentalism in

Western capitals and Moscow . . . raises the specter of

subversion throughout the region.Arguments like these, however, often fail to distinguish between the religious fanatics who garner headlines with terrorist attacks and the far more numerous Muslims who seek a greater say in their
countries’ policies. (Time 25 June 1990, 26)

But the fact remains that the Muslims who received the most coverage were violent. Almost 30% of articles with a political focus discussed either terrorism or extremism. Said’s and others scathing criticism of the American media’s treatment of Islam is correctly focused on at least one of two intertwined strands. First, as they purport, Time’s focus is almost exclusively on politicized Islamic fundamentalism. This reduces the religious and cultural identity of Muslims to a political movement. The second strand of their criticism, that the news media do not provide a context for this politicized Islamic fundamentalism, is less well supported. In fact, Time did include discussion of the historical and contemporary problems and pressures that have brought fundamentalist Islam to the fore as a political force. A casual reader would not necessarily get a look below the surface violence to its root causes. Only careful and consistent reading of Time would reveal the diversity of Islam, the socio-economic and historical context of Islamic movements, and the inadequacy of the American stereotype. Unless Time’s readers are careful and consistent in their reading of articles covering Islam, the inadequacy of the American stereotype would not be evident. Another disturbing implication is that Time, as part of the elite or prestige press, may influence other news media. Journalistic contagion is a concern, particularly when the accuracy or truth value of media images is in question. Additionally, there is public reaction to media images. In this case, the images of Islam may evoke fear and even loathing. ‘‘One indicator of public reaction to some of the changing Middle Eastern images are the Gallup Public Opinion Polls between June 1967 and April l975. These polls suggest that evolving press images have indeed trickled down toward the center point of the population’’(Belkaoui l978). This population equates Islam with terror. Ultimately it may be that the way news is read, rather than the way it is reported, better explains the nature of the image of Islam in America today.

Karen F. Dajani, Communication Department
Christina Michelmore, History Department
Chatham College
Pittsburgh, PA 15232
 

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