Customer Reviews

The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception

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The book does an excellent job of challenging the US media. Each of the eighteen essays brings out a unique approach. This work definitely needs to be followed up with comprehesive reaserch project to measure the impact of these images on the daily lives of Muslims, Middle Easterners, and Americans no matter where they live on the globe.

The author has put together a very strong analysis of the persistent bias against and demonization of Muslims, particularly of Arabs in American media. The mantra of hate speech which passes as news in American media is indicted in this book. Definitely recommended book.

In a display of remarkable consensus, all eighteen chapters of "The U.S. Media and the Middle East" argue that the American "public has a grossly distorted view of the Third World" in general, the Middle East in particular, and Arabs and Iranians most of all. Author after author flays the press for its exaggerations, inaccuracies, and falsehoods. Editors, editorialists, reporters, movie makers, and even cartoonists come in for a severe tongue lashing. It's as though every author had been given the ideological script in advance, then told to flesh out with details.

But wait. Is the American press really all that bad? One author, Mahboob Hashem (an assistant professor of communications at Fort Hays State University in Kansas) combed through all of Time and Newsweek for a four-year period, 1990-93 and found the coverage predictably wretched ("stereotyping Arabs and portraying them as backward, terrorists, camel jockeys, and the like"). But then Hashem usefully summarizes seven main themes he found in the weeklies' coverage. These bear noting, for they will strike most Americans as reasonable: "Middle East region in decline; fundamentalist movement growing; democracy lacking; Arab unity a facade; Arabs live in the past; slavery exists in parts of the Arab world; and political climate changing" (that is, rejectionists weakening, peace process taking hold). Maybe, just maybe, the media has the story basically right and these professors of communications, media studies, and public relations have it wrong. Maybe too, professors of communications should stay away from the Middle East. (A welter of errors reinforces that notion, my favorite being "King Saddam Hussein).

Middle East Quarterly, December 1995

The basic argument behind all these authors and editorialists is that the U.S media is biased against the middle east and `the religion of peace' in particular. The arguments are varied but they all boil down to this: The western media makes the middle east out to be undemocratic, barbaric, discriminatory towards women and full of fundamentalist terrorists. Well lets look at the main points here.
Is the Middle east a center of democracy? Well, no actually every country in the middle east, except Israel, is a dictatorship without freedom of speech, freedom of religion or freedom of he press.
Is the portrayal of the middle east being full of backward fundamentalists inaccurate? Well in some instances yes. Egypt and Iraq and Pakistan are slightly modern. The rest of the middle east lives in the dark ages. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, Iran are all backward nations where little has changed since 532 AD(except now they have trucks and electricity). All schools in the middle east teach the Koran as part of daily practice, there is not one secular state in the middle east, expect Israel(sort of).
Are women discriminated against in the middle east? Well in Saudi women cant leave the house without permission and they cant drive either. In Iran its illegal for women to visit beauty parlors or touch `unrelated' men. In most middle eastern countries it is legal to beat and murder your wife for `honor' if she cheats. Clearly women are 100% equal!
Does slavery exist in the middle east? Yes, Arab traders routinely raid Sudanese villages to get slaves and sell them in Saudi.

While the rest of the world also has issues with human rights and women's rights and slavery and democracy the middle east seems to combine violations of all three. If anything the treatment of the middle east in the western press ignores the most extreme abuses of human rights found through the middle east. In comparison the middle eastern press is virulently anti-western and anti-Jewish. Maybe the authors of this book should look at bias on AL-Jezeera before they condemn