Sara Dabe

UWRT 1102-064
Summary 1
Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media
Petley, Julian, and Robin Richardson. Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the
British Media. Oxford: Oneworld, 2011. Print.
The novel, Pointing the finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media, is a compilation
of a variety of prominent academics and journalists who analyze the portrayal of Islam in
British media and the phenomenon of Islamophobia since 2001. Pointing the finger
claims that media coverage of Islam continues to undermine efforts to combat extremism
and also alienates Muslims. The question being asked is if the media promotes bias
against understanding Islam, by oversimplifying, giving insufficient information about
the back ground to the news and pandering to readers anxieties and prejudices.
The reoccurring ideas in this book include: how Muslims are depicted as a threat
to traditional British ways of life, how the prominent view in the UK media is that there
is no common ground between the West and Islam, and how facts are frequently
distorted, exaggerated, or over simplified, and sometimes even invented. The tone of
language is even discussed, and how it is frequently emotive, immoderate, alarmist, or
abusive when Islam is involved. The editors also mention how the coverage is likely to
provoke and increase feelings of insecurity, suspicion, and anxiety among non-Muslims,
(Petley and Richardson, xi). This type of coverage is unlikely to help diminish levels of
unlawful discrimination and hate crimes by non-Muslims against Muslims, which is the
very reason I decided to pursue this inquiry question. The increased numbers of hate

crimes and erroneous prejudice stems back to the source instilling this hostility towards
the Muslim community, which is the media.
Julian Petley is a professor of Screen Media and Journalism, and Robin
Richardson is Co-director if the Instead consultancy, which focuses on issues of equality
and diversity. These two together, I believe are very qualified to speak about this topic
because of their expertise in this field. This book was perhaps written for anyone in the
range of media studies, or anyone with concern for the growing divisions in our societies.

Quotes:

The Media frequently give the impression that there is a single, homogenous
Muslim community in Britian, and that the government should have dealings

only with organizations that are representative of that community (p.xvii)

The media frequently argue that people of Muslim heritage can be divided into
two contrasting groups: good/bad, moderate/extremist, so on. But this is not
only misleading, it can also lead to the demonization of certain Muslims and

Islamic organization (p. xxi).

The media should regard it as their duty to promote informed debate about the
nature of multiculturism (p. 271).