Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

ISSN: 1369-183X (Print) 1469-9451 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjms20

British Arab Muslim Audiences and Television after

September 11

Zahera Harb & Ehab Bessaiso

To cite this article: Zahera Harb & Ehab Bessaiso (2006) British Arab Muslim Audiences and
Television after September 11, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32:6, 1063-1076, DOI:
10.1080/13691830600761529

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830600761529

Published online: 16 Aug 2006.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 537

Citing articles: 7 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cjms20
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Vol. 32, No. 6, August 2006, pp. 1063
1076

British Arab Muslim Audiences and

Television after September 11
Zahera Harb and Ehab Bessaiso

This study of British Arab Muslim audiences in Cardiff, Wales, explores their reactions to
the events of 11 September 2001 and their perceptions of media representations of Islam
and Muslims. The availability of Arab satellite television channels in Britain enabled the
respondents to see news that bolstered existing perspectives and a sense of Arab Muslim
identity. Their news consumption allowed them to challenge dominant Western media
narratives about the causes and consequences of the attacks. The study concludes with a
discussion of ethnocentrism in the light of these findings.

Keywords: Identity; Stereotypes; Media Bias; Al-Jazeera; Ethnocentrism

Introduction

The complex ways in which the news media project a sense of ‘us’, a collective ‘we’
which is explicitly or tacitly mobilised in opposition to a ‘them’, find daily
expression in news accounts concerned with the ‘nation’. There can be no ‘national
we’ . . . without a ‘foreign other’, a dynamic which . . . prefigures an ‘ideological
consciousness of nationhood’ (Allan 1999: 172).

British Muslim Arabs should ‘logically’ be identified and represented in the British
media as ‘us’, part of the British nation. But, from the early 1980s, events and issues
such as the Salman Rushdie affair, the Honeyford affair, halal meat in schools, and
the Gulf War pushed Islam into the national arena and, as Poole (2002) argues, raised
questions among dominant groups about the ability, desire and willingness of
Muslims to assimilate peacefully into UK society. According to Poole, attempts by
Muslims to preserve their culture have been seen as a threat to traditional British
values, thereby excluding Muslims from Britishness (2002: 22). In 1997 the

Zahera Harb and Ehab Bessaiso are respectively Researcher/Associate Lecturer and PhD. Candidate at the Cardiff
School of Journalism. Correspondence to: Zahera Harb, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural
Studies, Cardiff University, The Bute Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NB. E-mail:
harbz1@cardiff.ac.uk; ebessaiso@yahoo.com

ISSN 1369-183X print/ISSN 1469-9451 online/06/061063-14 # 2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13691830600761529
1064 Z. Harb & E. Bessaiso
Runnymede Trust’s Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia reported that
Muslim communities suffer more racist violence than other minority communities. It
highlighted the role of the media in exacerbating stereotypes and reinforcing
xenophobic attitudes towards Muslims, contributing to a sense of exclusion and
marginalisation (Runnymede Trust 1997). There is also a prevalent belief among
British people that Muslim communities are essentially patriarchal and sexist. The
ongoing ‘othering’ of Muslims and their concomitent sense of exclusion from
Britishness deepened after the September 11 atrocities when Islam was demonised as
the enemy within. More than 300 assaults on Muslims took place in Britain in the
wake of attacks in the USA. Most of the victims were women wearing hijab*the
symbolic and public marker of their Muslim identity (The Guardian, 18 July 2002).
As Philip Knightly puts it, Western media follow a depressingly predictable pattern
in reporting wars: ‘stage one, the crisis; stage two, the demonisation of the enemy’s
leader; stage three, the demonisation of the enemy as individual; and stage four,
atrocities’ (Knightly 2001). He argues that British Muslims have been demonised as
individuals and as a group:

By continuing to refer to ‘Muslim and Islamic terrorists’, the perpetrators are seen
as products of a fanatical strain of Islam. As a result the associated negative
behaviour is seen to evolve out of something inherent in the religion, rendering any
Muslim a potential terrorist (Knightly 2001).

The cultural politics of ‘us and them’ in news discourse helps ‘create and reinforce the
fears of what are predominantly white audiences towards ethnic groups’ (Allan 1999:
171). How, then, do British Arab Muslims perceive the representation of Arabs and
Muslims in TV news after September 11? Do they engage in similar kinds of
boundary-marking strategies as the media in order to overcome a sense of threat and
trauma and to feel more secure?
This research analyses the outcome of in-depth interviews conducted with eight
British Muslim Arab families and two British Muslim Arab women in Cardiff,
Wales in February and March 2002. In total, 21 interviewees composed the survey.
I use a triple identity formulation, combining national, religious and ethno-
linguistic markers, to signify that each of these constituent elements of their
identity were considered to be important to my interviewee subjects. Not all Arabs
are Muslims, like my subjects. They may also be Christian. The paper examines
the relationship of Muslim Arab audiences to British news and to Arab satellite
news channels, Al-Jazeera in particular, the effects of September 11 on their lives,
and their perceptions of the causes and consequences of the attacks.1 It will
highlight why Muslim Arab audiences’ appetite for Arab satellite channels was
greatly increased after 9/11 and how daily exposure to news from a political
perspective with which they could identify reinforced, rather than challenged, pre-
existing political beliefs about the tensions and conflicts between the Western and
Arab/Muslim worlds.
 Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1065

Discourses of Identification and Othering

British Muslim Arabs have British citizenship; their existence in Britain goes back
to the 1860s when Arab Muslim immigration was stimulated by the opening of
the Suez Canal. Increased trade brought Yemeni and Somali labourers to ports
such as Cardiff, Liverpool and London (Halliday 2003). The British Muslim Arabs
we interviewed believe that they have primarily been portrayed as part of ‘them’.
As one of our female interviewees stated: ‘After September 11 we felt our existence
in the UK came into question and was under threat. Islam, as a religion, was
portrayed viciously, and all Arabs as a race were labelled as ‘terrorists’ (female,
40s, Somali). This sense of fear and threat was not, of course, an entirely
unprovoked or defensive reaction. In May 2002 Peter Hain, British Minister for
Europe, blamed British Muslims for their ‘isolationist tendencies’ (Russell 2002).
Like so many other minorities when their existence in Britain and their religious
beliefs are threatened, they responded by retreating into and strengthening their
sense of Arab/Muslim identity.
Talking with the families involved in this research, we noted very clear and strong
strategies of boundary marking in their discourse: ‘us’ as Arab Muslims (and that
includes the researchers), and ‘them’ as ‘white British’ and ‘white Americans’. They
use the word ‘they’ in addressing the British media, government and people, and the
word ‘we’ of themselves as Arabs and Muslims. This is entirely consistent with Said’s
depiction of identity construction which:

. . . involves establishing opposites and ‘others’ whose actuality is always subject to

the continuous interpretation and re-interpretation of their differences from ‘us’.
Each age and society creates its ‘others’. Far from a static thing then, identity of self
and of ‘other’ is a much worked-over historical, social and political process that
takes place as a contest involving individuals and institutions in all societies (Said
1995: 332).

All interviewees said they had questioned and struggled with their sense of identity
after September 11. How could such atrocities be committed in the name of Islam?
What is Islam becoming? What kind of backlash will we suffer? What does this mean
for our sense of Britishness and belonging? The problem of thinking through such
questions was much more prominent among younger Arab Muslims who are much
more deeply involved in communications across ethnic boundaries than their
parents. Like young British Asians and Caribbeans, they ‘went to school with white
and Afro-Caribbean Britons, shared leisure sites, watched television and were
frequently bilingual. Though they share aspects of a parental . . . cultural identity,
they are fundamentally British in cultural outlook’ (Barker 1999: 72). However, their
multicultural outlook came into question after September 11. ‘T’ (female, 34, Iraqi)
could not explain to her 12-year-old daughter why the teacher wanted one of the
students to take off her hijab before coming to school. Van Dijk helps us to provide
an explanation:
1066 Z. Harb & E. Bessaiso
Media discourse is the main source of people’s knowledge, attitudes and ideologies,
both of other elites and of ordinary citizens. Of course, the media do this in joint
production with the other elites, primarily politicians, professionals and academics.
Yet, given the freedom of the press, the media elites are ultimately responsible for
the prevailing discourses of the media they control (Van Dijk 2000: 36).

Media coverage might not generate racism but it certainly can reinforce it:

In the absence of alternative portrayals and broadened news coverage, one-sided

portrayals and news articles could easily become the reality in the minds of the
audience. . . . Media have their greatest influence when they reinforce rather than
attempt to change the opinions of those in their audience (Wilson and Gutierrez
1995: 44).

Confronting racism in society and journalism is a ‘formidable, imposing task’ which

must begin with ‘the language of the press’ (Berkowitz 1997: 392). Changing it means
‘transforming the image, creating alternatives, and asking ourselves questions about
what types of images subvert, pose critical alternatives, and transform our world-
views’ (hooks, cited in Berkowitz 1997: 392).
‘They are targeting our way of life’; ‘They have attacked America because we are
freedom’s home and defenders’ (George W. Bush, speech, National Day of Prayer, 14
September 2001); ‘They are Islamist extremists . . . they hate our freedom . . . they
want to drive Christians and Jews out of the vast regions of Asia and Africa’ (George
Bush, speech, Joint Session of Congress, 20 September 2001). Language such as this
prepared for the war on Afghanistan. As ‘N’ (20s, Iraqi) observed, when Islam was
connected to the Taliban regime and only Arab and Muslim organisations were
identified as ‘terrorists’, ‘hidden ideological implications’ reinforced false images in
the minds of ‘white Britons’ who had ‘no previous knowledge or perception of both
Muslims and Arabs’.
Yet Berkowitz (1997: 379) suggests that ‘ideological implications’ may well be
unconscious. News is prepared and viewed within a framework of perceptions that
‘imposes ways of seeing’: what Lippmann defined as a stereotype. Lippmann argued
that ‘for the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then
see’; the stereotype ‘precedes reason’ and thus shapes the story of the storyteller
(1991: 81). Stereotypes that reinforce distorted images of Islam and create ‘negative
perceptions’ are not a modern creation*they are part of an historically forged
racialised system of representation, and for that reason all the more difficult to
dislodge. For Said, such stereotypes go back at least to the eighteenth century, when
Orientalism, a discourse that drew essential differences between the Arab/Muslim
realm and the Western world, was constituted as an institutional system.
Contemporary developments of Orientalist discourse, such as Islamophobia, lend
authority and legitimacy to myths about Islam and Arabs. In this way ‘the authority
of a nation’ is backed by the unquestioning certainty of absolute truth and the
absolute force of the belief of its essential identity and difference to particular others
(Said 1995: 307).
 Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1067

The general basis of Orientalist thought is a drastically polarised geography

dividing the world into two unequal parts, the larger ‘different’ one called the
Orient, the other, also known as ‘our’ world, called the Occident or the West. . . .
[The Orient] has always been endowed both with greater size and with a greater
potential for power (usually destructive) (Said 1997: 4).

Such representations of Islam regularly reveal:

. . . a penchant to drive the world into pro-American (or pro- and anti-
communist), an unwillingness to report political processes, an imposition of
patterns and values that are ethnocentric or irrelevant or both, pure misinforma-
tion, repetition, an avoidance of detail, an absence of genuine perspective. All of
this can be traced, not to Islam, but to aspects of society in the West and to the
media, which this idea of ‘Islam’ reflects and serves (Said 1997: 44).

The ‘myths of Islamic threats are part of the rhetorical baggage of political struggle’ of
those who wish to remain in power or attain it (Halliday 2003: 6). Halliday suggests
that the conflict with the Islamic world reflects an inner need of Western society for a
‘menacing, but subordinated, other’ (2003: 6), while Hippler believes that one of the
major functions of the ‘Islamic threat’ is ‘to provide a justification for military
budgets and foreign policy’:

When it comes to Islam Western politicians are much more like ‘rational actors’,
whereas the mass media reveal a latent and more permanent readiness to generate
or deepen their audience’s fears (Hippler 2000: 74).

Images of the ‘alleged enemy’ were used to create the ‘politico-psychological

prerequisites to justify military action if necessary’ (Hippler cited in Poole 2002:
37). Both the ‘War on Afghanistan’ and the 2003 ‘War on Iraq’ validated Hippler’s
argument.
The above reflections provide a useful framework for analysing the relationship
between Arab Muslims and Western media after 9/11.

Interpretations of September 11 News Coverage

The National Census 2001 revealed that 3 per cent of the population in England and
Wales are Muslims: a population of more than 1.5 million, the largest faith after
Christianity. Cardiff has the highest proportion of Muslims in Wales. But there is no
specific figure for Muslim Arabs in Britain. Zeinab Badawi refers to Arabs as a ‘silent
section’ of the minority community in Britain (Nusseibeh 2000).
In February and March 2002, 20 families in Cardiff were approached to take part in
this research. Only eight agreed to participate. The families were guaranteed
anonymity but it was extremely difficult to convince them to participate, as they
feared the British authorities would question them about their responses. Many said:
‘Why bring all of this attention to us when the British already think we are terrorists
anyway?’
1068 Z. Harb & E. Bessaiso
The interviewees consisted of four Iraqi families, three Palestinian families, one
Somali family, one Yemeni woman and one Egyptian woman.2 The interviews
covered TV news viewing routines; news and political culture; memories of
September 11; world- and life-changing events; rights and wrongs in covering the
War on Afghanistan; new and old racisms, framing Islam; TV trust and truth. For a
deeper understanding of the interviewees’ views and reactions, we added questions
on their religious, political and cultural backgrounds.
The families defined their religious background as Muslim, but not all classified
themselves as strict adherents. Six out of eight male interviewees attended Friday
prayers in their local mosque. In terms of media consumption, the families mostly
rely heavily on TV in comparison to other news sources. TV was their preferred
option, followed by the Internet and radio. The families did not depend on
newspapers much, although they did read them to get an analytical perspective of
events. However, they believed that TV provided the news (specifically concerning the
Middle East) within a larger frame, reinforced by images that they felt they could not
get from radio or newspapers. Average TV viewing time is in the range of 20
28
hours a week. The programmes they watch are primarily political or current affairs,
though movies, serials and other programmes are also watched. Importantly, all
interviewees had installed satellites. Able to view a wide variety of Arabic channels,
their motivation to watch UK terrestrial channels had decreased.
For the Iraqi and the Palestinian families, Al-Jazeera was the main news source, as
also for the Yemeni and Egyptian women. Euro News and Radio Five Live were the
Somali family’s main news sources, since they were not fluent Arabic-speakers, but
they watched Al-Jazeera simply to view the images. All respondents stated they had
lost faith and trust in the British TV channels. This loss of confidence, initiated by
what they called the ‘unbalanced’ coverage of the Palestinian intifada (uprising) and
the situation in Iraq, was exacerbated after September 11. This does not mean that
they fully trust Al-Jazeera, but it is their prime option. The families also identified
other Arabic channels: they watched Abu Dhabi TV, the Lebanese satellite channel Al
Manar, and the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). British channels were
primarily watched for domestic news (including regional news programmes like BBC
Wales Today and HTV news) or to get what they called the ‘British view’ of incidents
taking place in the Middle East, Iraq or Somalia.
All the families had had access to Arabic satellite channels for more than six years.
One of the Iraqi families had acquired the satellite more than 15 years ago, when few
Arabic channels were transmitted. It was ‘a way to relate to our roots’. The Yemeni
woman had a satellite installed after September 11:

AI : Before it happened I didn’t have a TV at all. Then we just got satellite after it
happened, you know just to see the news of what happened. The English channels
wouldn’t show everything, I mean from before anything that had happened [in
New York and Washington], like for example Palestine, they have never shown the
truth. What you see on the satellite is what’s actually happened there. I mean you
see little kids getting beaten up by Israeli soldiers, little kids beaten.
 Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1069

All our interviewees stated that politics was part of their culture and thus their daily
life. It is clear that they understood news viewing as a political activity and as a
resource with which to make sense of the world. It was essential to their transnational
lives: to their keeping a close eye and ear on what was happening in the Arab/Muslim
world, Palestine especially. They felt sympathy for the fatalities of the 9/11 attacks in
America, but expressed fear that they ‘have become the victims now just as Arabs and
Muslims have been’.
Few images were still remembered after September 11 or the war on Afghanistan*
a testimony perhaps to the ephemeral and transient nature of news consumption. But
many interviewees affirmed one young woman’s view: ‘No-one could ever forget
seeing the images of the planes going into the Trade Center, or the falling of the Twin
Towers. They were life-changing and mind-transforming events’. All our informants
watched the first live images on days one and two on CNN; Al-Jazeera was a second
option during those days. Many compared viewing these images to watching a film
and stated how traumatised they felt for days after. Some claimed that they could not
sleep and that it awakened new and old traumas and memories of previous conflicts.
All our interviewees compared the events of September 11 to other atrocities*
mainly ones committed against Muslims or Arabs.
All the families we interviewed stated they did not agree with the justifications
given to launch the war on Afghanistan. Rather than a ‘war on terrorism’, they see it
as a ‘war of interests’. ‘IA’ (female, aged 20, Yemeni) considered it ‘a terrorist war’.
Further, the families were not convinced that bin Laden committed the attacks. One
Iraqi interviewee suggested that the second videotape released of bin Laden might be
‘fabricated by Hollywood’. Others suggested that Israel and the CIA might be behind
the attacks. ‘IA’ (female, 20, Yemeni) and ‘IB’ (female, 48, Egyptian) spoke of a
conspiracy theory fabricated by Israel to ruin the image of Islam in the West. ‘MH’
(male, 35, Iraqi) said:

In one of Al-Jazeera talk shows someone called and asked why the Twin Towers
were empty of almost 3,000 Jewish employees when the attacks took place, and I ask
the same. It is a big question that needs to be answered.

‘Z’ (female, 32, Iraqi) said: ‘I visited New York last summer [i.e. in 2001] and the area
by the Twin Towers was full of Jewish priests’. She asked: ‘Why did they disappear on
the day of the attacks?’ and said: ‘I do agree that it might have been a conspiracy
against Muslims’. Such conspiracy theories were widely believed and discussed among
our informants. They tend to circulate as rumours, especially on the Internet, and are
disseminated by word of mouth. As one informant stated: ‘I don’t believe news. I
don’t believe politicians. They are all liars. They are all corrupt. I believe rumours’.
Conspiracy theories and rumours provide people with ready-made answers, closing
down creative political thinking, cultivating ideologies of difference, including anti-
Americanism and anti-Semitism. Our study suggests that established political views,
especially when tied to a strong religious identity and sense of persecution, are very
1070 Z. Harb & E. Bessaiso
difficult to dislodge or shift. Viewing news that confirms rather than challenges a
belief is therefore seen as desirable and preferable.
The word ‘bias’ was often repeated when talking about CNN and the British TV
channels’ coverage of the war on Afghanistan. ‘S’ (male, 37, Somali) said:

It makes you want to switch off. CNN talks as if only America exists and the
rest of the world does not. You should have seen the CNN during the first days
of the war on Afghanistan, how they used to remind their audience that the
destruction they see in Afghanistan is retaliation to the killing of 5,000 [sic]
people in New York and Washington. As if they are calling them not to
sympathise with the Afghanis.

Most of the families asserted that the differences in coverage between Al-Jazeera and
the Western satellite channels were in the political perspective and language used.
While the CNN used phrases like ‘war on terrorism’, ‘the legitimate targets of Taliban’
and so forth, Al-Jazeera used such phrases as, ‘What is being called a war on
terrorism’ and ‘What the US thinks is a legitimate target’. In addition, IB (female, 48,
Egyptian), IA (female, 20, Yemeni), A and M (male, 41 and female, 37, Palestinians)
suggested that US media always accused Arabs of every terrorist attack, like that in
Oklahoma, where they first accused Arabs and then discovered it was an American
who was behind the bombing. For this reason, ‘A’ and his wife ‘M’ asserted that the
US media were, and are, frequently offensive towards Arabs and Muslims, and this
was one reason they switched to Arab channels:

M : In particular, to view Al-Jazeera, which we think has a distinguished team *

who seem to be everywhere, looking for the news with a higher objectivity than any
other media organisations. We believe that it is one of the best channels for its
neutrality, especially during the attacks on Afghanistan.

They believed that is why the Americans hit their office in Kabul. As ‘A’ said, ‘It
happened because the Americans wanted only their voice to be heard and not any
other source’.
The families asserted that, without channels like Al-Jazeera, they would have
substantially less complete knowledge about this war. They might have seen
everything from a ‘Western media’ standpoint. They also think that Al-Jazeera and
other Arab satellite channels have played a very important role in portraying the
‘correct face’ of the intifada as an act of resistance and not as ‘terrorism’*which is
how the ‘Western media’ portray it.
When the September 11 attacks happened, the initial accusations were against a
Palestinian organisation. Some of the ‘Western media’, notably CNN and the BBC,
repeatedly showed images of Palestinians celebrating after the attack.

SH : Even though those images were true and weren’t fabricated, why it was focused
on the Palestinians? There were undoubtedly people from other countries who
oppose US foreign policy celebrating these events.
 Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1071

The Palestinian interviewees felt strongly that the coverage was shaped to accuse the
Palestinians, until they found ‘other people’ to accuse.

IA : Remember that picture, I think they were Palestinians, who were celebrating.
Well, they said they checked that a long time ago, that wasn’t even on the day that it
happened. Apparently that was an old tape.
IB : But even if, Palestinians feeling happy, you can’t blame them because how
come, how can you blame them? They are attacked by American bombs.
IA : Every day they have a funeral to go to.

In each interview the discussion ultimately turned to Palestine and the ‘Western
media’ coverage of the Palestinians’ sufferings. All found the Western coverage of the
Middle East to be biased towards Israel most of the time. As ‘AF’ (male, 60, Iraqi)
said: ‘We feel offended when we hear the British TV channels describing the
Palestinian fighters as terrorists’.
Asked about their feelings at that time, most mentioned a huge mix of emotions.
Great sadness and sympathy were the first *but fear of what might follow in the
form of American retaliation arose quickly. Some saw it as a time for Americans to
feel what Palestinians experience in their daily lives. The families often compared the
destruction resulting from the attack on September 11 to that of the Palestinian
houses in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. They compared images of American victims
to those of Palestinians such as Mohammed al-Dorra (the 12-year-old boy shot in
Gaza in his father’s arms), or Iman Hejjo (the 3-month-old baby shot while her
mother tried to escape from a tank shell that had hit their house). These images, first
seen on Al-Jazeera, could not be erased from their memories any more than those of
September 11.
There were striking differences between reactions of old and young generations.
Children born in the UK or brought here at an early age (now aged 12 to 20) stated
that they had not been interested in news before September 11, and lack of Arabic
fluency made them stay away from Arabic channels. But after September 11 they
started sharing almost the same news viewing patterns as their parents, while parents
played a key role in translating and explaining news to their children. ‘MA’ (female,
15, Iraqi) encountered racism after September 11 when a classmate addressed her as
‘bloody Arab’. She says: ‘I started asking my mother to summarise the Arabic news for
me because I wanted to know the truth and why I was addressed as ‘bloody Arab’’.
For most of them, the ‘Western media’ after September 11 went too far in blaming
Muslims in general:

S : It got too much that we became the victims. Seriously this is a strange thing;
because of the view of the events everybody has turned on us completely, the faces,
everyone look at you differently. If you got hijab on, you don’t need to know
English to sense they look at you hostile, cars pass and throw things at people, even
down here. So suddenly your view has changed from normal view, let us say, and
then you say, hang on, suddenly what happened on TV we are blamed for. We have
nothing to do with what happened. We don’t support it, we feel sorry for the
situation and yet we walk on the street and ask what is going to happen to us. My
1072 Z. Harb & E. Bessaiso
wife didn’t go out for weeks because Somali women who went out there, things
were thrown on them.

Not only Somali but also Iraqi women in Cardiff suffered racist actions. ‘USh’
(female, 64, Iraqi) speaks of what happened to her when she was driving in town in
November 2001:

USh: A car coming from opposite direction hit my car. It was a small accident but
some of the employees at the nearby shop rushed out and started harassing me with
words, blaming me for the accident. They did not allow me to move my car before
the police come. The police came and they told the people around the cars that this
was a very minor accident and they shouldn’t have called them. The police said it
was the other driver’s fault and all we needed was to call our insurance companies.

‘USh’ believes she was treated in this way because she wears the hijab: ‘This is the
result of what the Western media is doing since September 11: relating Islam and
Muslims to terrorism’. There was a sense of fear about what to expect next:

S : Everybody felt under focus, our whole existence in this country became
questioned, and the media contributed to this atmosphere 100 per cent. It is bit like
saying, in Germany in 1930, did the media contribute to what happened to Jewish
people, and the answer is yes. It was the radio broadcasting all these propaganda
what made the ordinary German people think what they thought about the Jewish
community. And now you get this image that all Muslims are responsible for what
happened.

These families clearly deplored the way that Islam was portrayed in the ‘Western
media’, particularly since September 11. They felt that it impacted on the public’s
understanding of what Islam is about. They stressed that some programmes
misrepresented Islam rather than explaining it to Western society. They did not
name any specific programmes, but this was their overwhelming reaction to British
TV.
The issue of the place of women in Islam, especially under Taliban rule (which was
seemingly generalised to all of Islam in the ‘Western media’), seemed to convince the
interviewees that the West really did not care about the fate of the Afghani people.
They asserted that the position of women in Islam was in fact far better than in some
Western societies, and this ‘Western media’ concern was propagandistic, designed to
help the American administration gain public support for its campaign against
‘terrorism’. Interestingly, Al-Jazeera was credited with helping them to identify these
ideas, by bringing images of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Palestine and
by hosting guests who highlighted and identified Arabic and Islamic points of view of
what was happening. Al-Jazeera gave them the confidence to express certain views
that, prior to its existence, might have been difficult to voice. The channel set
frameworks for understanding the global situation that challenged what they had seen
in ‘Western media’. Most of our interviewees situated the Palestinian conflict at the
 Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1073

heart of present-day conflicts between the West and Arab/Muslims. In their view, the
resolution of that conflict also held the key to future peace and security.

Conclusion
The atrocities that took place in the United States on September 11 and the war
launched against so-called ‘terrorism’ in Afghanistan showed that within the Western
media systems we encounter tendencies towards various forms of ‘ethnocentrism’.
This concept was identified and defined by William Graham Sumner as ‘the technical
name for the view of things in which one’s own group is the centre of everything and
all others are scaled and rated with reference to it’ (Sumner cited in Ginneken 1998:
212). So reality could no longer be viewed ‘as simply a given set of facts’:

The media defined, not merely reproduced, ‘reality’. Definitions of reality were
sustained and produced through all those linguistic practices (in a broad sense) by
means of which selective definitions of ‘the real’ were represented (Hall 1982: 64).

The sample of British Arab Muslims interviewed here lack trust in what the ‘Western
media’ produce. Their ‘lack of trust’ corresponds with Said’s (1997) description of
‘Western media’ production as ‘neither spontaneous nor completely free’:

For all modes of communication, television, radio, and newspapers, observe certain
rules and conventions to get things across intelligibly, and it is these, often more
than the reality being conveyed, that shape the material delivered by the media.
Since these tacitly agreed-upon rules serve efficiently to reduce an unmanageable
reality to ‘news’ or ‘stories,’ and since the media strive to reach the same audience
which they believe is ruled by a uniform set of assumptions about reality, the
picture of Islam (and of anything else, for that matter) is likely to be quite uniform,
in some ways reductive, and monochromatic. It ought to go without saying that the
media are profit-seeking corporations and therefore, quite understandably, have an
interest in promoting some images of reality rather than others. They do so within
a political context made active and effective by an unconscious ideology, which the
media disseminate without serious reservations or opposition (Said 1997: 48
9).

Of course, news media today try to maximise their ratings but they no longer can
reach the same (national) audiences. Rather, news channels like Al-Jazeera contribute
to fragmenting the one-time national British news audience while, at the same time,
creating a pan-Arabic and Muslim transnational public sphere. Processes of fracture
and fission are thus accompanied by simultaneous processes of re-formation and re-
assembly. It is not that Arabic-speaking audiences no longer watch the BBC. They do,
but much more critically, as they have an alternative with which they can make
comparisons. Audiences are also changing and thus need to be redefined. They can be
treated as media publics and or as individual users. For young Muslims, the
availability of a plethora of Islamic websites means that they can engage in dialogue
with other young Muslims across the world about the internal variations and
1074 Z. Harb & E. Bessaiso
changing nature of Islam in the modern world. They can also use such sites to
negotiate identity and what it means to be a Muslim in the West.
News matters and it shapes what people think, but not enough to dislodge firmly-
held political-cum-religious beliefs. There are no simple realities to be portrayed and,
as we have seen, the same events can engender very different interpretations among
different social and cultural groups. However, Jakubowicz et al. (1994) argue that,
even if news is not simply a ‘reality’, neither is it a fixed ideology:

[News] is created through industrial processes, involving aesthetic and professional

decisions based on news workers’ social and individual judgements about their
audiences and the line they want to take. News making is a process of identification
and selection of stories, in which some events are noticed, others are not. The
events that are noticed tend to be presented in a manner which reinforces the
existing social and moral order. News is constructed and negotiated by the people
who gather it and present it *it is not simply a rigid or predetermined ideology
(Jakubowicz et al . 1994: 159).

Of course, viewing ‘reality’ through one’s own perceptions and backgrounds can be
applied to the Arab satellite channels as well as to the ‘Western media’. ‘Ethnocentr-
ism’ is not the exclusive preserve of the West. It can affect the views of any individual
and group. Nevertheless, the British Muslims identified themselves within the
ethnocentric framework of the Arabic channels (Al-Jazeera mostly) rather than
within the British media or the CNN. Tackling ethnocentrism in media and social life
is crucial to avoid future conflicts.
The positions of the American and British governments towards Arabic
channels such as Al-Jazeera should also be viewed, interpreted and analysed
within the context of ‘ethnocentrism’. The Americans accused Al-Jazeera of
inciting hatred and the British wanted to ban it. Blackhurst reported that
Whitehall had been doing its utmost in private briefings to rubbish Al-Jazeera ‘as
being naturally biased towards the Taliban/Osama bin Laden cause’ (Blackhurst
2001). As for the Americans:

The Bush administration is pressuring Qatar to restrain the Al-Jazeera cable TV

network, which the United States believes is unbalanced and encourages anti-
American sentiment in the Middle East, the State Department said yesterday (CNN
News, 4 October 2001).

While the American administration views Al-Jazeera coverage as ‘unbalanced and

anti-American’ and as ‘bin Laden’s mouth-piece’, Arabs and Muslims view the
American and British channels as ‘unbalanced and anti-Arab’. The same scenario was
repeated during the 2003 ‘War on Iraq’: again the Arabic satellite channels were
accused of being pro-Saddam Hussein; Al-Jazeera offices were bombed in Baghdad as
they had been bombed during the war on Afghanistan. However, during the war on
Iraq, Abu Dhabi TV’s offices in Baghdad were added to the American list of ‘bombed
targets’.
 Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1075

It is new that the flow of information is not coming from one side only, and world
events are no longer covered only through the eyes of a certain group or community
(white Britons and Americans). No claims to generalisability can be made, but the
importance of channels such as Al-Jazeera as alternative sources of information for
minorities is manifest. The reliability of terrestrial domestic channels, and indeed of
all Western (especially US) channels and other media, comes severely into question
when discussing these minorities and their perceived kinsfolk through religion or
blood, i.e. Muslims and Arabs.

Notes
[1] Mala Jagmohan of Swansea University conducted the in-depth interviews with the two
women. These two participants are neighbours and represent two other Arab Muslim
families in South Wales. Both women are divorced. The Egyptian has two daughters and the
Yemeni has one. It should be mentioned that five families were interviewed in Arabic and the
interviews translated into English. The participants felt more comfortable expressing
themselves in Arabic. The other interviews were conducted in English; in these transcrip-
tions, some linguistic imperfections remain.
[2] Al-Jazeera is based in Doha, Qatar and sponsored by the Qatari government. According to
the Daily Telegraph of 6 November 2001, Al-Jazeera has been available free since August 2001
to 6 million British homes subscribing to Sky digital, providing a potential audience of 10
million people. Al-Jazeera’s licence from the French broadcasting authorities allowed it to
screen its output anywhere in the European Union. Abu Dhabi TV is a commercial station
based in Abu Dhabi (UAE), sponsored by the governor-prince of Abu Dhabi. Al Manar is
based in Beirut, licenced by the Lebanese government in 1997, and sponsored by Hizbullah.
The Middle East Broadcasting Corporation is a commercial station based in Dubai (UAE)
and owned by a Saudi businessman.

References
Allan, S. (1999) News Culture . Buckingham: Open University.
Barker, C. (1999) Television, Globalisation and Cultural Identities . Buckingham: Open University.
Berkowitz, D. (1997) Social Meaning of News . London: Sage.
Blackhurst, C. (2001) ‘Propaganda War’, The Independent , 14 October.
Bush, G.W. Speeches . Online at www.bushcountry.org/bush_speeches/president_bush_speeches_
index.htm
Ginneken, J. (1998) Global News . London: Sage.
Hall, S. (1982) ‘The rediscovery of ‘‘ideology’’: return of the repressed in the media studies’, in
Gurevitch, M., Bennett, T., Curran, J. and Wollacott, J. (eds) Culture, Society and the Media .
London: Routledge, 56
90.
Halliday, F. (2003) Islam and the Myth of Confrontation . London: I.B. Tauris.
Hippler, J. (2000) ‘Foreign policy, the media and the Western perception of the Middle East’, in
Hafez, K. (ed.) Islam and the West in the Mass Media . New Jersey: Hampton Press, 67
87.
hooks, B. (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representation . Boston: South End Press.
Jakubowicz, A., Goodall, H., Martin, J., Mitchell, T., Randall, L. and Seneviratne, K. (1994) Racism,
Ethnicity and the Media . Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Knightly, P. (2001) ‘The disinformation campaign’, The Guardian , 4 October.
Levine, R. and Campbell, D. (1972) Ethnocentrism: Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes and Group
Behavior. New York: Macmillan.
1076 Z. Harb & E. Bessaiso
Lippmann, W. (1991) Public Opinion . New Brunswick: Transaction (originally published 1922).
Lule, J. (1997) ‘The rape of Mike Tyson: race, the press and symbolic types’, in Berkowitz, D. (ed.)
Social Meaning of News . London: Sage, 376
95.
Nusseibeh, L. (2000) Report on CAABU Monthly Meeting with Zeinab Badawi . The House of
Commons, 6 December. Online at www.caabu.org/press/articles/badawi_report.html
Poole, E. (2002) Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims . London: I.B. Tauris.
Runnymede Trust (1997) Islamophobia: A Challenge For Us All . London: Runnymede Trust
Publications.
Russell, B. (2002) ‘Hain criticised for simplistic comments on Islam’, The Independent , 13 May.
Said, E. (1995) Orientalism . London: Penguin Books.
Said, E. (1997) Covering Islam . Vintage: London.
Van Dijk, T. (2000) ‘New(s) racism: a discourse analytical approach’, in Cottle, S. (ed.) Ethnic
Minorities and the Media . Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 33
49.
Wilson II, C. and Gutierrez, F. (1995) Race, Multiculturalism, and The Media . London: Sage.