Media’s all-powerful influence shapes the mind of its audience

The media today, puts much interest on stories about Muslims just for the simple reason of selling their news. Journalists nowadays think of the Muslims as high-selling news due to...

Media’s all-powerful influence shapes the mind of its audience

By Daryl Hannah Abarquez 

Nusaybah(on the left) not wearing her
Hijab to prevent unwanted attention.

 “Muslim Kills Wife…”, “Muslim attacks…”, “US grieves after Muslim doctor Kills…”. Due to countless times of reporting these kinds of stories, media has begun to shape and mislead the viewers’ and readers’ perception on Muslims. The media, through its news-writing and news-reporting technique has contributed in causing the whole nation to view Muslims in a very negative way; and these media practices as well as the negative perception of the people is greatly affecting the Muslims all over the world.

The media today, puts much interest on stories about Muslims just for the simple reason of selling their news. Journalists nowadays think of the Muslims as high-selling news due to all the drama and conflict in every story thus making it to point to put in on the headlines and front page of newspapers. Not to mention, media have trained their audiences to always associate the word “terrorism” to the Muslim people and their Islam religion. As a matter of fact, a recent study by the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication concluded that the Philippine print news media shows evident biases against Muslim Filipinos and its biases are expresses through stereotyping Muslims as terrorists and its negative and imbalance reporting; But how do these biases affect the Muslim Filipinos?

Nusaybah, a 19-year-old female student from University of the Philippines agreed to share her experiences as Muslim after she left her province and decided to stay in Manila for schooling.

How do you manage to follow all the practices of your religion here in Manila?

Growing up in a Muslim community, it was easy to practice my religion. But when I came here, it was a challenge. I practice my religion privately. I try to read the Qur’an when I have time and also pray when I’m home. I think it’s not that hard to practice my religion. It’s all in the strength of faith.

Your Religion is known of having many practices and observances, did you ever experience failing to follow a certain practice? If yes, what was it and what was your reason for failing to do so?

Yes. That would certainly be the wearing of Hijab. It is required for all Muslim women. I fail to follow it for my individual reasons which would take the whole of this paper to explain. Basically, it’s inconvenient for me. Just take it this way: The main reason for wearing it is to avoid attraction or attention from men. However, in this environment, the opposite happens when you wear a Hijab. You gain a lot of attention because you’re different. Eyes are all on you. And I am uncomfortable of the attention it gives me. That’s just one of the reasons.

She also mentioned some of her struggles as a muslim on the interview.

What are your struggles during Ramadan?

Fasting can be such a struggle especially when you see everyone eating around you. But that’s the essence of it.

What are your struggles being a muslim?

I guess that would be being different. Most of the people here see and treat me as someone different because of my religion. I’m sometimes stereotyped or discriminated. For instance, because of the Ampatuan massacre, people generalize on us. I am also always bombarded with the same questions over and over again such as polygamy issues, why am I not wearing hijab, what my name means, etc.

Were you ever victimized by discrimination against your religion?

Yes. One time I was with my mom who covers her hair and we called a taxi. And the taxi stopped in front of us. As soon as he saw my mom and we were about to open the car door, he hurriedly roared his engine and left us. My mom was almost hurt because of his reckless driving.

Media, has been proved to be biased against your religion and it always uses the stories which involve Muslims. Were you ever offended of a certain media content?

YES. I really hate it when a Muslim involved in a crime is labeled in the news as “A Muslim” instead of his actual name just to emphasize the point that he’s a Muslim. They always have to emphasize people as Muslims when they did something bad. Everyone makes mistakes or does bad things. We are all human. I also don’t like how Muslim women are portrayed in the media as oppressed. And then people tend to pity us, I just hate that. It can be true but it doesn’t apply much to Filipinos.

Truly, irresponsible media practices have offended the Muslim community. And it became an instrument of instilling wrong impressions of Muslims to the minds of the public thus causing discrimination and inequality to the whole Muslim community. Media should open their minds and do their job fairly and truthfully. Media should not use its power to plague and destroy the image of the Islamic religion by just a simple mistake of one person. It should truthfully report on who really committed the crime and who violated the law. It should treat the terrorist attacks as crimes of those people who really committed it and it should stop involving terrorist attacks and violence to the Islamic religion which is being practiced by millions of people across the globe. At the same time, Muslims should continuously show the public and the media their positive image and educate them about the beauty and the true essence of their religion and in return, the public should stop being immature and downgrading the Muslims. They should learn how to treat them equally no matter how different their beliefs are just like what Nusaybah wants to impart to the public…

“I think we should just treat everyone equally. We are not different; our beliefs don’t make us different from one another. People should not generalize on us too. All those labeling and stereotypes don’t make sense. The terrorists who claim they fight for Islam is also not true. They have hidden agenda. Islam is actually about peace. War is not encouraged in our beliefs. What else? People shouldn’t judge us easily. Muslims make mistakes just as Christians, Buddhists or Jews do. And we shouldn’t easily believe what is fed by the media because they always try to tweak the truth to sell stories. “