Exercise 2: The Dialogue

In the article The Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Media

(The Age and Herald Sun Newspapers) by Dr. Shahram Akbarzadeh and Dr.
Bianca Smith argue in response the negative images which are presented to
Australias news reading public that are often taken out of context, and
supply little information about other Islamic practices and beliefs which
condemn terrorism and the illtreatment of women. The writers claim that
the newspapers in their country often depict the negative side to a culture
and categorize the Islam and Muslims as a whole in these two newspapers in
particular The Age and Herald Sun. The writers go into detail and come to a
realization that it is clear that both newspapers are dominated by news on
terrorism 22%, West/Islam relations 16%,race and asylum seeker issues 16%,
local cultural issues such as food, activities, religious celebrations 10%, local
council matters Gender, features on Muslim individuals (or Self Stories), and
Indonesia also received significant coverage 16%, Islamic terrorism, and
Indonesian Muslim protests against the Americanled invasion of Afghanistan
8%, Iraq received 6%, News articles about local Islamic leaders such as Sheik
Al-Hilaly and Sheik Omran received 6%. So as you can see from these
numbers terrorism makes up a big part of the news in these newspapers. I
believe they had proper evidence to persuade me that the media does take
advantage of certain aspects of these people and categorizing them as a
whole and thus having better ratings in their newspapers for producing
negative news. A counter argument can be that it may only be these two

newspapers and other newspapers have different views in the matter and
represent Muslim and Islamic people in their entirety. In this case we should
consider how popular these newspapers are in the Australian community and
their influence on people.

In the CNN article Syrian refugees not welcome in 31 U.S. states by

Ashley Fantz and Ben Brumfield this article is an example of the scare tactics
used by the media to rank up ratings it starts out by stating that 31 states
representatives have refused to allow Syrian refugees from taking shelter in
their state. The announcements came after authorities revealed that at
least one of the suspects believed to be involved in the Paris terrorist attacks
entered Europe among the current wave of Syrian refugees. The claim in
this article is that the last word belongs to the federal government and not
individual states, "when push comes to shove, the federal government has
both the plenary power and the power of the 1980 Refugee Act to place
refugees anywhere in the country," Kevin Appleby, director of migration
policy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. And I agree with this the
last word is up to the federal government and in the end the United States
will accept the refugees from Syria. Some may argue that a terrorist may slip
through with the refugees and it is possible thats why some representatives
call for Congress to conducts a thorough review of current screening
procedures and background checks.