Introduction

Abstract

From the printing press to Twitter, media tools have enabled people to articulate their perceptions of the ‘other’ and potentially shape how ‘we’ relate to ‘them’. For over a millennium, and certainly within recent decades, the major ‘other’ for the West has been Muslims. This book examines how the Western media frames the Muslim world and the implications of this for Islam-West relations, both intercommunity and international. It is concerned with how news values and media frames contribute to Western audiences’ perceptions and understandings of Islam and Muslims; the extent to which historic conceptions of orientalism remain salient and are manifested in Islamophobia; how reporting on terrorism and asylum seekers relates to public opinion and policy making; how the relationship between mass and social media contributes to the changing socio-political landscape and our understanding of the Muslim world; and how journalism and audiences have evolved in the decade since 9/11. A synopsis of the book’s chapters is provided at the end of this chapter.