** This week the World Economic Forum (WEF) is taking place in Switzerland. Media Tenor is there participating and covering the event for Mediachannel.org. We will be featuring updates and research gathered for the forum here everyday this week.
During this year’s forum a unique study on dialogue between Islam and the West will be released. The results present empirical proof demonstrating the disastrous stage of distrust between both cultures. The research team for the study consisted of Media Tenor, Gallup and Georgetown-University. Mediachannel readers get access to the report presented at Davos. This is the first installment of a three-part series. **
MEDIA COVERAGE
Authors: Sacha Evans, Christian Kolmer, Roland Schatz.
Research Team: Yasser Abu Mulaiek, Sohail Akhtar, Dewi Astuti, Zuzana Beluska, Ali Reza Davari, Simon Jakobs, Stella Kallaghe, Atif Mussadaq, Derya Özdeniz, Denice Schaper, Dimitri Soibel.
Media Tenor International carried out an in-depth survey of reporting on Muslim-West issues in 24 countries in 2007. The survey, undertaken in both Muslim majority and non-Muslim majority countries, indicates that most reporting on Muslim-West issues was neutral in tone. However, negative coverage was 10 times more frequent than positive coverage. This was in part due to a focus on international politics – including terrorism – Iraq and Israel-Palestine.
The high volume of reporting on conflicts fuelled negative presentations of the Western and Muslim “other” across all media outlets and countries. Reporting on other Muslim-West issues, such as citizenship, integration and religious ethics was less negative, but also much less frequent.
Examinations of religious and cultural traditions were the least negative areas of coverage, but they focused primarily on majority traditions in Western countries and were not heavily present in media from Muslim majority countries. Media coverage bearing on West-Muslim issues accounted for about one-fifth of total media output in the 24 countries surveyed.
METHODOLOGY
Media Tenor International is a global content analysis organization based in Zurich, Switzerland that monitors print, broadcast and online news in more than 15 languages and 35 countries. Its research focuses on the portrayal of countries, individuals and institutions in leading media outlets.
Media Tenor’s content analysis for this report included a three-and-a half month long content analysis of three TV news shows, three print publications and one business publication from 24 countries. The analysis was conducted by 43 Media Tenor researchers who coded content in their native languages.
Analysis was conducted on a statement level. A statement is identified by a combination of an actor and a topic presented together in the media. The words “coverage” and “statements” are used interchangeably in this report.
Countries covered
Twelve Muslim majority countries: Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Palestine Territories, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.
Twelve non-Muslim majority countries: Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Namibia, Russia, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Statements analyzed by:
• Topic: Main actor(s) featured
• Type of main actor (political, religious, etc.)
• Geographical origin of the main actor
• Tone towards that actor (positive, negative, or neutral)
• Source of that evaluation (individual, government, organization, etc.)
Muslim-West Issue Areas Covered
• International politics, with a focus on Middle East conflicts.
• Religion, ethics and ideology, as a factor in social interactions and politics.
• Education and intercultural understanding, particularly efforts to educate the public about different cultures and religions.
• Citizenship and integration, with an emphasis on issues confronting religious minorities.
Economic and social development, including reporting on Muslim-West economic and social ties.
KEY FINDINGS
1. Primacy of international politics: Coverage of Middle East conflicts dominated media coverage of Muslim-West relations.
2. Negative tone towards the “other”: While most coverage of Muslim-West issues contained no positive or negative judgements, media from Muslim majority countries were more likely to provide negative coverage of individuals and groups associated with Christianity and Judaism and with non-Muslim majority countries. Conversely, media from non-Muslim majority countries covered Muslim majority countries and Muslim protagonists more negatively, but to a lesser degree.
3. Focus on political and militant Islam: Most reports involving Muslims depicted them engaged in political, militant and extremist activities. In contrast, Christians and Jews were most often presented in the context of religious activities.
4. Education and intercultural understanding covered most neutrally: Reports designed to inform people about religious and cultural traditions were the least negative and the second most visible coverage area. However, they focused primarily on Western traditions and were only covered heavily in non-Muslim majority countries.
1. Primacy of international politics
The evaluation of international political issues in the media focused on several key Middle East conflicts. Among the 290,452 statements analyzed in 160 print and TV news outlets, these international conflicts accounted for nearly three-quarters of the overall coverage of Muslim-West relations across the five issue areas.
The main topics covered under the international politics rubric were the Middle East conflicts that made news in 2007, including the Hamas takeover of the Gaza strip (23.4% of statements) and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (15.3%). Terrorism (21.9%) and terrorism-fighting measures (9%) were also prominent, as was the war in Iraq (17.6%).
However, because it contained 34.6% negative statements and only 4.4% positive, the international politics issue area had an overall negative tone. It was the second most negative area of reporting behind economic and social development, which contained 36.4% negative and only 4.5% positive statements, but had much lower visibility. (Figure 4).
2. Negative tone toward the “other”
Media in Muslim majority countries struck a more negative tone than media from non-Muslim majority countries. Reports from media in Muslim majority countries contained 38.2% negative statements, 6.4% positive and 55.4% neutral statements about the “other.” Reports from non-Muslim majority countries contained 25.0% negative, 6.4% positive and 55.4% neutral statements.
Media from Muslim majority countries presented an especially negative tone in their coverage of non-Muslim actors – with 37.3% negative and 7.5% positive statements directed at Muslim actors and 40.5% negative and only 3.7% positive directed towards non-Muslim actors. This trend of more negative coverage towards the “other” held in the media of non-Muslim majority countries, but to a lesser degree. Outlets outside the Muslim world covered Muslim actors with 31.3% negative statements and 3.1% positive; they covered non-Muslim actors with 18.9% negative statements and 4.0% positive.
Quantifying the “other”
The distinction between Muslim majority and non-Muslim majority countries allows for a measure of how media cover the “other” side. In media from Muslim majority countries, the “other” is defined as Christian and Jewish actors and actors from non-Muslim majority countries. In media from non-Muslim majority countries, the “other” is defined as Muslim actors and actors from Muslim-majority countries. See methodology section for details.
Most countries portrayed the “other” side neutrally in at least 50% of statements. Namibia, Palestine, and Iran were the only exceptions. (Figure 2.) Few countries communicated positive messages towards the “other.” Iran was again one of the most outstanding exceptions. Its media had the highest share of positive statements (11.7%) but also the highest share of negative (69.4%), making them the most polarized, but overall the second most negative of any country. Morocco and Malaysia stood out as particularly neutral in their portrayal of the “other.”
3. Focus on political and militant Islam
Among religious actors presented in the media, Islam and Muslims were by far the most prominent, accounting for 56% of individuals and groups explicitly identified with a religion. Christianity came next, identifying approximately 28% of religious protagonists. Judaism accounted for approximately 4% of protagonists surveyed. No other religion achieved more than 1% visibility.
Whereas journalists most commonly portrayed Christian, Jewish and other religious actors engaged in religious activities (in 75% of statements, on average), Muslim protagonists were only associated with religious activities in 13% of statements. (Figure 3.) More often, actors identified with Islam were engaged in militant or political activities (in 68% of statements). Muslims were also associated with fundamentalist and extremist activities more than six times as often as other religious protagonists were.
4. Education and intercultural understanding covered most neutrally
Efforts to build knowledge and promote understanding of different cultures and religions were the second most frequently addressed area of Muslim-West coverage after International Politics, accounting for 8.1% of all the stories related to Muslim-West issues. Education and Intercultural Understanding was also the most neutrally reported of the five issues areas with 9.9% negative and 7.8% positive statements, followed by citizenship and integration (25.3% negative, 7.9% positive) and religion, ethics and ideology (33.7% positive, 7.1% negative).
In general, coverage of education and intercultural understanding was marked by a high degree of neutrality (82.3% neutral statements) as opposed to an average 56.1% neutral statements across the other four issue areas.
Most reporting on this issue area originated with media from non-Muslim majority countries (67.7% of total statements on this issue area). These countries focused primarily on the practices and teachings of Christians (57.7%), particularly Roman Catholics (38.7%). Media from Muslim-majority countries likewise focused on the cultural practices and teachings of Muslims (29.3% of statements) and people living in Muslim majority countries (56.7%).
Media from outside the Muslim world only focused 6.7% of their coverage to exploring the traditions and practices of Muslims. Media inside the Muslim world focused on Christian and Jewish traditions in 4.0% of their coverage.
The second-part of this three-part research study is posted here.
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