This essay will discuss the way the media shapes the way we think about the world, in particular the way the media shapes our views on terrorism. It will look at the way Muslims and Arabs have been portrayed in different media outlets. The media outlets it will look at are films, news broadcasts and animation. As such, it will focus on how the media uses imagery to manipulate our understandings of Muslim and Arab culture as an example of how the media shapes our views on identity. Additionally, it will look at how the media has been used by the government to aid social control by creating a politics of fear discourse that has allowed it to infringe on civil liberties and create support for US foreign policy. Thus, this essay will be split in two parts; it will begin by looking at how the media has shaped our everyday perceptions of identity. Secondly, it will look at how the media been used to create a discourse of fear that has led to support for US foreign policy and civil right's infringement. .
To begin, it can be suggested that images are a subtler way of exerting racist stereotyping. An argument towards this view can be made when looking at the way Arabs and Muslims have been stereotypically portrayed by the film industry, without opposition (Shaheen, 2009; 36). Shaheen's studies of nine hundred films shows the way Arabs and Muslims have been negatively portrayed by Hollywood (2009; 3). With the exception of a few, filmmakers have collectively indicted all Arabs as "Public Enemy Number One"; they are depicted as brutal, heartless, uncivilized religious fanatics and money-mad cultural "others" bent on terrorizing civilized westerners, especially those of Christian and Jewish faith (Wilkins; 2009; 16). In particular, the women are portrayed as mute and sexually promiscuous, whilst veiled in dark colours that serve to alienate them from their Western counterparts (Shaheen, 2009; 55).