This thesis of this essay revolves around the political and social influence of mass media on its audience, as I examine the extent of their control over the populous as an agent of socialization as well as the collaborative efforts between state and media pertaining to political issues and the narratives used to disseminate the information to the public. Furthermore, this would be elaborated upon through the analysis of the modern-day phenomenon known as Islamophobia, as I discuss how Muslims have been portrayed to be a violent threat to Western society through false assertions and the emphasis on the acts of the minority extremists as an accurate depiction and representation of the religion. I will be operating under the theoretical frameworks of several writers and scholars, as the information provided through their books and scholastic journals will help elucidate the topics I have chosen to focus on. Examples of Western media such as Fox News is also implemented to illustrate the methodology behind their framing of Islam and their propagating of Islamophobia, further supporting and solidifying the arguments that my thesis is built upon. .
The influence of mass media as an agent of socialization was discussed by Kendall, Linden and Murray in their book Sociology in Our Times, as they pointed out that the subliminal brainwashing of the masses perpetrated by the media could be traced back to the imprinting of young children. They draw attention to the fact that young children in North America were spending more time in front of a television or computer screen, and they would even go as far as to state that the "average sixteen year old will have spent more time in front of television or computer than attending school" (Kendall, 2011, p. 97). This suggested that young people spend a lot more time absorbing selective information fed to them by the different media platforms they are now accessible to as opposed to learning from their educators in classrooms, exemplifying one of the consequences of mass media's influence as they are essentially reshaping the very foundations of the educational system.