On the Media: The Language of Terror

I am afraid of Muslims. I won't deny that when I am in the same room as a Muslim that I am skeptical, but I hate that I am. Maybe they are just as skeptical of me that I will do something out of fear to them because I am white, just as much as I am skeptical of them that they will do something out of hate because they are Muslim.

I find my skepticism ignorant of fear and I hate that is probably due to the lack of my uneducated perspective. That us why I chose this On The Media "The Language of Terror" on a whim it would help me bring my trivial closer to full circle. It did a bit, at least a starting point.

During this episode on On the Media Jack Shafer said the media likes to dramatize while Habib Battah said the media only confuses on the drama.

Shafer said in our culture we portray villains always as diabolical and the media plays on this using words like "mastermind" and "unprecedented" but Shafter said says aren't geniuses but what they are doing is "about as sophisticated as ordering a pizza."

J.M. Berger, who wrote a book titled "ISIS State of Terror", said that we either over estimate terrorists or underestimate and both our to the terrorists advantage. If we over estimate them then we make ISIS bigger than they are and we underestimate them and they execute a plan then everybody freaks out.

I think they are simply trying to say that we overthink things. Have we done this to ourselves through our pop culture and media? I think it is a bit humorous that we always preach to stay calm in serious and dangerous situations like fires, earthquake, etc. because when we panic we don't think straight or logically. Then why should we act any different when faced with the serious situation of terrorism?

Habib Battah at the end of his interview criticized the media for not focusing on more stories about people like Adel Termos, but instead they continue to focus on the drama of the Islamic actions. I thought the media was suppose to present both sides, all sides to a story? We don't get context from the media on how marginalized ISIS is to the number of Muslims.

But are we the public any better? Joanne Stocker is a managing editor of Grasswire, a website that uses crowd sourcing, which I am assuming is social media, to fact check breaking news. Stocker said that "we have a human need for answer" which is why we are scapegoating to refugees. I thought it was crazy to hear of the picture she has come across where a selfie was photo-shopped to make the person appear as a terrorist and deemed him to be one of the attackers of Paris. Like it was probably just an average day person ruining another average day person's life for the sake of a social media hit. How could you ruin someone life like that? How many heroes like Adel Termos are you willing to Photoshop for the sake of your fear?

A couple more points. One is that J.M. Berger had hit on the point of name-calling and we call them ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh because they are suppose to have a negative connotation like name-calling. Berger points out though that we still include in the acronym Islamic State and this doesn't de-legitimatize them. So why go with Bergers idea separate the terrorists from Islam and give them another name, one that doesn't legitimize them? Then maybe we will stop stereotyping the rest of the ordinary Muslim citizens as terrorists.  

Point two, Mark Lynch, a political science and international affairs professor at George Washington University, had said that ISIS believes that is wrong to have coexistence with Islam and non-Islam, but the majority of Islam, those everyday citizens don't agree with this radical idea. So one of the goal of ISIS is to make it impossible for Islam to live in peace in the west and so we literally are playing into the hand of terrorists by dramatizing the marginal actions we have seen from ISIS and further stereotyping that extremism to all Muslims.


We are not at war with Islam we are at war with terrorists.


The podcast definitely help me a little less fearful and a little more skeptical of the bad and more vigilante for the good. I am tried of being fearful for the lack of my understanding. I'm tried of us all being fearful for the lack for all our willingness to not understand.

I think this podcast and handbook can put a little more context to our fear of terrorism.