Arabs and Muslims in the Media : : Race and Representation after 9/11 / / Evelyn Alsultany.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Alsultany, Evelyn,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2012]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: Critical Cultural Communication ; 34
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

After 9/11, there was an increase in both the incidence of hate crimes and government policies that targeted Arabs and Muslims and the proliferation of sympathetic portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. media. Arabs and Muslims in the Media examines this paradox and investigates the increase of sympathetic images of “the enemy” during the War on Terror.Evelyn Alsultany explains that a new standard in racial and cultural representations emerged out of the multicultural movement of the 1990s that involves balancing a negative representation with a positive one, what she refers to as “simplified complex representations.” This has meant that if the storyline of a TV drama or film represents an Arab or Muslim as a terrorist, then the storyline also includes a “positive” representation of an Arab, Muslim, Arab American, or Muslim American to offset the potential stereotype. Analyzing how TV dramas such as West Wing, The Practice, 24, Threat Matrix, The Agency, Navy NCIS, and Sleeper Cell, news-reporting, and non-profit advertising have represented Arabs, Muslims, Arab Americans, and Muslim Americans during the War on Terror, this book demonstrates how more diverse representations do not in themselves solve the problem of racial stereotyping and how even seemingly positive images can produce meanings that can justify exclusion and inequality.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Challenging the Terrorist Stereotype -- 2. Mourning the Suspension of Arab American Civil Rights -- 3. Evoking Sympathy for the Muslim Woman -- 4. Regulating Sympathy for the Muslim Man -- 5. Selling Muslim American Identity -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author