PORTRAYAL OF ISLAM IN WESTERN MEDIA AFTER THE ADVENT OF ISIS ANALYZING THE EDITORIALS OF MAINSTREAM US PRESS

Abstract

Islam and the West has become the theme of various academic conferences and research symposiums all over the world due to increasing wave of conflicts and clashes between east and the west and between orient and the oxidant. The conflict and clashes between Islam and the west is not new phenomena but it has centuries old history of attacks and counter attacks, conquests and re-conquests, jihads and crusades. But after cold war and more precisely after 9/11 these conflicts are changed into a new information and propaganda warfare. Islam has deliberately been associated with terrorism, radicalism and extremism and Muslims are intentionally portrayed as fundamentalists, extremists and ultimately terrorists under the ghost of Taliban and ISIS linking it with Caliphate concept of Islam. This research aims to investigate as how the western mass media generally and US print media especially portrays Islam and Muslims.