firstperson

Exposing media fanatics

Self-criticism is a kind of luxury in which most journalists may not indulge in

By Abdullah Khoso

Robert Ferguson has been working as a senior lecturer in Education at the School of Culture, Language and Communication, Institute of Education, University of London, since 1994. He has also been the course leader of the master's programme in Media, Culture and Communication during this period. Ferguson has been in the education sector for the last 24 years. From 1984 to 1994, he worked as the head of Media Studies, Joint Department of English and Media Studies, and the academic head of the Department of Educational Media, Institute of Education, University of London.

Of Robert Ferguson's many books, two are particularly important: Representing Race: Ideology, Identity and the Media and The Media in Question. The former is an analysis of the intellectual and historical base without which understanding the media is impossible. Ferguson tires to situate media discourse in the context of ethnocentrism, orientalism, ideology and representation, and draws on examples from newspapers, films, radio and television. His overview demonstrates a close association between representations of 'normality' and 'ethnocentrism'.

In the latter book, Robert Ferguson examines the contemporary research on media and cultural studies, and its impact in the context of rapid development in media technologies. He points at changing definitions and contexts of media studies through critical investigation. Moreover, Ferguson has been working as a broadcaster for more than two decades. His is currently researching on the representation of history on television. The News on Sunday interviewed him recently. Excerpts follow:



The News on Sunday: How does the European media portray Islam and Muslims?

Robert Ferguson: This, of course, is a difficult question, because there was a time even before 9/11 when there were plenty of people who were aware that it was problematic the way the non-Muslim world saw the Muslim world. Though it has been a problem always, it was treated in a light-hearted way before 9/11. I think that the media, especially newspapers, is much more likely to be ethnocentric or Islamophobist. If you ask most people on the street they will get confused about who is Muslim and who is not, as many people in the United States are confused if anyone asks them where is Iraq. In fact, this becomes a much more virulent kind of ethnocentrism against people seen as the Muslims.

TNS: What kind of debate was initiated in Europe after the publication of caricatures of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in a Danish newspaper?

RF: What was done in the Danish case has brought to the fore an old debate: if you have the right to speak, how much are you allowed to say, if it offends others? And if you are allowed to say what you like and you will offend others, to what extent should you mind your manners? I think that people need to be responsible; they should be able to say what they want to say, but in a responsible manner. What you should not be able to say, however, is anything that acts against the forces of democracy. For example, no one should be allowed to say all the Jews should be killed, because it is not a democratic thing to say. Democratically, you are not allowed to kill someone. So I do not approve of that; it should not be allowed and it should be illegal.

TNS: Was the publication of the caricatures a responsible and harmless thing to do?

RF: The publication of the caricatures was harmful, as well as irresponsible. In fact, religion was used as a tool to promote ethnocentrism.

TNS: Were there any hidden motives behind the publication of the caricatures?

RF: Denmark has strict immigration policies, which essentially means that it is careful about dark-skinned people. So there is a dimension to this, at least in one respect. Of course, there currently is Islamophobia in the air in Europe. The people are terrified and they have become anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim. A lot of this is based on fear and ignorance. In one sense, this fear is real too, because they have seen so many things happening in the world, such as 9/11. However, equating all the Muslims with terrorism is wrong.

TNS: Can you give us an example of a terrorist act by a Christian fundamentalist?

RF: There are people who are doing it, but they may not be doing it for the sake of Christianity. Their main motivation may not be religious; it may be social. There are fundamentalists who are shooting doctors and surgeons who carry out abortions. They think that they have a religious justification for doing this. Christian fundamentalist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, do exist and their ethnocentrism is awful. Fundamentalists are everywhere, in every religion.

TNS: What kind of fear is attached with black people irrespective of their beliefs?

RF: The idea of anti-Muslim is because of an image of a specific person in mind. It is a certain kind of person, by definition a dark-skinned, bearded man wearing a certain kind of gear. We have not constructed such images ourselves; very often we have learned them through the media. People in big cities have not met anybody, but have just seen images on the screen. What they are frightened of is kind of a fanatic that is being projected in newspapers.

TNS: How does the European media deal with an event?

RF: Television news channels will always say, with some justification though, their responsibility is to inform people about what is happening in the world, but details and explanation of that will be in current affair programmes or documentaries. Moreover, there is no time in the news to give details and explanation. The debate, however, is how much explanation one can give in the news and what kind of explanation. There can be many sides, but usually we have to listen to both sides of the argument. There, however, are certain issues in the world about which you necessarily do not listen to both sides or you do listen to both sides but one side seems to be much louder than the other. What we have as news, which is predominantly reporting, is what is going on in the world, but there can always be reporting from another point of view.

TNS: Is the approach of the European media to Muslims getting better or worse?

RF: This question is nearly unanswerable, but we can say it has got worse in recent years, because of a mixture of fear and the fact that this fear is entirely faceless. The European media on the whole has demonised the Muslims, though the Muslims have done fantastic things too.

TNS: How much self-criticism is being exercised in journalism in Europe?

RF: Usually self-criticism and journalism do not go together. If journalists will be self-critical, they will be out of job pretty quickly. Journalists work for different newspapers and different newspapers do things differently. However, we cannot say this about all journalists. Some of them are very reflective and do think. A tiny minority of journalists may even be self-critical but mostly they are critical of society, of how things are going on. Self-criticism is a kind of luxury in which most journalists may not indulge in; it makes them weak or not up to the job. This does not necessarily mean that journalists are responsible for all the bad things in the world or whatever wrongs are being committed against the Muslims, but I am sure that some of them do help.

TNS: How do you see the relationship between the real world and the media?

RF: I do not think that there is any difference between the two; they essentially are the same thing. You can walk into a television studio, with media people watching, recording and cooperating with you. Now representation is becoming part of the real world, part of our existence. It is a fact that the media represents the real world in such a way that it has become part of the real world itself.

TNS: How do you see the future of the media?

RF: Technology is likely to develop so much that we may not be able to conceive yet how sophisticated the media may become, but this will only be a technological development and not necessarily a conceptual development. This may also have an impact on jobs, which, in turn, will influence the way the world operates -- the realities of the world become very harsh when people start to lose their ability to live as they once lived. When the media will become more sophisticated technologically, how it will interact with the people is still very much an unchartered territory. The media will not lead the world neither the world will ever operate now without the media, so the two are stuck.

(Email: abdullahkhoso@hotmail.com)

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