Background
There can be no doubting the centrality of media in society today. While more traditional models of delivery in broadcast media and newspaper circulation decline, the evolution of technology and the emergence of satellite and Internet delivery have globalised the media, fostering a fast evolving environment in which the proliferation of channels and 24-hour broadcasting are delivered from almost anywhere onto computers, phones and hand-held devices. This is what the BBC’s Director-General, Mark Thompson, has described as ‘Martini media, consumed anytime, anyplace, anywhere’, meaning that today’s media has increasing powers not only to reach and reflect, but also to influence what people think.
With this wave of changes and increasing demographic diversity, Europe has seen the emergence of media specifically targeted at a Muslim audience. In their diversity and multiple identities, Muslims form an integral part of the European media landscape – as users and producers, as well as subjects and objects of media coverage. These new trends have yet to be analysed in depth and documented in detail.
Ever since the 9/11 attacks in the USA, newspapers, TV networks and news websites have been key arenas of public debate about Islam and Muslims in Europe. In many European countries, feelings of insecurity and fear amongst the non-Muslim populations have become enmeshed with endemic concerns about inter-cultural relationships. These discussions are reflected, and often amplified, by different media outlets.
How Muslims and Islam are represented in the media reflects societal attitudes towards them, whilst also shaping the political space within which Muslims and non-Muslims interact and relate. A second dimension of the relationship between Muslims, non-Muslims and the media is the space provided by different media outlets, which are accessed and occupied by Muslims as media producers and consumers, which may be based in their countries of residence, their countries of origin, or in third countries (the latter applying in particular to transnational Arab and Islamic TV networks and online outlets).
Both dimensions of this relationship have a bearing on how Muslims and non-Muslims in European countries perceive themselves and each other. Understanding how these two dimensions interact helps us to put into perspective fears of ‘parallel’ or even ‘segregated information societies’, and gain a clearer understanding of the impact of new complex media landscapes (including foreign and minority media) on social cohesion in Europe today.
