Global Media Image of Islam and Muslims and the Problematics of a Response Strategy

Abstract

The discourse on Islam and Muslims in the Western media is negative. Nevertheless, a viable media response strategy at the global level from the Muslim scholars is nonexistent. The present paper aims at initiating a theory-based discourse on the contours of such a response strategy and argues that Cultivation Effects & Cultural Indicators (CI) paradigm, by being located at the juncture of critical cultural theory and postpositivist research traditions of mass communication scholarship, could be used as a theoretical and empirical home for initiating and sustaining a response strategy. For accomplishing such a theory-based response strategy, the paper discusses sets of problematics in three broad domains of research and concludes that for designing and implementing a viable response strategy a sustained program of research into the complex composite of the mass communication process in Muslim countries will be needed.