Jerez 1

Sergio Jerez
UWRT 1101
Dr. Kashtan

UWRT 1101 Major Assignment #3: Multimodal Argument

Throughout the course of the semester we have been asked to study and write about
different types of rhetoric. In our first major assignment we examined our own use of multimodal
rhetoric through social media. In the assignment that followed I analyzed the use of multimodal
rhetoric to persuade and make an argument through a TV commercial. In this final essay we were
asked to create our own example of multimodal rhetoric by choosing a controversy relating to
media or communication technology. I decided to write and construct my form of multimodal
rhetoric on whether social media creates a violent image of Islam and its followers.
A topic of conversation upon which people disagree is what makes up a controversy.
Over the last few years since 9/11 and the recent presidential debates, Islam and its followers
have been largely criticized. Due to the spark of social media platforms such as twitter,
Facebook, and Instagram over the last decade, this controversy has been largely communicated.
Communication technologies allow for more people to promote their opinion and media sources
to shape the reality of certain subjects. In this essay we are going to explore two sides of the
controversy. One side will be explaining how media has shaped society to believe that Islam is a
violent religion when the truth is that Islam is a religion that promotes peace within its followers.
The second side of the argument will be that media sources do not manipulate information in any
way shape or form and that Islam actually is a violent religion.

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In my opinion it is fair to say that Islam and Muslims have been victimized. Not only that
but in the post 9/11 era every scandal of violence causes Muslims to be put under the
microscope. Different studies through the past two years have shown that medias coverage of
Islam has rarely been positive. Media Tenor examined over 2.5 million news stories from the
United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. Most of the coverage of the stories depicted
the religion of Islam as a source of violence. However most of this stories did not deal with the
lives of ordinary Muslims. All the stories had to do with terroristic actions. Towards the end of
2014 negative coverage towards the religion of Islam reached its peak, due to ISIS going into
Iraq (Bridge, 2015). Then again I reiterate that ISIS is a small percentage of Muslims who
perceive Islam as a violent religion, and ordinary Muslims are kicked to the curb.
The comparison to other religions makes Islam seem like a religion who promotes war
and violent attacks towards civilians. Stories that involved religions such as Christianity and
Judaism received positive coverage in the United States compared to Islam that received none.
Religious leaders such as Pope Francis were often presented in the media portraying peace while
extremist in the likes of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were presented by the media as the face of Islam.
News coverage showed a vacancy of Muslim religious leaders (Bridge, 2015). The reoccurring
theme of the research was that there was a lack of coverage of mainstream Muslim voices and
therefore a correlation with a negative representation of Islam. Very few stories about Muslim
Americans were covered by the media and starting in 2011 stories became more negative. The
information provided concludes that mass media has generalized and stereotyped mainstream
Muslims into something they are not (Hassan,2013).

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The argument that I am trying to present through this information is that mainstream
Muslims do not represent Islam in the way that it is being portrayed through the media. Islam,
like any other mainstream religion is based on love, compassion, and faith. Mainstream Muslims
do not interpret nor follow a religion which introduces their god as a god of war. For them, Islam
represents love, justice and mercy. Yes, you do have verses in the Quran that refer to warfare and
that is because it allows violence in a limited context. However, it is only a minority of Muslims
that take the interpretation out of the that limited context and those are the ones that cause havoc
around the world. Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago studied every case of
suicide terrorism between the late 1970s all the way up to early 2000s. He concluded that there
was minimal connection between Islamic fundamentalism or any other of the worlds religions
and suicide terrorism. He concluded that what such attacks have in common is the desire to have
military forces withdraw from land that the terrorists consider to be their own (Pape, 2015). That
study shuts down the idea of Islam promoting violence and looks at a more political aspect of
issue. Gallop carried the biggest pole of Muslims around the world and 93% of Muslims rejected
9/11 and suicide attacks. The other 7% who did not reject such attacks cited political reasons for
their support of violence, not any reasons having to do with Islam (Ponder,2008). Yet, the media
makes it seem as the only reason for the terrorist attack is the religion of Islam and the violence it
invokes in its followers.
Dr. Belinda F. Espiritu is an associate professor of communication theory and research as
well as media studies at the University of the Philippines Cebu, she states that there is an
obsession in mainstream media with Islam. Her research goes to show that the global media
predominantly portrays Muslims as violent, fanatical, bigoted, extremists and terrorists. The
constant portrayal of Islam as violent prone religion has caused a feeling of Islamophobia

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primarily in the United States (Espiritu, 2016). We clearly see this as now president elect Donald
Trump stated in a campaign rally that he is Calling for a total and complete shutdown of
Muslims entering the United States (CNN, 2016). This message from the soon to be president of
the United States makes it seem as if the 1.6 billion Muslims and 23% of the worlds population
are terrorist (Desliver 2013). Not only that but those statements would be condemning the 3.3
million Muslim Americans now living in the United States of being terrorists (Mohamed, 2016).
Considering that Donald Trump has an influential voice in the United States this is not something
that should be taken lightly. This in turn supports my argument that media is portraying the
Muslim religion as something it is not. Donald Trump used a media platform to promote hate
rhetoric within the people of not only the United States, but the whole world.
In recent interviews made by the Huffington Post, Muslim Americans talked about what
it feels like to be a Muslim in the United States and how the media has affected their image. The
people went on to talk about how acts like wearing a hijab, growing a beard, or fasting was
largely misunderstood by those against Islam. In the mist of the San Bernardino shootings
broadcast stations searched the homes of suspected shooters and only pointed out artifacts that
could be somewhat connected to Islam (Kuruvilla, 2016). How can an item used to become one
with god in any religion be used to implicate terrorism? The interviews led by the social media
editor of The Huffington Post led to create my own interview as my form of non-written
rhetorical mode. I interviewed a Muslim woman that studied at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. My interview was based on a number of questions about Islam as a religion and
the relation with the media. The responses of my peer was what I expected and clearly supported
my argument. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJHu73QrW68). She clearly stated that the
media does not always portray Muslims as it should and that in many occasions she feels

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mistreated. She went on to explain many misconceptions of the religion and how the media can
twist some things to make them more exiting.
Even with all the information I just provided there is a large number of people that argue
Islam is religion of violence and media has nothing to do with how society perceives the religion.
A large group of people believe there is a true threat of Islamic extremism and that only in the
United States they have access to a media that tells them the truth about Islam. After seeing the
tragedies of Paris, San Bernardino, Fort Hood, Boston, Chattanooga, and especially 9/11 the
American people only see Extreme Islamic terrorist as the common factor in all of those events.
An article in Breitbart recently states that Islams problem is not only a few bad people, but that
the religion has been infected with a disease that is spreading within all Muslims.
The ill representation of Islam by the media is backed by polling that suggest Muslims in
the United States are about 5,000% more likely to commit terrorist attacks than non-Muslims
(Krikorian, 2015). The polling made by Center for Security Policy suggests that three tenths of
Muslims in the United States are not attached to the constitution, and Muslims account for 1% of
the total population in the united states but half of the terrorist attacks since 9/11(Krikorian,
2015). Therefore, the media is doing their job when depicting Islam as a religion of violence.
What is not taken in mind is that the other half of the terrorist attacks after 9/11 are made by
either Christian Americans or Americans who are not classified in any religion (Krikorian, 2015).
A few people even believe the media should focus more on the political aspect of Islam known
as sharia. However, at no point has there been found a printed or real copy of Sharia Law,
therefore this argument is not really valid. The aspect of Sharia involves the regulations of
economic and social life which is not compatible with the ideology of the United States
(Krikorian, 2015). All information considered, Donalds Trumps ban on Muslims is not far-

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fetched for a lot of people since people who practice the religion of Islam do not coincide with
the American Values. As to what the American Values are, I will leave to the imagination
since many Muslims are also Americans.

A firm believe Americans have is that the Quran can be interpreted in an evil way and it
poses a threat to Western Civilization as we know it. Certain polls show that 29% of U.S.
Muslims believe violence is acceptable against those that insult the religion (TCSP, 2015). The
data shown by The Center for Security Policy shows Islam promotes violence and the idea that
media creates a violent image of a peaceful religion is erroneous. The media does portray
majority of Muslims as violent because according to certain people they are, even though the
statistics dont show it. The poll I just mentioned only interviewed around 600 people, which is a
diminutive amount compared to the 35,000 people poll made by gallop. Others might say, ISIS
and practitioners of Islam go on twitter and rejoice the death of people from shootings (Salinger,
2016). But again that is a small percentage of the Muslim population that cannot be taken into
account when referring to Islam as a whole. As to banning all Muslims from entering the United
States, Americans believe it is not a form of hate rhetoric, it is just protecting their homeland
from those who pose a threat. Even though that would prevent people like Muhtar Kent the CEO
of Coca-Cola, Dr. Oz, Malala, or Shaquille ONeal from entering the United States.
Also Islam is the fastest religion around the world with over 45,194,452 users on
Facebook and 2,099,706 users on twitter (Ibahrine, 2014). They are only second to the United
States in most internet users. Considering the staggering numbers of social media participation
from practitioners of Islam, why would there be negative portrayal of their religion? As a matter
of fact, the large use of digital media by such religious groups does promote peace, not violence.

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Muslims largely want to participate and debunk the negative portrayal of their religion by the
media, but since Muslim Americans make up 1% of the population in the United States their
social media participation is minimal compared to other religious groups. Also, 90% of those
users are situated in Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries where the Islam religion is not
scrutinized like it is the United States (Ibahrine, 2014).
This essay was meant for us to see a bigger picture of what is sometimes shown in the
media. Considering all the statistics, the response of Muslims around the world, and the feeling
of Muslim Americans in College campuses, lets not allow mistaken and inaccurate media
coverage to divert us from reality. Until we can say that majority of Muslims around the world
behave violently, let us not stereotype or generalize, because Islam as a whole promotes peace
and Compassion.

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Works Cited
Bridge Initiative Team. (2015, April 24). Bridge. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from Bride
Georgetown University Education: http://bridge.georgetown.edu/new-study-analyzesmedia-coverage-of-islam-over-time/
Desilver, D. (2013, June 7). Fact Tank News In Numbers. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from
PewRearchCenter : http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/07/worlds-muslimpopulation-more-widespread-than-you-might-think/
Espiritu, D. B. (2016, February 29). Media Disinformation, Religion. Retrieved November 20,
2016, from Global Research: http://www.globalresearch.ca/islamophobia-and-thenegative-media-portrayal-of-muslims/5440451
Hassan, M. (2013). Islam is a Peaceful Religion. Oxford University. Oxford: Oxoford Union.
Ibahrine, M. (2014, Nd nd). Islam and Social Media. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from
Academia: http://www.academia.edu/8319791/Islam_and_Social_Media
Jerry Diamond CNN. (2015, December 8). CNN Politics . Retrieved November 20, 2016, from
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/donald-trump-muslim-ban-immigration/
Krikorian, M. (2015, December 8). Immigration Studies. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from
National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com/donald-trump-muslim-immigration
Kuruvilla, C. (2016, March 29). Religion. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from The Huffington
Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/muslim-americans-open-up-about-howislamophobia-has-affected-their-lives_us_56f997e9e4b0143a9b48f6fd
Mohamed, B. (2016, January 6). Fact Tank News In the Numbers . Retrieved November 21,
2016, from PewResearchCenter: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/anew-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population/

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Pape, R. (2006). Dying to Win. Chicago, Illinois, United States: Random House Publishing
Group.
Polling Company Inc. (2015, June 1-10). Polls and Surveys. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from
The Center for Security Policy: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/06/150612-CSP-Polling-Company-Nationwide-Online-Survey-ofMuslims-Topline-Poll-Data.pdf
Ponder, J. (2008, February 27). News and Comment. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from Pensito
Review: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/02/27/poll-majority-muslims-worldwidecondemn-9-11/
Salinger, T. (2016, July 22). World. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from NY Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/islamic-state-supporters-celebrate-munichattack-social-media-article-1.2722077