Literature Review on Islam: Is It Misunderstood and Why - Research Proposal Example

This means that America decides to violate such rights in order to feel, if not maintain, national security. Temple provides evidences by stating that the Justice Department looks at detaining and questioning over 100,000 Middle Eastern people (after the 9/11 attacks) (2004, p.799), and that Arab immigrants and even Arab Americans have been detained and questioned by merely looking “suspicious” (2004, p.798). By suspicious means being a Middle-Easterner. These evidences are gathered through qualitative means and by going through several incidents and showing their pattern that is linked to a certain issue --- Arabs (and Muslims perhaps) looked upon as terrorists.

On a personal viewpoint, it can be said that Temple's rhetorical style is effective, because he is not only able to appeal to logic, but to emotions as well. By stating disturbing incidents related to racial profiling coupled by allusions to individual rights that are supposed to be one of the foundations of America's greatness, he is able to make readers either support him claims, or at least re-think their own. Assignment 4.8 Literature Review: Rough Draft If any perception of Islam exists in the West, particularly in the U.S., today, it is more likely to be similar to an atrocious power that tries to throw its shadow across all lands (Shafi & Naval Postgraduate School, 2010, p.12). Fear of Islam in the modern times is almost similar to the fear felt by the people towards Communism and Fascism during their peak.

Furthermore, dominating the powerful Western media today is paranoia towards Islam and anything related to it, just as anti-Communism and anti-Nazi campaigns dominated the Western Media in the last century (Agha, 2000, p.220-21). Even at the peak of the death of the most wanted “terrorist” bin Laden, there was a heightened level of news coverage that talks about Islam and terrorism --- as if the two terms are directly (or proven to be) associated to each other (Morey & Yaqin, 2011, p.34).

According to some studies, this resulted in a worse public opinions of the Americans towards the Muslims, the Middle-Easterners, or even Islam in general. This worsening of the situation can be reflected on the increased tolerance towards restricting civil liberties of Muslims Americans and immigrants by having them report and register their whereabouts, making difficult the construction of mosques, increasing police surveillance of mosques, and even religious profiling (Morey & Yaqin, 2011, p.47-8). The question of the influence of the media with regards to this issue can easily spark a hated debate among people.

It is said that public opinion is shaped by such powerful determinants and providers of information such as the mass media (Abrahamian, 2003, p.531). Several studies show that mass media played a crucial role in determining public opinions regarding the civil liberties of Muslims and Middle-Easterners in the U.S., and regarding the current state of the conflict between the West and the “war on terror” (Revell, 2010, p.207). Based on previous researches that study how providers of information shape public opinions that affect the civil liberti