Western media is one of the biggest platforms for Islamophobia and Islamophobes. The media has a way of depicting Muslims and Islamically-related issues in the news in a negative light. Islamophobia is the irrational fear of Islam and Muslims and this is mainly fueled by the media. The two articles by Erik Ose, Why the Chapel Hill Shooting Was More Hate Crime than ‘Parking Dispute’ and el-Sayed el-Aswad, Images of Muslims in Western Scholarship and Media after 9/11, both explain how Islamophobia presents itself in media outlets. Each source I looked into and read had the same argument and naturally the same rhetorical situation, but the way in which each source made their argument was very different. Ose and el-Sayed present their arguments…show more content… Ose is arguing that corporate media is wrong for referring to the murder of the three students as a ‘parking dispute’, instead of a hate crime. This is the argument that media provides a platform for Islamophobia. The tone in the Huffington Post article is very despairing, and almost apologetic. El-Sayed el-Aswad, author of Images of Muslims in Western Scholarship and Media after 9/11, is directing his argument to Western media, similar to the audience in Ose’s article. El-Sayed’s argument is also very similar to that of Ose: Western media is bias when it comes to Muslims and the media has contributed to the growth of Islamophobia and given it a platform. Although the audience and arguments are similar, the tone in el-Aswad’s article is very different. His article has a very didactic and informative tone, and this changes the way that his argument is presented. More so, Ose’s argument has a disappointed tone and sounds very apprehensive and this all appeals to pathos, or the audience’s emotions. Ose singles out the Muslim Americans in the audience when appealing to the emotions. He does this using his argument and his choice of words to build his tone and show his Muslim audience that he stands with them. For example, the last sentence in his article says: “This heinous act looks more like a hate crime.” By using words such heinous, it brings about the…show more content… One piece of evidence that was possibly the strongest was Ose’s use of victims’ fellow neighbors and other Chapel Hill residents. For example, Ose uses a Chapel Hill resident, Cynthia Greenlee, to describe how the Chapel Hill police department has a history of insensitivity towards Chapel Hill’s minority citizens. Ose also references numerous tweets to explain the bias the media shows when it comes to Muslims; one tweet in particular said: “Unknown what motivated Chapel Hill murders but it’s obviously striking how this would be talked about – quickly – if identities were reversed”. Ose uses many types of evidence to build his argument such as Mohamad Elmasry (who is a communications professor at the University of Alabama), Craig Hicks’ Facebook posts, fellow neighbors, and residents of Chapel Hill, Suzzane Barakat, and many more. This is all how Ose proves that the media shows bias against Muslims and was clearly wrong in referring to the murder of the three students as just a ‘parking dispute’. El-Aswad has a different approach to his evidence and the way that he appeals to ethos. His article explains one of the different manifestations of Islamophobia in American society, which is the media. The media has a way with words and El-Aswad uses this in his argument when talking about the wording in the media and how it contributes to the
