‘NYT’ portrays Islam more negatively than alcohol, cancer, and cocaine

[strivingobserver98]

Wow not surprising.

A study released in November 2015 by 416 Labs, a Toronto-based consulting firm, reveals that the New York Times portrays Islam/Muslims more negatively than alcohol, cancer, and cocaine among other benchmarked words.

Based on a sentiment analysis of online and print headlines spanning 25 years of coverage, the study found “strong evidence that Islam/Muslims are consistently associated with negative terms in NYT headlines.” Key findings pertaining to 2,667,700 articles include:

“57% of the headlines containing the words Islam/Muslims were scored negatively. Only 8% of the headlines were scored positively.
Compared to all the other benchmarked terms (Republican, Democrat, Cancer and Yankees, Christianity and Alcohol), Islam/Muslims had the highest incidents of negative terms throughout the 25-year period.

Not once over the examined period does the aggregate negative sentiment of headlines related to Islam/Muslims go below the NYT aggregate (29%) for all headlines.

The most frequent terms associated with Islam/Muslims include “Rebels” and “Militant.” None of the 25 most frequently occurring terms were positive.”

Several recommendations are offered by the authors of the study to “help represent Islam/Muslims in a more accurate way.” These include educating reporters on the nuances of Islam, engaging local Muslim voices, and greater activism by Muslim organizations among others. Zhou said the most crucial tool for these recommendations to be taken up by people is “through creating spaces for Muslims beyond the mosque and home to talk about and engage with civic life.”

http://mondoweiss.net/2016/03/study-...r-and-cocaine/

[Pygoscelis]

It was done over a 25 year period? I would guess that the negative association skyrocketed after 9/11. Before that, wasn't "Islam" seen by most westerners as just another foreign religion that boxers and musicians would occasionally adopt? So I bet that the truth is even worse than they show in that study if the data was diluted with this earlier period.

Several recommendations are offered by the authors of the study to “help represent Islam/Muslims in a more accurate way.” These include educating reporters on the nuances of Islam, engaging local Muslim voices, and greater activism by Muslim organizations among others. Zhou said the most crucial tool for these recommendations to be taken up by people is “through creating spaces for Muslims beyond the mosque and home to talk about and engage with civic life.” - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2016/03/study-....hwZuf5h7.dpuf

I agree that the best way to undo islamophobia is to better understand Muslims. That is how I initially came to this forum, and I immediately dispelled for myself a lot of the slanderous things that some in the west were saying, and still say, about Islam and Muslims. I strongly disagree with a lot of the social positions that Islam takes, but I do so with a much better understanding than many of my neighbours of what Islam actually is and is not, and how varied different Muslims are from one another in their opinions and beliefs. I can dismiss a lot of what I hear about "Muslims" (the fictional bogeyman Muslims western media would have me believe in) because of this, and recognize radicals as radicals. I encourage folks in the west to visit friendly mosques and see for themselves that these people are honest hard working decent folks. I praise the Muslims I know who put themselves out there and allow such visits, without pushing conversion etc on the visitors or antagonizing them. I know of one Imam and mosque in my area that is fantastic at this.

Regarding the study.... on a side note... I am curious... was the term atheist a comparison point in the study? I don't see it mentioned in the article. I do know that many other studies have found Muslims and Atheists to be the two least trusted and most hated religious categories in the U.S.A. I am curious how they compare to one another in the minds of the American public.