SECTION:
The image of the "Other" in the contacts of Europe, Asia, Africa and America
Agata S. Nalborczyk (Warsaw, Poland)
The image of Islam and Muslims in the Polish mass-media before and after the 11th September, 2001The history of the free Polish mass-media begins in the year 1989 with the lifting of the state censorship. From that time the Polish mass-media have been allowed to write, show and say whatever they want. 1989 marked also a watershed for the way of presentation of the image of Islam and Muslims in the Polish media. Because the Islamic countries belonged to the so-called Third World, which was treated by the Polish Communist regime as a friend and ally, it was forbidden to present them in an unfavourable light.
The situation changed at the beginning of the 1990s. From that time, we can find all typical themes, motives and attitudes towards Islam and Muslims, that occur in the world mass-media: the tragic fate of women in the Muslim world, alleged Muslims' inclination for cruelty and easy resort to violence, their supposed hate for Christianity and Europe (the famous Islamic threat) to mention only a few. The news and reports were moulded into well selling sensations and very often contained a lot of mistakes and misunderstandings.
There is also another factor that has to be considered. After 1989 the Polish mass-media became private and had to earn money. As a result a lot of journalists were made to write for example about Muslim women one day and about a flood in India the next day. Of course, there have been some among them who do make efforts to understand the culture, religion and people they write about and present them with respect.
After September 11th, 2001 there was an influx of text, TV and radio broadcasts about Islam and Muslims. When the first wave of fear and hate passed, a lot of decent texts were published and many good programmes broadcasted. We could say that nowadays the journalists know more about Muslims and their religion and so does their audience.
The paper will briefly report the characteristics of the image of Islam and Muslims in the Polish mass-media before September 11th, 2001 (from the beginning of the 1990s) and will highlight the main changes that occurred within the past two years.
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