This discourse has been aided by the many images in the media of Muslims committing acts of violence or terrorism. The list of events is quite long and, on the surface, appears to reinforce the link between Islam and violence: the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979 to 1981, the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the USS Cole bombing in 2000, the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the Madrid and London train bombings in 2004 and 2005, the shootings in Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, and the beheading of Western journalists by ISIS in 2014. Moreover, when one moves beyond individual episodes and takes into account the ongoing violent conflicts involving Muslims in the Middle East, it seems that Muslims are guilty as charged.

XREF: Connects to broader scholarship on how media coverage shapes public perception of groups and inflates threat associations. SEED: Potential piece on how mediated representations, not direct experience, drive stereotypes of entire religious groups.

Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Intro…, loc. 282