Social Construction Of Religion.docx

Your Surname 1 Your Name Subject and Section Professor’s Name March 28, 2019 Social Construction of Religion During the past decade, mass media has never failed to portray images of violence and terrorism around the globe. For the most part, this has led to a setback to the Islam religion as news, movies, and other mediums of communication have emphasized the relationship between media and the said religion. This becomes detrimental to our Muslim friends since, despite their desire to being a contributive member of our society, plenty of people have developed some prejudice against them. In this paper, I would discuss how the media played an essential role in the development of religion through the works of Durkheim and Weber. All in all, I believe that the growing fear towards our Muslim friends have been perpetuated by mass media, as it equates terrorism with Islam almost all of the time. Islamophobia Durkheim has always believed that the construction of our social reality has been rooted in our history. That is, it is a collective accumulation of the signs, symbols, and facts which could be studied (also called as ‘social facts’). Accordingly, one example of a social fact is the persisting belief that violence is inherent in the religion of Islam. Such belief has been the product of different activities and exposures to external factors that influence the parts and totality of how we perceive the world (Carls, n.d.). However, it must be noted that social facts

Your Surname 2 are ‘internal’ to every person, only manifesting itself as a greater number of people starts to internalize meanings that are consolidated from our history. In line with our topic, two important realizations could be seen. On the one hand, Durkheim’s concept of the internalization of social facts would show that Islamophobia as a phenomenon is due to the increasing number of individual people who have internalized that the religion of Islam connotes violence. On the other hand, it also shows that the fear felt by many these days are not rooted in a single point in time, but rather to the accumulation of external ideas that the people were able to come in contact to. Subsequently, this shows how mass media relates to the said phenomenon. Specifically, it is mass media that facilitates the increasing exposure of the people to ideas that emphasize the relationship of Islam to violence. Aside from Durkheim, another prominent social scientist that talks about religion are Weber who believes that religion is a by-product of our society. It is also worth noting that this also applies to sentiments that are growing within a particular religion. For example, some religions have developed a growing animosity towards Islam and its followers (Islamophobiaawareness.org, n.d.). Relating this to the previous discussion on the effect of mass media, it could be seen that the portrayals of mass media (which emphasizes Islam’s tendency towards violence), have become a fuel to influence society, that ultimately influenced certain religious groups and their followers. Conclusion By looking at both the works of Durkheim and Weber in the preceding sections, we were able to see the relationship between Mass media and Islamophobia in a more precise manner. On the one hand, it shows that Mass media’s emphasis on the atrocious acts committed by Muslims has influenced the internalization of individuals of specific ideas around us, thereby creating a

Your Surname 3 society that is characterized by “a fear towards Muslims.” On the other hand, religion has also become affected as this tendency within our society has leaked and influenced the religious sentiments of their followers.

References Carls, P. (n.d.). Émile Durkheim (1858—1917). Retrieved from IEP.Edu: https://www.iep.utm.edu/durkheim/ Islamophobia-awareness.org. (n.d.). Islamophobia. Retrieved from Islamophobia-awareness.org: http://islamophobia-awareness.org/what-is-islamophobia/