Stuart Henry McPhail Hall was a Jamaican-born British Marxist sociologist, cultural theorist, and political activist. Hall — along with Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams — was one of the founding figures of the school of thought known as British Cultural Studies or the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies.
The Middle East Forum (MEF) is an American conservative 501(c)(3) think tank founded in 1990 by Daniel Pipes, who serves as its president. MEF became an independent non-profit organization in 1994. It publishes a journal, the Middle East Quarterly.
Robert William Jensen is a former professor of journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. From 1992 to 2018 he taught graduate and undergraduate courses in media law, ethics, and politics.
Simon Shaheen is a Palestinian-American oud and violin player and composer.
The concept of imagined geographies originated from Edward Said, particularly his work on critique on Orientalism. Imagined geographies refers to the perception of a space created through certain imagery, texts, and/or discourses. For Said, imagined does not mean to be false or made-up, but rather is used synonymous with perceived. Despite often being constructed on a national level, imagined geographies also occur domestically in nations and locally within regions, cities, etc.
Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the United States have been presented in various forms by the mass media in American culture. Stereotypical representations of Arabs are often manifested in a society's media, literature, theater and other creative expressions. In Hollywood, some films been praised for their positive portrayal of Arabs and Muslims. Arab actors who have become stars in Hollywood include Omar Sharif, who has been described as "the first Egyptian and Arab to conquer Hollywood". Most representations, however, have been negative, having adverse repercussions for some Arab Americans and Muslims in daily interactions and in current events. In American textbooks, which theoretically should be less-creative expressions, similar negative and inaccurate stereotypes are also found for Arabs and Muslims.
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land is a 2004 American documentary film directed by Sut Jhally and Bathsheba Ratzkoff which—according to the film's official website—"provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" and which "analyzes and explains how—through the use of language, framing and context—the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media". The film argues that the influence of pro-Israel media watchdog groups, such as CAMERA and Honest Reporting, has led to distorted and pro-Israel media reports. It features Noam Chomsky, Robert Jensen, Hanan Ashrawi, Sam Husseini, and Robert Fisk, among others.
Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People is a documentary film directed by Sut Jhally and produced by Media Education Foundation in 2006. This film is an extension of the book of the same name by Jack Shaheen, which also analyzes how Hollywood corrupts or manipulates the image of Arabs. The documentary analyzes 1,000 films that have Arab and Muslim characters, produced between 1896 and 2000, out of which great majority, 936 titles, were negative in their portrayal, arguing that the slander of Arabs in American filmmaking has existed since the early days of the silent cinema and is present in the biggest Hollywood blockbusters today. Jack Shaheen analyzes a long series of "demeaning" images of Arabs through his presentation of various scenes from different American movies which he has studied. He argues that this image is characterized by showing Arabs either as bandits or as a savage, nomadic race, or shows Arab women as shallow belly dancers serving evil, naïve, and greedy Arab sheiks. Most important is the image of the rifle in the hands of Arab "terrorists". The film then attempts to explain the motivations behind these stereotypes about Arabs, and their development at key points in American history, as well as why it is so important today.
Jack George Shaheen Jr. was an American writer and lecturer specializing in addressing racial and ethnic stereotypes. He authored Reel Bad Arabs, The TV Arab (1984) and Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture (1997).
Bathsheba Ratzkoff is a film director, producer, and editor.
Jackson T. Katz is an American educator, filmmaker, and author. He has created a gender violence prevention and education program entitled 'Mentors in Violence Prevention', which is used by U.S. military and various sporting organizations.
Edward Wadie Said was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of post-colonial studies. As a cultural critic, Said is best known for his book Orientalism (1978), a foundational text which critiques the cultural representations that are the bases of Orientalism—how the Western world perceives the Orient. His model of textual analysis transformed the academic discourse of researchers in literary theory, literary criticism, and Middle Eastern studies.
Advertising is a form of selling a product to a certain audience in which communication is intended to persuade an audience to purchase products, ideals or services regardless of whether they want or need them. While advertising can be seen as a way to inform the audience about a certain product or idea it also comes with a cost because the sellers have to find a way to show the seller interest in their product. It is not without social costs. Unsolicited commercial email and other forms of spam have become so prevalent that they are a major nuisance to internet users, as well as being a financial burden on internet service providers. Advertising increasingly invades public spaces, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation. Advertising frequently uses psychological pressure on the intended consumer, which may be harmful. As a result of these criticisms, the advertising industry has seen low approval rates in surveys and negative cultural portrayals.
Killing Us Softly is an American documentary series by Jean Kilbourne, produced and distributed by the Media Education Foundation. First released in 1979 and since revised and updated three times, most recently in 2010, it focuses on images of women in advertising; in particular on gender stereotypes, the effects of advertising on women's self-image, and the objectification of women's bodies.
This is a bibliography of advertising.
Ian Henderson Angus is an interdisciplinary philosopher and social critic who writes on continental philosophy, Canadian studies, communication theory, social movements, ecological thought, and the university.
As'ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. AbuKhalil is the author of Historical Dictionary of Lebanon (1998), Bin Laden, Islam & America's New "War on Terrorism" (2002), and The Battle for Saudi Arabia (2004).
The Media Education Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1992 that produces and distributes documentary films about the impact of American mass media. Their films focus on topics such as gender, race and representation, health, class, consumerism, politics, and the environment, with the purpose of encouraging critical thought about the media, its effects on viewers, and on the world more broadly.
Arabs are portrayed in film as film characters in both Arab films as well as non-Arab films, and both Arabs and non-Arabs take the role of an Arab. These portrayals often depict an ethnocentric perception of Arabs rather than an authentic and realistic depiction of Arabic cultures, religions, dialects, as well as customs and traditions. Common characteristics that are implemented in the role of Arab characters include speaking in a heavy accent, being hostile and vicious, and are in the context of terrorism. Key issues that have been explored in these portrayals include how Arabs are identified in mainstream Hollywood film, how Arabs self-represent themselves in their own film, with examples from Egyptian cinema, Palestinian cinema, as well as Syrian cinema. This article will also cover the emphasis on Islamophobia and its impacts on film. There has also been the portrayal of Arab women in film, the portrayal of Arabs post 9/11, the portrayal of Arabs in silent film, and positive portrayals and negative portrayals of Arabs. Lastly, the United States efforts to avoid the stereotyping of Muslims/Arabs and shifting the focus onto a positive outlook.
The Codes of Gender is a 2010 documentary written and directed by Sut Jhally, a professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The film investigates how advertising goes beyond the selling of product, but also the selling of social ideas; particularly through gender representations. Jhally connects these ideas to the work of symbolic interactionism established by the late Erving Goffman, a Canadian-born sociologist. The film visually demonstrates the ways in which gender is performed, the social construction of femininity and masculinity and how gender can intersect with power.
