Since the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington, D.C., and New York City, Americans have been bombarded with images of the Islamic culture.

Whether negative or not, “The Portrayal of Islam in the Media” was featured in a discussion forum Tuesday night as a continuation of Islamic Awareness Week.

Azhar Osman, attorney and co-founder of the Nawawi Foundation, spoke on various aspects of the media’s Islamic culture portrayal.

Osman compared Americans’ views of Muslims to the Germans’ view of Jews during World War II.

“The images that are shown in the media perpetuate the desire in people to hate,” he said. “When it comes to Arabs and Muslims, people can still get away with it.”

Osman referred to President George W. Bush’s statement that either the nation is with the terrorists or against them. Bush’s statement exemplifies the media’s attempt to simplify the complexity of the attacks and the war in Afghanistan.

“I see on the screen ‘America Strikes Back’ and planes flying through the air and I think of ‘Star Wars’,” Osman said, laughing.

Osman called the media’s biased portrayal of the Muslim culture “Islamaphobia,” or the phenomenon of painting Islam in a negative light. One tactic of this phenomenon is repetition, like when broadcast news repeatedly projected images of Muslims rallying and burning flags immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“One of the jobs of the media is to influence our perceptions of reality,” Osman said. He added that the media is trying its best to change Americans’ positive viewpoints of Islam with an onslaught of negative images.

Osman recognized that some journalists have challenged the status quo by projecting positive aspects of the Muslim culture, but he understands that corporate interests can overtake media’s viewpoints.

“It is a business that is run by businessmen, and those individual men have biases like everyone else,” Osman said.

By referring to Muslims as a monolithic entity, or “The Other,” broadcast news keeps the nation scared to guarantee ratings, Osman added.

He suggested that a greater understanding between cultures can be achieved through American news being broadcast overseas and vice versa. Osman mentioned that American broadcast news has refused to air footage that Al-Jazeera has been sending.

“We need to create a Muslim media,” he said. People don’t necessarily need to agree with the views, but at least the public will be informed of Muslim views.

Those who attended last night’s event felt inspired and educated by the discussion.

“I thought it was really great and provided good perspective of what’s going on,” senior OMIS major Ali Baig said.

Junior history major Travis Hughes learned more about the Muslim religion and the world view in general.

“I found it especially powerful that he was telling the Islamic point of view and not the Western point of view,” Hughes said. He added that for Western news organizations to portray the Islamic culture in the way they have been is absurd because few Westerners truly understand the culture.