The mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida has been dubbed the largest mass shooting in American history. The tragedy has been playing out over and over in public discussion since June 12, with new discoveries about the shooter and the circumstances of the incident being revealed almost every day. As the discourse of American media continues, there seems to be a growing focus on the shooter Omar Mateen’s connection to the Islamic State or ISIS—western media’s reflexive action with many big tragedies happening in the world nowadays.
Consequently, as it has been for years since 9/11, a culture of fear continues to spread throughout the United States. In simplifying the facts and angling the story, the media has the powerful ability to create villains and enemies out of people. Through focusing on Mateen’s Islamic faith and connection to ISIS as the instigator of the Orlando shooting, media continues to create an enemy out of Muslims in America. Apparently, it’s much easier to villainize a minority group rather than address the circumstances in which such an event can happen. In villainizing Muslims, the media furthers a vicious cycle of marginalization of a minority group, empowering irrational fear and hostility in many media consumers.
According to a 2015 Pew Research Center survey on religious landscape of over 35,000 Americans across the United States, less than one per cent of Americans identify as Muslim. The results of a YouGov/Huffington Post survey on attitudes towards Islam in March 2015 revealed that 55 per cent of Americans tend to have a negative view of Islam. According to an article in Al Jazeera America, hate crimes against Muslims in the United States have increased since the Paris attacks.
If the majority of Americans have a negative attitude towards a very small minority of people in the country, who should really be afraid of whom?
The Washington Post compiled the statistics researched by various organizations to give a portrait of the history of mass shootings in the United States, with mass shootings being defined as incidents in which four or more people were killed by a lone shooter. The article found that in the last 50 years, there have been 126 times across 40 states where an incident by this definition has happened. It also revealed that the majority of weapons in these incidents were legally obtained and the majority of shooters were non-Muslim men.
The Orlando shooting wasn’t simply an incident of pure terrorism, and it’s wrong for American media to paint it as such. The Orlando shooting was a record-breaking part of a long, tragic trend of mass shootings by lone shooters in the United States.
American media needs to widen its scope in its coverage of the aftermath resulting from the Orlando shooting. In their coverage, they need to address the systemic problems that enabled Mateen to carry out his actions; doing such would help bring forth healthy discourse for positive change rather than alienate an entire group of people.
