Appendix 2

Newspapers misrepresent Islamic culture because of the ideology of those who own the media platforms. Stuart Hall's theories of representation explain the concept of encoding and decoding, with Chris Rigg expanding on this within his book. Media bias and misrepresentation are influenced by the ruling class, such as Rupert Murdoch who owns one-third of the UK media. Murdoch's own beliefs and the right-wing political agenda influence the misrepresentation of Islamic culture in his newspapers. This is supported by the fact that 50% of the party members see Islam as a threat. Since we have just discussed how newspapers misrepresent Islamic culture, I find it interesting to delve into why do they misrepresent Islamic culture. Stuart Hall's theories of representation include the concept of encoding and decoding. Chris Rigg expands on this concept within his book, Media and Cultural Studies, Critical Approaches. He refers to critical ideology, Marxism, whilst writing that ideology is a concept of the ruling class who code and represent reality. Hammer and Keller, 2009, which then proposed the question of who encodes? He went on to propose that those who encode media messages are those of the ruling class, also known as the bourgeoisie. Within Marxist ideology, this introduces the next topic of my podcast, as I said prior, media bias and misrepresentation. Within research in misrepresentation of British media, I stumbled upon the fact that Rupert Murdoch, a single upper-class man, owns one-third of the media distributed between the UK, and therefore he is the encoder for one-third of British media. Douglas expands on the portion of the media that Murdoch owns in the article for the BBC. He writes, the idea of one man or company controlling a large proportion of the nation's newspaper and broadcasting interests is an issue for public concern, particularly when a person takes a close interest in the political agenda of his newspapers and one of them claims to influence general elections, Douglas, 2010. Now going back to our main topic, the misrepresentation of Islamic culture, I believe it can be inferred here that the reason behind their misrepresentation in the vast majority of media is due to Murdoch's own beliefs found in the culture. Murdoch runs British newspapers, The Times, Sunday Times, The Sun, and the News of the World. This is due to Margaret Thatcher's government allowing Mr Murdoch's company to take over The Times and The Sunday Times without referring it to the Monopolies and Murders Commission, Douglas, 2010. These British newspapers already sit within the right wing of political agenda, a party which, as referenced earlier, 50% of members see Islam as a threat. Therefore, Murdoch would continue to encode these views within his newspapers via his articles, which aids the answer to why do newspapers misrepresent. It is due to the ideology of those who own the media platforms.