Local Contexts of Islamism in Popular Media

After the events of 9/11, media representations of Muslims in the West—never known for their accuracy—became even more stereotypically negative. Few of us realize, however, the profusion of similar sentiments that existed within Arab Muslim media outlets ten or even fifteen years earlier. Lila Abu-Lughod here examines these  images of religious extremism in popular Arab media, focusing most closely on such depictions in Egyptian television shows of the 1990s. Concluding with an exploration o…