Muslims severely underrepresented on TV: Study

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Representation in popular media matters – just ask Lizzo or young black girls reacting to Disney’s upcoming live-action reimaging of The Little Mermaid.

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There is still a long way to go, but simply put, there aren’t enough Muslims on television, according to a study. Muslims make up a quarter of the world’s population, but make up only 1% of speaking characters across 200 TV shows.

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University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative took a closer look at the portrayal of Muslim characters on the small screen and determined there is quite a ways to go to improve things.

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Researchers analyzed the first three episodes from 200 top-rated shows in the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand from 2018 and 2019 and found that for every one Muslim character with dialogue, there were 90 non-Muslims – which works out to be about a 2% share in 2018 and less than 1% the following year.

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Also troubling is that small percentage comes from just 16 shows. The remainder of the shows reviewed  did not feature even one Muslim-speaking character.

“Muslims make up 25% of the world’s population, yet were only 1.1% of characters in popular television series,” said Al-Baab Khan, lead author of the study titled “Erased or Extremists: The Stereotypical View of Muslims in Popular Episodic Series.”

“Not only is this radical erasure an insult, it has the potential to create real-world injury for audiences, particularly Muslims who may be the victims of prejudice, discrimination and even violence.”

The stereotypes are strong, though, as more than 30% of the 98 total Muslim-speaking characters identified in the study were violent, while almost 40% were portrayed as targets of violent attacks.

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The Muslim characters with jobs were mostly criminals (37.2%) or the opposite end of the spectrum, in law enforcement (15.7%).

And forget the females; they make up only 21.6% of Muslims on the small screen.

“The findings in this study reveal how rarely content creators think about including Muslims in popular storytelling – particularly girls and women,” Stacy L. Smith, founder of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, said in a statement.

“As a result, viewers would have to watch hours and hours of content before seeing even a single portrayal of a Muslim character – with even more time required to find a portrayal that is not linked to violence or extremism.”