Social Technologies Used to Communicate Within the Muslim Culture

This week we will be discussing what types of technologies are present in the Muslim culture. This can range from a participatory culture to a convergence culture. From participating in social media to producing content for that media, we find that hypermediation is not something the Muslim culture has not been exposed to.

For instance, this website describes the effect that social media has had on the culture as positive in that it increased exposure and awareness of the religion. However, the general content in the coverage of the Muslim religion is in bad taste and only highlights radical incidents, so this leads to a necessity for self-representation on websites such as Facebook. We found a page titled "Muslims for Social Justice" With this page the Admins use different hashtags to attract their users such as: #BlackLivesMatter. Travelling through the timeline of the page we’ve also noticed that this page would repost and share certain articles and videos to keep their demographic updated on what is going on world-wide. Miguel and I also were able to find out that the same group is active on Blogger. With such adversity “Muslims for Social Justice” has multiple outlets to connect with their users and share their purpose and utilize it very well. YouTube and other video media have been significant sources for different Muslims to attempt to reverse the pre-conceived notions such as abuse/domestic violence, which continue to affect a lot of people who identify within their group. These are some of the media that are used to communicate messages that are important to the Muslim culture.

More specifics about our Muslim justice project

In the previous week, we discussed our topic of interest, social justice for Muslims. Now, we will attempt to provide a little more definition to our group. First, we plan to focus on how Muslims are represented and what they do to represent themselves on the internet and other technological platforms. This can range from Muslim parents to children or just any other Muslim demographic that might be misrepresented in today’s media. This will happen as we monitor different movements and events on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Muslims in our current American media are portrayed 97% as terrorists or even just as threatening citizens. Throughout the web there has been a wide variety of movements to stop such perceptions. Miguel and I want to analyze such movements by contrasting perception versus reality. We chose this because of the frequency of which these misrepresentations happen.

 A recent incident that comes to mind is that of Ahmed Mohammed, a 14 year-old Texas student, who has circled the internet due to an unjust arrest. Mohammed was arrested when he arrived to school with a clock that he had built on his own. His attempt to impress his teacher led to him being arrested under the circumstances that the school believed he had brought a bomb to the school. These are the types of incidents we hope to acknowledge and clarify throughout our project.

Not All Muslims

There is plenty of discussion about discrimination on campus but many of us forget others that should be talked about. One demographic Khalil and myself (Miguel) found worthy of uncovering was that of the muslim community. We realized that there is a stigma surrounding the Muslim faith suggesting they are violent or are terrorists. This was something that did not sit well us, since we are aware of the diversity among Muslim followers. A majority of muslims in our American media(99%) are portrayed in a negative light. Miguel and I are curious to find out and understand core values of the Muslim religion, for which it holds sacred truths. Throughout this process we are choosing to seek understanding of religion, and plan on to project such understanding through video, pictures, text, and interaction with community members.

 We hope to facilitate a wider acceptance of the Muslim religion by highlighting the fact that they can be everyday people like you and I. Through research and experience we will post periodically on this blog in order to keep track of what we have learned and expand on ideas we have learned in class. Hopefully, by the end of this project we will have affected enough people to see a change in the way people on campus think about Muslims.