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Scaremongering? The Media and Islam in Europe

A 'Muslims in the European Mediascape' event

11 April 2011
Berlin

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue co-organised a private discussion with the Vodafone Foundation Germany at the Axel Springer House in Berlin in April 2011. Kindly hosted by Mathias Doepfner, the event brought together 30 leading figures from the worlds of media, business, politics and academia to explore the role of the media in influencing and shaping the place of Islam in Europe. It explored a number of key questions: What is the role of the media in multicultural societies? Are the media creating panic? Do they present the true complexity of the issues in hand? Can and does media reporting influence events on the ground and community relations? Are parallel media societies emerging? And should more effort be made to encourage more Muslims to work within the mainstream media?

The discussion included presentations and remarks from Patrick Bahners (Head of the FAZ’s Feuilletons and author of Panikmacher: Die deutsche Angst vor dem Islam) and sociologist Professor Dr Andreas Zick (Universität Bielefeld). The discussion was moderated by Christoph Keese (Director of Public Affairs der Axel Springer AG) with the guest of honour being Professor Maria Böhmer (State Minister for Integration, Federal Chancellery).

The event was part of the Institute’s major international research project, Muslims in the European Mediascape, which is being conducted in partnership with the British Council and Vodafone Foundation Germany. The project is exploring the role of both mainstream media and that aimed at minority communities in ever-diversifying European societies. It will involve interviews, focus groups and a survey in the UK and Germany and the results will be published in December 2011. A discussion paper was published in 2010, and more information is available on the project website. For further information about the project, please contact Rachel Briggs.