Media is a powerful double sword agent to portray, represent and influence perceptions towards a particular ideology and religion in the present age of technology. This study presents the findings about the role of media regarding Muslims, Islamic beliefs and their identity. For the purpose a meta-analysis of 353 published studies are critically reviewed and examined. The detailed quantitative analysis focuses on the geographical distribution, techniques, hypothesis, forms of media and time duration of published data whereas, qualitative analysis examined the most prestigious and well-known studied subject matters. Results from this study give the impression that most of the studies extends to European or western countries and on the other hand Islamic states and media belonged to them have been avoided. Findings also shed light on low volume of comparative studies, lack of perceptibility and scarcity of internet based quality work. A large number of researches focused on the trends of war on terror, links of Muslims in terror related incidences, Islamic extremism and migration. Furthermore, analysis and data of this study reveal the fact of negatively portraying the image and identity of Muslims. The religion of Islam as whole represented as religion associated with extremism, terror, violence and intolerance. Suggestions based on analysis are also taken into account.
Keywords:
Media representation, Islam, Muslims, Meta-analysis, Qualitative and Quantities analysis