Media and Violence in Europe: The case of growing Islamophopia in Italy

The goal of this study is to determine the possible factors leading to increased anti-Muslim sentiment in Italy. According to recent surveys, the most consistent demographic predictors of Islamophobia seems to be political ideology, age, education and social contact between majority populations and Muslim minorities. In Italy, as in the rest of Europe, Islamophobia seems to be strictly linked to the growing refugee crisis and the frequent terrorist attacks. People's sense of insecurity, certainly present at least since 11 September 2001, seems to have increased recently following the attacks which occurred in Paris in 2015. For this reason, we analyze the growing Islamophobia in Italy starting from that year until today. We focus in particular on media sector, which in our opinion has played and continues to play a decisive role in spreading Islamophobia. In recent years two issues have dominated the media agenda: the link between terrorism and immigration and the economic and social costs from immigration; according to the mentioned surveys, both these issues have gradually become a major source of concern for Italians. Our analysis focus on the first issue, as it targets especifically Muslim migrants rather than migrants in general. In particular, we examine in detail some problematic words and the migration-Islam-terrorism nexus in the Italian media. This analysis shows that media discourse on Islam and immigration is ideologically oriented, primarily focusing on migratory flows' management and people's security and reporting the opinions of political actors on these issues, while the voice of the protagonists (immigrants, Muslims) is almost completely absent. The lack of migrants/Muslims voices in the media has several negative consequences; above all others, it paves the way to the use of biased categorizations and a dehumanizing language that inevitably impact the public opinion.