This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

By Any Media Necessary: Mapping Youth and Participatory Politics

American Muslim Youth Networks

About

A growing number of American Muslim youth aspire to produce and share media. For many of them, this aspiration connects to ongoing politicized struggles around how Muslims and Islam are viewed in Post 9/11 America. As the youth tap new media resources to reshape the communication environment and create new images of what it means to be Muslim in America, they simultaneously confront the chilling effects of various forms of surveillance, which encourage self-censorship. The silencing power of these concerns becomes particularly potent in the context of networks that support expression of diverse narratives, free discussion of issues and the formation of loosely defined communities that bypass more controlled organizational structures.

Key Issues, Campaigns and Projects

This page has paths:

This page has tags:

Contents of this tag:

This page is referenced by:

Storytelling and Surveillance
Drawing on the work of storytellers, civic organizations, and civically active American Muslim youth, this chapter focuses on expressive initiatives by civically engaged American Muslim youth within an often harsh Post - 9/11 climate where moderate Muslim voices have struggled to find a means of entering an increasingly polarized discussion around ‘Islamophobic’ and extremist perspectives. In particular, we highlight the circulation of media and storytelling as a crucial dimension of efforts by American Muslim youth to express, poke fun at, network, and mobilize around their identity in the United States. We also point ongoing in-person and online surveillance as a reality for some young American-Muslims, particularly those involved in contentious social justice campaigns. They not only worry about top-down surveillance from the government, but also the scrutiny of older, or more conservative community members. We signal that such surveillance threatens a fragile, emergent progressive American Muslim public and explore humor as a coping strategy.

Exploring both the possibilities and vulnerabilities of participatory politics in the American Muslim youth context, we argue that the post-9/11 American Muslim youth networks included in our research are perhaps best seen as struggling to find precarious balance between vibrancy and fragility, empowerment and risk, and, as our introductory discussion of “precarious publics” suggested, between voice and influence.

This is a study of activists and community networks affiliated with the Muslim Youth Group (MYG) at the Islamic Center in Southern California and the Young Leaders Program at the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). We also highlight specific projects like 30Mosques, a project that circulated through the MPAC and MYG networks. Founded by Bassam Tariq and Aman Ali in 2009, the project tapped new media to document and share American Muslim Ramadan experiences to highlight diversity and shatter stereotypes. Over its four years of existence and through various online platforms, the project shared stories, encouraged dialogues, and increased visibility for diverse American Muslims.

Media Referenced in Chapter 4
Agenda Shifting How might identity groups use media to react to, reshape, or even control the narrative being constructed about them in mainstream media? We are seeing many of the groups we study -- but especially the DREAM activists and the American Muslim networks respond quickly to news stories or popular culture programming that they feel places them in a negative light. They are using their collective capacities to pull together information, critique representation, construct alternative narratives, and get them into circulation, often in ways that commands the attention of major news organizations. In part, these strategies work because of the ways they are able to quickly mobilize dispersed and decentralized networks that are invested in helping them spread content. Real World Example: The Goatface video about the Sikh temple shooting addresses a serious issue related to a marginalized population while also complicating national definitions of “Islamic” identity. Hasan Minhaj opens the piece with “this is the truth”. He uses logical reasoning and explicit examples to construct an argument for how the shooting is doubly tragic: not just in the deaths but also in the complete lack of national attention. He says the only people responding are “brown, social Asian community” and then identifies specific names to make it more relatable and then generalizes it by claiming “black community has been talking about this for years”. He addresses both minorities and the white population. For the former he calls on them to Mobilize, stop the hate, address the fact that white, racist domestic terrorist are more of an issue that islamic terrorism. For the later population, he calls on them to be open and talked with Sikh members of the community to learn the nuances of culture and not assume they’re muslim. Stylistically he uses classical music, costume, and settings to create an aire of a cultured individual and lend credibility (doubled through a layer of parody) to his perspective.