Unpacking ‘Islamophobia’Media, Postcolonial Affect and the Racism of Low Expectations

Abstract

This paper examines how Islamophobia is produced and circulated through contemporary media by analysing it as a racialising process rather than solely as a form of religious prejudice. It unpacks how media representations, political discourse, and cultural narratives operate through affective and discursive mechanisms to deny Muslims complexity and agency in both U.S. and global contexts, while reproducing and cementing hierarchies shaped by colonial legacies, imperial governance, and neoliberal globalisation. Drawing on postcolonial theory and affect theory, the paper employs qualitative discourse analysis of news coverage, popular media, and political speech to trace how a “racism of low expectations” functions within these representational frames. Through this methodological approach, the paper demonstrates how Islamophobia is sustained through selective empathy and structural forms of violence and argues for the need to rethink dominant media framings of Muslim identities.