The Perception of Muslims in Germany: Decoding the German Media Coverage of the Islamic State

For decades now, ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’ have always been cause of raging public debates in Germany. The rise of the Islamic State has further dented the image of the second largest religion in Germany. A section of German population earlier was concerned about the changing demographics and took to streets against perceived ‘Islamisation’ of the country for which the Islamic State became the prime focus of the media. For a long time now ‘Muslimness’ has been taken as the antithesis of ‘Germanness’ which has not helped the situation to amicably settle down either. Here an attempt is made to study the patterns in the print media organisations focussed predominantly on the issues related to violence, fundamentalism and intolerance of other religions or pluralistic values; among other themes covered are women subjugation and mosque constructions