TV Series As a Strategic Power of Islamophobia in Media: Homeland Example

Media has been the most important perpetrator after politicians in history for ？slamophobia to get widespread and its scope to gain depth. Various researches carried out in West put forth that anti Islam do exist and western media contribute a lot in this. Thus, it gains importance to reveal what kind of discourse that the most followed outputs of media authorities are in. Being a part of the studies intended to understand how this kind of imperative forms work is mainly the goal of this study. In western media Islam is brought to agenda mainly by associating it with terrorism, international conflicts, fundamentalism and pressure and violence against women. Maybe one of the most effective architectures of this structure which feeds Islamophobia is TV series having the characteristics of dramatic programs. Thus, ‘Homeland’, which has made a tremendous affect and is followed a lot in Europe, America and Turkey, is discussed in this study. This series, which brings Islam, Middle East and terrorism concepts side by side, is remarkable because of its narration structure and is in a strategic position for the audience to set up conception maps. In this sense, a total of 84 episodes of 7 seasons were analyzed through content analysis. Deep traces of orientalist and Islamophobic approach were found in Homeland analyzed. In the series, where the values of West are centered and identified as ‘good’, elements of violence together with hatred, threatening, fear and revenge within the context of Islam which is associated with physical violence and terrorism are included. It is possible to suggest that it is, with such structure, one of the most important sources that feed Islamophobia