Journalism and the Islamic Worldview

Abstract

This paper looks at the extent to which journalistic culture in Muslim-majority countries is shaped by a distinctive Islamic worldview. We identified four principles of an Islamic perspective to journalism: truth and truth-telling (siddiq and haqq), pedagogy (tabligh), seeking the best for the public interest (maslahah), and moderation (wasatiyyah). A survey of working journalists in Africa (Egypt, Sierra Leone, and Sudan), Asia (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates), and Europe (Albania and Kosovo) found manifestations of these roles in the investigated countries. The results point to the strong importance of an interventionist approach to journalism—as embodied in the maslahah principle—in most societies. Overall, however, journalists’ roles in Muslim-majority countries are not so much shaped by a distinctively Islamic worldview as they were by the political, economic, and socio-cultural contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Islam
• Islamic culture
• Islamic view of journalistic roles
• Muslim-majority countries
• universal journalistic roles
• Worlds of Journalism Study

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Dr. Mohd Safar Hasim, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia; Ms. Sarah Bomkampre, LMU Munich; Mahmoud M. Galander, Qatar University; Incilay Cangoz, Anadolu University; Elsayed Bekhit, Zayed University; Abdullah Al-Kindi, Sultan Qaboos University; Jonila Godole, Univesity of Tirana; Kenneth Andresen, University of Agder;
and Abit Hoxha, LMU Munich, for sharing their data for this paper.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 It should be noted that the correct translation of nasihah is “advice” and not “independence” (istiqlal in Arabic).

2 More detailed methodological information can be obtained from the project website at http://worldsofjournalism.org/52/.

3 See http://davidtalby.com/vcoplot/.

4 Two indicators had to be excluded due to low correlations: “support national development” and “attract largest audience.”

Additional information

Funding

This study was made possible by the Worlds of Journalism Study, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich; the German Research Foundation; Swiss National Science Foundation.