The influence of Chinese media on Islam-paper代写

本文是一篇优秀的essay范文-The influence of Chinese media on Islam，供大家赏析学习，这篇论文讨论了中国媒体对伊斯兰教的影响。中国传统的媒体就是报纸和杂志，而伊斯兰教最早通过传统媒体宣传可以追溯到一百年前，当时的一篇文章点燃了无数中国穆斯林的激情，去追求自己的信仰。后来学者对伊斯兰教的研究，也发表了不少作品，让中国人从不同角度了解了伊斯兰的世界。

Abstract

Buddhism, Christianism and Islamism are the three major religions in the world. Christians believe in the universal love, Buddhists treat others in a lenient attitude and Islamites hope to bring peace to the surroundings. Even though the three religions have different beliefs, that they share the similar willing, which is to seek good, cannot be denied. However, as the time goes, Buddhism and Christianism are widely accepted by the society, while Islamism becomes a horrible religion in most people’s mind. In China,Islamism has become the fifth largest religion and it is easy to notice the Muslims in every region of the country. Comparing to 1400 years ago when Islam was first introduced to China, Chinese people are much easier to access to the culture of this region through various media, like newspapers and religious websites.

The purpose of this thesis is to illustrate what effects does the Chinese media have on the development of Islamism in China. At first, it summarizes Islam’s five fundamental doctrines and development process in the past 1400 years. Familiarizing these background knowledge helps people understand Muslims and some of their behaviors. Then, it illustrates Chinese people’s attitude to religious issue. Different from other countries, in its development process, Chinese people haveformed a uniqueattitude to different religions, including Islamism.Actually, their bias and inaccurate impression imposes huge negative effects on the development of Islam. Finally, the thesis mainly discusses the influences of Chinese traditional and new media on Islam and the problems and challenges exist in new media. It also takes western media into consideration, since US-led western countries have anenormous impact on Chinese media and its reporting perspective on Islamic issues.

Chapter 1

1.01 Summary

Islam has existed in China for over 1400 years and it gradually interacts with Chinese society. It is the faith of ten minority nationalities, including Hui, Uygur, Kazak and so force (Berlie, 2004). It is estimated that 2% of the total population in China are Muslins and they are centrally located in Xinjiang, Henan, Gansu provinces. In Islam’s spreading process, it gradually adjusts to Chinese society and eventually coexists with other cultures. However, as everyone knows, the growth of a new thing would not be smooth and easy and it would meet numerous obstacles. Similar situation occurs to Islamism. On the one hand, Muslims boreother people’s misunderstanding and discrimination. On the other hand, they suffered unequal treatments, like murdering during the war period. Nevertheless, Muslims went through all these troubles and became a vital part inChina’s history, especially during the second Sino-Japanese war (Ali, 1949). Now, their religion is widely accepted by other groups and its culture is inherited through generations. This chapter consists three parts. The first part lists the five fundamental doctrines of Islamism, which can be seen as the core culture of this religion. The second part covers the main development stages experienced by Islam in ancient and modern China.

1.02 The Doctrines of Islamism

For Muslims, their religious beliefs are based on five fundamental doctrines (Demant, 2006). At first, they believe in Allah, God in Islam. Just as the description in Quran, God is beyond all comprehension and he creates everything in the universe. Secondly, Muslims believe in angels, who are created by God and cannot be seen by naked eyes. Angles are made of light and follow God’s guidance. Instead of worshiping angels, Muslims just accept their existence. Thirdly, Muslims believe in Quran. Muslims take this book as the final revelation and literal word of God. Fourthly, Muslims believe in the existence of prophets, who are chosen by God to be his messengers. Of all the prophets, Muhammad is the last and the greatest. Last but not least, Muslims believe that all mankind will be judged on their good and bad behaviors and consigned to heaven or hell. For those who have done more good actions, they would be rewarded to go to heaven, a place of joy and bliss. On the contrast, the bad or evil ones would go to hell.

1.03 The Development of Islamism in Ancient China

According to Chinese Muslims’ traditional legendary records, Islam was first introduced to China in 616-18 AD (Berlie, 2004). It got afar-reaching development in the next following dynasties, including Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing.  Its name varied in different periods. According to Chinese literatures, in Tang and Song Dynasties, government and publics didn’t know much about this religion, while in the next three dynasties, which are Yuan, Ming and Qing,Islam got a in-depth development. During the Yuan dynasty, Mongol conquered several Islam nations and ethnic groups in central and west Asian. To better govern these areas, Mongol started to learn Islamic culture and custom. After that, in Yuan and early Ming dynasty, large numbers of Han, Mongolian and other ethnic groups believed in Islamism for political and economic reasons. In Late Ming and Qing dynasty, affected by Chinese traditional culture, Islamic culture changed and gradually formed certain characters inconsistent with the original Islamism (Ali, 1949).

1.04 The Development of Islamism in Modern China

From the fall of the Qing Dynasty to the establishment of People’s Republic of China, China experienced several wars and revolutions. For Muslims, it can be seen as the darkest time. Because of their religious belief, many Muslims were treated unequally and even got killed, especially during the time of the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1949, People’s Republic of China was established. Then Chinese government announced that all nationalities in China are equal and they share the same right in political, economic and cultural. According to the constitution of the People’s Republic of China,citizens have the right to choose their religious belief. For Muslims, their religious cultural, activities and customs were respected and protected by law. In 1953, China Islamic Association was founded in Beijing (Berlie, 2004). With the help of Chinese government and the practice of the Reform and Opening policy, the economic in Islam areas continues to grow and different nationalities live together peacefully. On the basis of equality, the friendly exchange activities between Islam countries and other religious groups are more frequent, which enhances the understanding and friendship between different religions.

Chapter 2

2.01 Summary

China is the world’s one of the four ancient civilizations and there are five thousand years of splendid culture. However, it cannot be denied that some cultures or traditional rituals are out of times and need to be changed or corrected. Chinese people’s attitude to religious belongs to this category. Chinese people always take religious beliefs as a superstitious and ignorant cultural practice. It may seem unbelievable for people in developed countries, but this idea actually dominates China for a long time. With the development of China, more and more people change their minds and gradually accept religious beliefs. In this process, Chinese media, especially new media, like Islam websites, makes a crucial contribution. 

This Chapter mainly discusses the influences of Chinese traditional media and modern media, especially Internet media, on Islamism. For traditional media, it consists of two parts. One is Chinese mainstream media, like newspapers and related books published by China’s famous presses. The other one refers to fork journals published by religious organizations or Islam believers. While for modern media, who imposes a positive effect on the development of Islam, this chapter covers its emerging background, major patterns and potential problems and challenges. This chapter also discusses the influences of western media on the development of Chinese Islamism. In the era of globalization, the news come from other countries, especially the US-led western developed countries have an extensive affect Chinese people’s idea.

2.02 Chinese Society’s Attitude to Religious Issues

China is known to be a nation withvarious religions. These religions coexist harmoniously. Chinese people are free to select their religious beliefs.  According to official statistics, more than 100 million people in China havereligious beliefs. It means that in every thirteen Chinese people, one believes in certain religion (Broomhall, 1966). Most Chinese people will be surprised at this statistical result, since no one actually knows their friends or colleagues’ religious belief. In the ancient times, ethnicity and religion are interconnected. For numerous nationalities, their cultures are extensively affected by the religious beliefs. Hence, in the process of understanding the issue of nationalities, it is inevitable to face and learn the holy of the religious traditions.However, in Chinese traditional media, the proportion of publicity on this issue is extremely rare, which leads to the disappearance of religious culture in our lives. Moreover, the content of these reports is kinds of superficial.Most main media hold an evasive attitude with an excuse that the topic of religion is too sensitive to discuss. When facing the international religious issue, one of the hottest topics in the world, Chinese media are used to follow other countries’ opinions with no independence views. For other general media, religious issue is a forbidden topic. They try every method to avoid and take it as a troublemaker. Several reasons may result in this phenomenon. At first, when talking about religion, Chinese people always take them as a superstitious and ignorant cultural practice (Broomhall, 1966). In the past several years, Chinese people have formed a bias and misunderstanding on religion. In China’s educational system, it is difficult to find the textbooks related to religious knowledge, so Chinese people, especially teenagers, do not have an effective measure to gain such knowledge. Some books even hold the idea that religion is just a tool used by government to maintain its running. Hence, in most Chinese people’s minds, religious culture should be abandoned in the advanced society. Secondly, affected by globalization, many nationalities gradually throw their cognition and insistence on its traditional culture and religious belief away. For ordinary people, it is difficult to find any ethical characters from these religious believers’ clothes and living habits. The third reason is exist in the mass media. Until today, there is no religion-based newspaper in China (Xiaowei. 2007). In addition, most publishing houses rarely publishreligious books, because of related constraints or self-circumvent. However, tracing the fundamental reason of this phenomenon, some scholars think that it is a general problem exists in all traditional media. The long time neglect results that the whole society holds an indifferent attitude to religious matters (Broomhall, 1966.). In recent years, numerous violent incidents occur in China and some are triggered by cultural conflicts. Instead of peacefully dealing with the differences, some people choose an extreme and terrified method. Learning from such bloody lessons, Chinese people realize that it is crucial to seriously think how to comprehensively understand and deal with the religious issue. 

2.03 The Influences of Chinese Traditional Media on Islamism

In China, newspapers and magazines are two predominant kinds of traditional media on Islam. Among all traditional media, fork journals demonstrate a positive and passionateattitude to Islamic matter. The earliest Islam magazine in China can be traced to over a hundred years ago. In 1907, Chinese Muslims students established an organization, called “Muslims Educational Association for Chinese International Students” and published an article. Even though this article was only published one issue, it ignited numerous Chinese Muslims’ passion and desire in pursuing their own beliefs (Broomhall, 1966).In the past 100 years, several excellent nongovernmental newspapers and journals come into Chinese society. During the period, Islam experienced two upsurges. Intrigued by New Culture Movement, Chinese people started to establish literary magazines at the beginning of the 20th century and it can be seen as the first upsurge(Xiaowei. 2007). The second one occurred at the end of the 1980s. Themagazines established at that time imposed a huge impact on Chinese society. Different from the fork society, Chinese mainstream media didn’t pay much attention to Islam. Hence, the articles and reports on this subject were fairly rare. Besides, the few ones are almost in the same pattern. With little circulations and limited distribution scale, only partialareas can access to such magazines (Dillon, 1996). Hence, comparing to general public media, the effects of mainstream religious media are faint.

In recent years, many scholars in China started to study Islamism. Some even published several professional works.Thanks to these books, Chinese people get to know the Islamic world from different perspectives (Berlie, 2004). Some of these works made a huge contribution to the spreading of Islamism. For instance, Dr. Ding published a book to illustrate the culture and ritual of Islam, named “The Culture of Islam”. Dr. Wu wrote a paper to reveal how Islam and Christianity disseminate into China and the effects the two religions have on China’s history and people’s lives in the northwest part. Furthermore, some communities also obtained numerous achievements on the study of Islam (Dillon, 1996).One of the most exceptional communities is Islamic Culture Research Institution, a core Islamic study base of Northwest University for Nationalities. In the past five years, integrating cutting-edgestudyof the Islamic world and Chinese Muslims’ current situation, this community not only released a series of masterpiece to introduce Islamic culture, but also reported more than 120 theses on many influential articles. Many foreign mainstream media had reprinted these theses. These achievements are inseparable from its strict academic regulations and rigorous scholarship.

2.04 The Influences of Western Media on Islamism

In the era of mass communication, media gradually changed people’s initial thinking habits and communication methods. From a country’s perspective, information is more critical. In addition to economic and political power, information exhibits a country’s comprehensive strength from another aspect. Based on their advanced science technology and economic power, the US-led western developed countries monopolize information all around the world and dominant the whole communication industry. It is estimated that the information issued by western countries occupies over 80% of the world information. In this context, developed countries’ culture directsthe culture of developing countries.This phenomenon is extremely serious on Islamic issue (Hafez, 2000). The western reports on Islam impose a huge impact on Chinese media. Among the international news contacted by Chinese society, most of them come from developed countries. Chinese media acts as a transmitting tool to reprint their news. Hence, western countries’ idea, position and ideologysubtly import to developing countries, like China (Taher, 1998). From this perspective, the news reported by western countriesdetermines the knowledge and information Chinese people have.

On September 11th, 2001, the word “Islam” was appeared on the headline of all newspapers all around the world. The series of coordinated suicide attacks was caused by al-Qaeda. American’s President Bush identified this attack as terrorism war. From that time on, western media describes Islam as the synonymous of evil (Lyons, 2012). Affected by such reports, Islamism becomes an extremely dangerous religion in most Chinese people’s mind. As western media’s description, Muslims are terrorists who intrigue incidents and wars all around the world. They are the unstable factors of the world (Lyons, 2012). Humanitariansclaim that Muslims disregard human rights, especially women’s rights. They also query the crucial punishments in Islamic law (Demant, 2006). Moreover, people’s curiosity creates a good opportunity for Western media to distort Islamic countries. At the same time, as discussed in the previous sector, religion is a sensitive issue in China and there are rare Chinese newspapers talking about this religion. Western media becomes the only source. After reading these distorted reports, most Chinese people form anincomprehensive attitude to Islam.

2.05 The Influences of Chinese New Media on Islamism

It is said that the emerging of every new media will create a totally new situation, which will influence people’s idea potentially. It may seem a little exaggeration, but in fact, it reflects the current situation that Internet has posed on our society. Integrated with audio, images and so force, Internet becomes a crucial method for people to know the world. For all religions, the developing of Internet is a platform for them to spread their religious culture philosophies(Anderson, 2003). Through this platform, everyone can access to a religion’s history, spirit and stories. Currently, two kinds of media pattern are extensively used. They are Islamism websites and Islamism blogs. Of course, it is also important to notice the potential challenges and threats. It is easy to understand that when facing a new theory, people may suspect its accuracy.Similar situation occurs to all religions, but for Islamism, the queries are fiercer(Taher1998）. Muslims have to face large numbers of suspicious queries unprecedented before.

The Evolving of Islamism Websites

In China, started with some websites to spread Islamism knowledge, the initial Internet media on Islamism formed. Most of these websites are founded by Muslim organizations and scholars. Through several years’ development, a large numbers of websites arise with rich content, various patterns and other surprising characters (Anderson, 2003). The increasing speed of Islam websites is out of expected. The number of websites that can be searched is over 70. Based on their content, these websites can be categorized into different types. Through communication-based websites, Muslims can share their religious stories and make friends. For non-believers who are interested in this religion, they can obtain information and knowledge from culture-transmission-based websites. Muslim scholars can also find professional papers and articles from Islam academic website (Dillon, 1996).One of the most influential websites is “China Muslim Youth Net”. The special character of this website is its huge information. This website can be seen as a bridge which connects China to the rest of the Muslim countries in the world. It concerns and reports Islamic hot issues from a new and comprehensive view. In January 2012, invited by Iran, the net started its learning trip in this traditional Islamism country and published a serious of reports. These reports demonstrate the real appearance of this mystery country. Even being sanctioned by western countries for such a long time, Iranians still maintain their calm and unruffled attitudes (Hafez, 2000). Different from other general media, who simply integrated news and reports from mainstream websites, it also includes much first-hand information, which enables it view the international Islam world with anobjective perspective.

The Emerging of Islamism Blogs

Imams are known as renowned Muslim teachers and scholars. They are responsible for leading Islamic worship services and providing religious guidance to Muslims (Demant, 2006). Besides comprehensively understanding the Islamic philosophies, they can also utilize the principles to offer guidance Muslims. On the one hand, they need to host religious affairs and dealing with conflicts. On the other hand,they are responsible for  transmittingAllah’s orders to Muslims. For some historical reasons, instead of initiatively transmitting beliefs like other religions, most Muslims in China would like to inherit their beliefs in a relative close environment. Hence, Muslims in China form its special inheritance and propaganda method (Berlie, 2004). Muslims get together and listen to the Imam’s lectures in mosque. Based on Quran and Hadith, the contentmay include fables, Islamic historical stories, philosophy and ethics principles. Imam may use examples to illustrate its main topic and exhort Muslims to carry out their religious obligations and avoid the evil and illegal behaviors. The language Imams used in lectures is a special language, which integrates Chinese, Arabic and Persians words and expressions in Chinese formed sentences. In the past hundreds of years, this particular expression is broadly used and inherited in Muslims in China (Demant, 2006). However, in recent years, more and more people, especially teenagers, are unfamiliar with this language. The traditional propaganda method is incompatible with the new era.

In January2010, Jinbiao, a famous Imam in Qinghai Province, opened his personal blog.  Until 2012, over 210,000 people visit his blog. In addition to writing blogs, he also holds regular lectures, uploads academic thesis and invites guests to do presentations (Berlie, 2004). His behavior affects many Islam scholars. Blog becomes an effective tool for them to express their religious beliefs. The number of visits not only can be seen as an affirmation to Jinbiao’s work, but also demonstratesMuslims’ desire to communicate. This emerging of Islamism blogs mediates the obstacles exist in the traditional propaganda method. Muslim teenagers can easily learn Islamic knowledge and understand related philosophy. People who are accessible to the Internet can get Islamism information and stories at any time as they wish.

Problems and Challenges exist in the New Mediaon Islamism

As a part of the Internet, Muslim Internet media and other kinds of Internet media share certain common characters. However, the content and nature make Islamic mediaunique. Hence, it has to face some special problems and challenges.

i. Financial Issue

Currently, most websites and blogs are established by individuals or civil social organizations, so initiatorsneed to run and maintain the website themselves. However, most of them are not experts in network technology. Meanwhile,establishing websites or writing blogs is not their full-time job. Without financial and professional support, the websites cannot be maintained in time and the blogs cannot be updated regularly. These circumstanceswill definitelyaffect the impact of these websites and finally restrain the developmentof Islamism.

ii. Network Coverage Issue

As a special realm, the predominant content on Islamic websites is the information and knowledge related to this religion. This character determines that the believers in the ten minority nationalities and Islamic scholars are these websites’ main visitors. However, among the ten nationalities, except for some cities and areas, most are located in northwest China, which are less developed areas. The network coverage situation is not satisfactory. In addition, as a new media in China, Internet’s main users are teenagers and certain groups who have certain knowledge, like university teachers, students and scientific research personnel. Hence, the location, age and knowledge requirements impose restrictions on the dissemination of Islamic knowledge.

iii. Development Issue

The traits of Muslim websites in China are not outstanding. Even though the number of Muslims websites is quite large, just few of them get a high degree of concern, like China Muslim Youth net. Moreover, most of the contents on these websites are duplicated. The information source is fairly single (Demant, 2006). Therefore, it is necessary to integrate these websites and concentrate on the establishment of the distinguishedones. Another problem is that it is difficult to find original and extraordinaryworks from these websites. Nowadays, more and more scholars show interest in the culture and custom of Islam, while from their blogs or articles, it is easy to find that most of them do not comprehensively understand this religion. Actually, this is a common problem exists in Internet media. Chinese net citizens like to communicate and discuss on forums. Theirdiscussions on current issues and hotspots are fairly fierce, but most people do not have the ability to think independently and discovery the essence of these circumstances. In reality, the potential reason is net citizens’ relative low educational level.

iv. Personnel Issue

In China, Muslim websites and blogs are still in the primary development stage, so they have a big margin for improvement. Even though these websites have different content emphases, like communication-based or service-based, the characteristics of each type are not remarkable. Hence, if more and more Chinese talents join the work of spreading Islam, this religion will have a better and brighter future.

Reference

Ali, Ahmed. 1949. Muslim china. Karachi: Pakistan Institute of International Affairs.

Anderson, Jon W. 2003. New media, new publics: Reconfiguring the public sphere of islam. Social Research 70 (3): 887.

Berlie, J. A. 2004.Islam in china: Hui and uyghurs between modernization and sinicization. Bangkok: White Lotus Press.

Broomhall, Marshall. 1966. Islam in china: A neglected problem. New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corp.

Demant, Peter R. 2006. Islam vs. islamism: The dilemma of the muslim world. Westport, Conn: Praeger.

Dillon, Michael. 1996. China's muslims. Hong Kong ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Hafez, Kai. 2000. Islam and the west in the mass media: Fragmented images in a globalizing world. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Lyons, Jonathan. 2012. Islam through western eyes: From the crusades to the war on terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press.

Taher, Mohamed. 1998. Islam and the western world. 1st ed. Vol. 15. New Delhi: Anmol Publications.

Zang, Xiaowei. 2007. Ethnicity and urban life in china: A comparative study of huimuslims and hanchinese. Vol. 28;28.;. New York;London;: Routledge.

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