The media coverage of the September 11 attacks and of the events following have played an important role in the affecting of the publics view about Islam, the war on terror and the Middle East. The media distorts or manipulates information that is being presented to the public. Creating a distorted view of social reality for the individual viewing. Theobald in his article ‘Mystification in the Media: from ‘Ritual Murder’ to the ‘War on Terrorism’ he offers a powerful discussion about the medias portrayal of Islam, the War on Terrorism and the illusion created by modern journalism. Theobald’s in-depth analysis of the medias treatment of Islam, the war on terror and the representation of Muslims exposes the impact of the media on the comities view. Martin and Phelan’s article ‘Representing Islam in the Wake of September 11: A Comparison of US Television and CNN Online Messageboard Discourses’ uses different techniques in their article to show the reader how two different media examples, television and a CNN messageboard present information headed by the word Islam in the immediate aftermath of September 11. Where Martin and Phelan back their arguments with statistics and hard evidence, Theobald develops his argument through in-depth and detailed analysis of important news coverage.
Both articles offer an in-depth insight into the medias representation surrounding the September 11 attacks and the war on terrorism.

John Theobald’s discusses the issues of mass communication and the medias portrayal of Islam and the Middle East after the September 11 attacks on America. Theobald believes that mass communications have failed as a transforming force in our “society and culture to oppose divisive stereotypes as part of their ethical responsibility to promote international justice and social harmony.” (Theobald, J 2006 p.p 56) Theobald also argues that “the media playing a beneficial role has tended to distract public and practitioners from underlying economic and political processes and structures that have promoted conflict… and that the dominant motives throughout have been power and profit, rather than public interest and social good.” (Theobald, J 2006, p.p 56) He goes on to explain further that nationalism and the media possess an intimate relationship “propaganda and war have been constant companions throughout the media age and the latest developments in media technology, invariably invented for military purpose in the first place, provide sophisticated channels of propagating.”(Theobald, J 2006, p.p 57) The article provides two main examples of supposedly liberal media to “link the early era of mass- circulation newspapers with the television age, suggesting that there are underlying continuities.” (Theobald, J 2006, p.p 57) The first example relates to a debate about anti-Semitism at the turn of the twentieth century, in which a Jewish man (Pisek) was accused of murdering a young girl. The anti-Semitic Deutsches Volksblatt seized on the story as an opportunity to pronounce him guilty of ritual murder. “ The controversy both distracted from the facts of the case and influenced the outcome of the trial… This confirmed the view that political and financial agendas of the media not only obstructed the channels through which the public was supposedly informed about events, but actually changed these events.” (Theobald, J 2006, p.p 60) Theobald’s second example focuses on the continual practice of discursive corruption and enemy creation by the media in support of the dominant political and commercial agendas. In particular post the September 2001 (9/11) attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre. An image has been created in the publics mind that Islam, is the public enemy. Theobald contends that the impact of the medias practices is “more disastrous than we think and the negative role played by the mass media is inherent in the prevailing economic and social- political structures and the media- driven nationalism and xenophobia is one of the most virulent of those toxins.” (Theobald, J 2006 p.p 62)
Theobald has made out a very strong case in support of his argument demonstrating ideas, research and theories in presenting his case. He provides controversial examples whereby he both presents evidence in support of his arguments and he exposes the myths and fallacies of alternative arguments in support of his own. Although Theobald does only focus on two main examples within the article he makes reference to several different journal articles, debates and viewpoints of informed professionals in support of his argument. Theobald explains his points in considerable detail discussing how each individual image that has been created can create pre conceived ideas and limit further possibility if debate. Theobald concludes his article pointing out these are just “two examples plucked from many of thousands of possible others, and will only convince as part of a larger argument” (Theobald, J 2006 p.p 66) and that this view or argument “ rests on analysis of a mountain of circumstantial evidence from which repeated patterns of misbehaviour emerge at many different times and places.” (Theobald, J 2006, p.p 66) Theoboalds recognizes that his examples are not enough, however along with the substantial amounts of evidence and other examples given provides readers with a strong and influential article.

Martin and Phelan focus on the representation of Islam on US television and CNN’s online messageboarding paying particular attention to the noun phrases for ‘Islamic’ used in both media fora from September 11- 16th 2001. They introduce the article with the view that “this rhetorical and political dilemma can perhaps be understood as the problem of ‘naming’ the September 11 attack, which bound as it is to an extreme invocation of an Islamic creed, consequently has the potential to castigate a whole culture or, at best deeply polarize ‘their’ culture’s relationship with ‘ours’. “ (Martin, P & Phelan, S 2002, p.p 263) They further go on to state that it is because of this dilemma that it was played out in two distinct media discursive contexts both through the television (4.18 million word corpus of transcripts from five US based television networks) and the messageboard created by CNN ( 2.39 million words) which allowed the public to facilitate a discussion amongst others about what they had to say. Martin and Phelan began their study whereby the ‘noun to phrases studied were all two word clusters in which ‘Islamic’ was used as an adjective’ as well as studying the way in which the word ‘Islamic’ was used by both textual samples. With previous research on terrorism they go on to demonstrate that the mass media coverage of terrorist acts has been a recurrent use of certain ethnic identities to create a cognitive model of terrorism and doing this it further creates a description of a terrorist. Further research into the studies of US television and of the US hosted CNN message board found that the “noun phrase headed by the word ‘Islamic’ in the television corpus was 468 to the 1582 in the messageboard corpus. “ (Martin, P & Phelan, S 2002, p.p 264) Martin and Phelan's strongest act of persuasion is their hard and raw use of statics, tables and graphs. With this the incorporation of previous studies as well as the use of statistics this article indicates a strong collection and display of ‘Islamic’ “with a litany of definers as unfavourable as terrorists, militant; fundamentalists; radical; jihad; struggle; and extremists.” (Martin, P & Phelan, S 2002, p.p 267- 269) The statistics are a raw, recurring and impacting use of persuasion that with the combination of a collection of other cross media examples strongly supports the argument.

‘Mystification in the media: from ‘ritual murder’ to the ‘war on terrorism’’ and ’Representing Islam in the wake of September 11: a comparison of US television and CNN online messageboard discourses’ present well written, impacting and similar debates in their article but each approach is slightly different. Both articles discuss the theory that the media has an effect on viewers environment, behaviour and attitudes. The articles expose how ones own environment may change and be influenced when an individual is continually exposed to a certain topic, discussion, view or issue on a regular basis. This is an important aspect in both Theobald and Martin and Phelan’s article as they both discuss the impacting effects of the media after the September 11 attacks in the United States. Both articles have similar findings, that those people who are subjected to a news service everyday that links Islam to terrorism or provide a negative association to certain words will create a negative feeling that particular word or issue. Theobald presents a more in-depth challenging article. His in-depth discussion of each different element presents a well-educated and thorough account of his views. Using examples such as the BBC debate and unpacking the issues of each individual topic presents a strong supportive case to the argument he presents.
Martin and Phelan's article is a short precise argument that looks at the raw facts and gets straight to the point of the argument and discussion. It was written in 2002 not long after the September 11 attacks themselves, this is an underlying strength of the article as it immediately represents the feelings and thoughts at the time. However it should also be noted that it can be seen as a weakness in the argument with information being gathered at the most hectic and inflamed point in time for not only the media but the public postings on the CNN messageboard. The information may be slightly incorrect or exaggerated as the public’s opinions were heightened and people’s views would have been affected by the daily coverage by the event and was a very intense period. With further use of tables and statistic more so than examples and explanations Martin and Phelan’s article is one for those who understand what is being discussed. The article presents a strong case that allows readers to view the statistical information for themselves. Both articles are effective in their own right however; Theobald's examples were convincing and very persuasive in the argument, and provides a strong overview from the beginning of the September 11 attacks in the year 2000 till when the article was written in 2006, covering a wide range of information and research across these dates allows Theobald to successful present his view.