The Factors behind the Stereotyped Image of Arab Woman in Western Media: An Arab Academic Elite Perspective

Objectives of the Study:
The study seeks to achieve the following objectives: 
-        Monitoring, analyzing and explaining the religious factors that are responsible for shaping the image of the Arab Muslim woman in the Western media.
 
-         Monitoring, analyzing and explaining the political factors that are responsible for shaping the image of the Arab Muslim woman in the Western media.
-         Monitoring, analyzing and explaining the media factors that are responsible for shaping the image of the Arab Muslim woman in the Western media.
-   Knowing the sources of shaping the image of the Arab Muslim woman in the Western media.
-   Trying to explain the significance for determining a certain image of the Arab Muslim woman and neglecting other images in the Western media.
-   Knowing the type of the media forms in which the Western media deals with the distorted image of the Arab Muslim woman.
 
Summary of Results
 -   The study showed several features of the negative image portrayed by the western media for the Arab Muslim woman. She is a woman on whom the hijab is imposed. She is also a weak woman that is subject to a religion that oppresses and suppresses her and she is a woman who is slaved by men. She does not have any legal rights and a woman who is prohibited from practicing her political rights. Therefore religion is considered as the main cause of the negative features of the image of the woman.
- The study posed several alternative perceptions for the image of the Arab Muslim woman as presented by the Western media. The perception that the woman is equal to men in everything came as the first alternative images presented by the Western media from the viewpoint of the study sample, followed by the woman liberated from the restrictions of customs: and traditions, The woman who rebelled against her husband and society, then the image of the woman who took off the hijab or she is only satisfied with a simplistic form of it and finally the woman who is financially independent.
- The study proved the religious factors are superior to both the political and media ones for the formation of the image of the Arab Muslim woman in the Western media. The elite believed that the misunderstanding about Islam for polygamy, the lack of information about the Muslim woman and its inaccuracy at times, the misunderstanding about the Islamic teachings and traditions on divorce, the poor understanding about Islam on the inheritance of woman.