The Role of Media in Influencing Public Opinion on Violence against Minorities 1 THE ROLE OF MEDIA IN INFLUENCING PUBLIC OPINION ON VIOLENCE AGAINST MINORITIES: THE CASE OF RAMU IN BANGLADESH Dr. Syeda Rozana Rashid ∗ Md. Azharul Islam ∗∗ Abstract The article examines media portrayal of violence against religious minorities in Bangladesh and the ways in which it influences public opinion. Taking the 2012 violent attack on a Buddhist community at Ramu, Cox’s bazar as a case, the article demonstrates that the press media has its own ways, time, reasons and methods of how an incident of violence would be framed and presented. As the study reveals, the media have a vast role in shaping people’s perception about violence against minorities although the effect is closely related to the dimension of violence, identity of people and the credibility of media and government concerned. Yet, driven by vested interest and specific political ideologies, the media often publish biased and subjective news. The article suggests a greater role of media in sensitising people and influencing national strategies towards maintaining communal harmony. Introduction The role of news media in the reportage of communal violence has become pervasive for some time now. With the advancement of communication technology the news media itself has come to the centre of communal violence. 1 This is true for a country like Bangladesh where the outbreak of violence against minority Buddhist religious community at Ramu in the South-eastern part of the country in October 2012 attracted considerable media attention. This attack made it the third major incident of communal violence in the year of 2012. Almost all the local and national dailies have tried to answer as to why and how such incidents have taken place while the country had been ∗ Dr. Syeda Rozana Rashid, Associate Professor, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: srr21rozana@gmail.com ∗∗ Md. Azharul Islam, Research Intern (International Affairs), Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA), Dhaka, Bangladesh. He graduated with Honours and Masters from the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka. E-mail: azhar.irdu@gmail.com 1 Gadi Wolfsfeld, “The role of the news media in conflict and peace: Towards a more general theory,” in War and crisis journalism: Empirical results- Political contexts, edited by J. Grimm and P. Vitouch, Germany: Wisbaden, 2007.