The story of Ahmed Mohamed, a teenager from Texas, has made the news in the recent week after he was arrested for making and bringing in a clock to school which was subsequently mistaken for a bomb.

Across news networks and institutions, it has been suggested that Mohamed was arrested because of his racial profile - as he identifies as Muslim. Many of these news networks - particularly the tabloids - have labelled the boy simply as a “Muslim”, presumably for the element of scandal which tends to attract readership. For example, the main headline for this story by ‘CNN’, a channel owned by a ‘Time Warner’ subsidiary, read “Muslim teen Ahmed Mohamed creates clock, shows teachers, gets arrested”. As one of America’s leading news networks, CNN is distributing the stereotype that links Muslims to terrorism which will be consumed by thousands of individuals. A British tabloid, but formerly a broadsheet, newspaper ‘The Independent’ also used racial labelling in their headline “Ahmed Mohamed: 14-year-old Muslim schoolboy arrested after taking homemade clock to school”. The use of religious terms as adjectives creates the sense of scandal that tabloids are renowned for selling.

Social media has been a key component of the virality of this story, spreading fast through networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. For example, Mohamed’s sister started a Twitter account for her brother named (@IStandWithAhmed) which quickly gained a large following and the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed trended on Twitter. This support was also adopted by President of the United States who sent out a tweet reading: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”