PRISM — Positive Representation of Islam in Stories and Media

PRISM is a 24-month CERV project that confronts anti-Muslim hatred at one of its most powerful sources: the way Muslims and Islam are portrayed in European media. Working across Spain, Italy, Ireland, Cyprus and Greece, the project brings journalists, civil society organisations and Muslim communities together as equal partners in the co-creation of ethical, accurate and inclusive narratives. PRISM equips media professionals to apply non-discrimination principles in daily practice, enables Muslim representatives to speak for their own communities with confidence, and institutionalises cross-sector cooperation through the PRISM Network in each partner country. Its findings are translated into policy recommendations for equality bodies and press councils, contributing directly to the CERV-2025-EQUAL-ANTIMUSLIM priority, the EU Anti-Racism Action Plan (2020–2025) and the EU Strategy on Combating Anti-Muslim Hatred.

The challenge

Anti-Muslim hatred remains a distinct and persistent form of discrimination in the European Union. The Fundamental Rights Agency’s Being Muslim in the EU (2024) records that almost half of Muslim respondents experienced racial discrimination in the five years preceding the survey, and just over a third in the preceding year. Media narratives are a central driver: Islam-related content spikes during breaking incidents and election cycles, allowing false claims to circulate faster than they can be verified, with documented offline consequences. Reporting standards do exist — the Council of Europe’s Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)16, national press codes and newsroom guidance in individual Member States — but they are unevenly embedded, rarely tailored to the EU context, and seldom accompanied by practical training. Fragile trust in the media in several Member States allows simplistic framing to become mainstream, while Islamophobia increasingly operates through framing, topic selection and omission rather than explicit slurs. The pattern is also gendered: Muslim women face hostility linked to visible religious identity, while Muslim men are over-exposed to securitised threat narratives. Existing interventions too often treat Muslims as a single, undifferentiated group and address neither this gendered dimension nor the very low rate at which incidents are reported.

What the project does

PRISM is built on the C³ Methodology — Co-creation, Capacity-building and Collaboration — which positions Muslim communities as active designers of the project’s tools rather than passive subjects of analysis. Through co-creation, journalists, CSOs and Muslim representatives jointly analyse media portrayals and identify recurring bias patterns, ensuring that outputs are grounded in real newsroom constraints and authentic community experience. Through capacity-building, a dual training strand equips journalists with EU and national non-discrimination law and journalistic ethics, while giving Muslim participants and CSOs the communication, media-engagement and advocacy skills to intervene in public debate on their own terms. Through collaboration, the PRISM Network establishes a standing cross-sector platform in every partner country, supported by myth-busting workshops and a continuous Positive Story Stream of co-created, fact-based narratives distributed through consortium and external journalism channels. Evidence generated in the field is consolidated into national lessons-learnt reports and a comparative European overview, then carried into advocacy events and policy dialogues with equality bodies, press councils and national authorities. A transnational awareness campaign, Words Matter, together with national multiplier events, takes the project’s messages to the wider public. All activities apply gender-sensitive facilitation, reflective practice and mixed-method monitoring that combines qualitative reflection with quantitative tracking of media output.

What the project will deliver

PRISM will produce a Training Module on Ethical and Inclusive Journalism, available in English, Spanish, Italian and Greek; a PRISM Network Operating Framework defining the structure and working methods of cross-sector cooperation; the first curated collection of the Positive Story Stream; a Lessons Learned Report; five national policy briefs co-created with journalists and Muslim representatives; a PRISM Network Sustainability Roadmap; and a Communication and Visibility Framework with a multilingual Awareness Materials and Visual Toolkit. Expected results include at least 200 participants trained across five training and five empowerment workshops; PRISM Networks operating in all partner countries with at least 50 Muslim members, 40 journalists and media professionals, and 20 civil society organisations; at least 25 co-created stories, with Muslim women featured as protagonists in at least 40% of them; approximately 125 people engaged in policy co-creation across the five countries; five national multiplier events; and a combined campaign reach of over 500,000 people. Within five years of completion, the consortium anticipates the adoption of PRISM’s ethical reporting guidance by national media associations or press councils, continued use of the training resources by journalism schools and equality bodies, and the sustained operation of the PRISM Network beyond EU funding.

The partnership

PRISM brings together seven beneficiaries and two associated partners from five countries, coordinated by the Asociación de Emisoras Municipales y Comunitarias de Andalucía de Radio y Televisión (EMA-RTV, Spain), which leads project management and the training strand. The consortium comprises Fundación Las Fuentes de Junta Islámica (Spain), Tele Radio City Società Cooperativa Sociale (Italy), Europe Islamic Association (Italy), Faith Matters Ireland Company LBG (Ireland), C.I.P. Citizens in Power (Cyprus) and Innovation Hive – Kypseli Kainotomias (Greece), with the Institute for Mass Media (Cyprus) and ON Larissa Media Group I.K.E. (Greece) as associated partners. The partnership combines community broadcasting and ethical journalism expertise, Muslim-led civil society organisations with direct community access and policy standing, internationally recognised experience in monitoring and responding to anti-Muslim hate crime, media literacy and quality assurance capacity, and social innovation and advocacy know-how — allowing the methodology to be tested and adapted across markedly different national media systems and regulatory environments.

CIP’s role

Citizens in Power leads PRISM’s Quality Assurance and Monitoring Framework, developing the methodology through which the consortium assesses progress against its indicators, and serves as the project’s Gender Equality and Diversity Officer, responsible for ensuring that every activity upholds ethical, gender-sensitive and non-discriminatory standards and for the periodic Gender Equality and Diversity Reports. Within the collaboration work package, CIP co-establishes the PRISM Network in Cyprus and trains journalists and Muslim participants in the production of counter-narratives, drawing on its field experience with Muslim and migrant communities in Nicosia and Larnaca to ensure authentic engagement and cultural sensitivity. CIP also contributes evaluation and gender-mainstreaming expertise across all work packages, building on its portfolio of EU projects on media literacy and disinformation, and commits to embedding PRISM’s results into its wider inclusion and media literacy programmes beyond the funded period.

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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.