Title: Islam in the British broadsheets: how historically-conditioned orientalist discourses inform representations of Islam as a militant monolithic entity
Abstract:From the Iranian revolution in 1979 to the London underground suicide bombings
on the 7th of July 2005, the image of Islam as a militant anti-Western faith featured
dominantly in the global mass med...From the Iranian revolution in 1979 to the London underground suicide bombings
on the 7th of July 2005, the image of Islam as a militant anti-Western faith featured
dominantly in the global mass media. This thesis examines the claim that the
Western media representation of Islam, the second largest religion in the world
with over one billion followers, is predominantly negative and demonizing. Current
debates attribute this demonizing and reductive representation to the historically
polarised relationship between Islam the West. Central to this argument is that the
Western media in general, and the press in particular, tend to report an incomplete
fragment of a rather complex situation, and represent the acts of Islamic militant
movements and groups as an archetype of Islam.
Few researchers used qualitative means to address the issue of representation of
Islam in the media. This thesis investigates the representation of Islam in three
British dailies, selected for their political different standpoints, and asks to what
extent this representation is influenced by the historically conditioned Orientalist
discourses that seek to construct and maintain hegemonic perceptions of Islam.
The thesis argues that Islam and Muslim societies are a highly diverse reality,
which is not confined only to extremism, confrontation, violence, terrorism and
antagonism towards everything Western and challenges the monolithic approach
that reinforces blanket generalisations, stereotypes and views of Islam/Muslims,
based on the common perception of Islam as rooted in the West's self-definition as
the negative `Other'.
Using discourse analysis, the research seeks to deconstruct the selected news
reports in order to highlight what was actually covered, and how news stories were
framed and knowledge of Islam was generally produced through discourse(s) and
point out that such representations are informed by specific relations of power.Read More
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Language: en
Type: dissertation
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Cited By Count: 2
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