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Islamophobia in China: news coverage, stereotypes, and Chinese Muslims’ perceptions of themselves and Islam
Abstract
An analysis spanning 10 years of news reports about Muslims and Islam in Chinese state news media (N = 15,427) demonstrates that Chinese news reports project an overall negative view of Muslims. An implicit association test performed in the non-Muslim Chinese population (N = 1479) reveals negative stereotypes of Muslims. In addition, a survey of Chinese Muslims (N = 384) shows that they perceive negative coverage of Muslims and Islam in Chinese media, and that real-life discrimination might be a consequence of such negative stereotyping. This study reveals that (1) there is an overall negative framing of news coverage of Muslims and Islam; (2) non-Muslim Chinese hold a negative stereotype of Muslims and Islam; (3) Chinese Muslims are cognizant of a negative media portrayal of Islam and of themselves; and (4) some Muslim Chinese experience discrimination in their daily lives. The present study contributes to the literature on global Islamophobia, a phenomenon that is understudied in China.
... Furthermore, Islamophobia views have been amplified while Muslim voices have been marginalized as a result of the media's concentration on sensationalism and fake news (Evolvi, 2018). The idea that Muslims are inherently dangerous and unworthy of equal treatment has been furthered as a result of this (Luqiu & Yang, 2018). Ultimately, there are substantial social and political repercussions to Islamophobia's influence on the media, which In the context of Islamophobia, media theory and the construction of social reality show that the media can play an important role in shaping negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims (Saleem et al. 2016). ...
... Dauda (2021) examines the climate of distrust and anxiety fueled by Islamophobia. Evolvi (2018) and Luqiu and Yang (2018) emphasize the role of the media in reinforcing negative perceptions of Muslims. In short, these studies collectively illustrate how the media perpetuates Islamophobia through negative portrayals, biased narratives, and the marginalization of Muslim voices. ...
Islamophobia is a concept that includes various types of discrimination against Muslims and their followers.This study explores trends in previous research on Islamophobia between 2013 and 2022, focusing on factors that contribute to Islamophobia in the media and prevalent stereotypes. A systematic literature review was conducted, involving the identification, evaluation, interpretation and analysis of relevant studies. The study found that Islamophobia in the media has gained significant attention and requires further investigation to understand current trends and develop solutions. Factors associated with Islamophobia include negative portrayal, structural bias, and a lack of understanding of Islam, which contributes to anti-Muslim sentiment. The study also identified stereotypes, such as Muslims being suspected of attacks, seen as a societal threat, labeled as "other," and women wearing headscarves being stigmatized as religious fanatics. Addressing Islamophobia in the media is crucial, and recognizing these contributing factors and stereotypes can help challenge biases and promote inclusivity in society
... Studies have shown that hostility against Muslims has become widespread in multiple dimensions of Chinese social life: it ranges from a more explicit form of hate speech toward Muslims and prejudice against Islamic culture and practices (Shih, 2017), to more implicit expressions such as the opposition to new mosque construction or the criticism of alleged 'preferential treatment' of Muslim minorities (Palmer, 2019). A recent survey shows that a majority of Muslim respondents in China have experienced negative portrayal of their religion through media and have encountered some form of discrimination in their daily lives (Luqiu & Yang, 2018). The negative stereotypes of Muslims have fuelled the discrimination against Muslim minorities in both education and employment, and also provided support for the surveillance and control of Muslim minority groups in the name of anti-terrorism and national security by the authorities (Samuel, 2018). ...
... According to this theory, the rise of anti-Muslim attitudes in Chinese society is constructed by news stories that present an overwhelmingly negative image of the Muslim community to shape public opinion (Ma, 2019). Through an analysis of ten years of news reports by two major Chinese media outlets, scholars found there was an overall negative portrayal of Muslims and Islam (Luqiu & Yang, 2018). In addition to the negative portrayal of Muslims by traditional media, the authorities' failure to control the spread of hate speech in online social media platforms has further contributed to the rising hostility against Muslims. ...
In this paper, I show that narratives of historical conflicts between the Han Chinese and Muslims have been deployed to justify anti-Muslim sentiment and practices in modern and contemporary Northwest China. My study analyses Han Chinese narratives during and after the Northwest Muslim Rebellion—the largest ethnic conflict in nineteenth-century China. The historical narratives about the rebellion have been passed down inter-generationally and have been reiterated and reconstructed to fuel contemporary bias against Muslims in the twentieth century and beyond. My study contributes to the debate of Chinese Islamophobia by revealing how narratives of ethnic conflicts could help legitimize hostility against Muslims in modern-day China.
... 1 In particular, the heavy-handed crackdown on Christian house churches and Uyghur Muslim minorities has caused an outrage in the international community. While the escalating tension in Xinjiang Autonomous Region cannot be simply defined as religious persecution, there is a clear surge of Islamophobia in China as evidenced by the state-backed measures to de-Arabize and Sinicize Islam across the country (Erie 2018;Luqiu and Yang 2018;Miao 2020). These anti-religious campaigns particularly targeting Christianity and Islam, two religions that have the strongest international ties, clearly signal a turn in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) attitude toward religion, ending a nearly four-decade long period of laxity in religious control since the reform and opening up began. ...
... Despite the overall religious revival in the last three to four decades, religious literacy remains extremely low. In fact, the rise of Islamophobia in China shows that misinformation is more harmful than lack of information (Luqiu and Yang 2018;Miao 2020). Public schools offer only minimal general knowledge about religion. ...
By focusing on the Chinese state's shifting policies toward Islam and its Muslim minorities, this article considers the possibilities of implementing covenantal pluralism in contemporary China. While the current socio-political conditions in China hold little promise for the realization of covenantal pluralism, there are important social and cultural sources that may be leveraged to reorient the state policy toward a more pluralistic future. This article suggests that to put down roots in China and elsewhere, covenantal pluralism must acknowledge and address the political and economic hierarchy in the world system, which are unlikely to relinquish in the foreseeable future.
... The representation of Chinese Muslims in the media has attracted attention from researchers in journalism and communication fields but limited subsequent linguistic analysis has been undertaken. Both Luqiu and Yang (2018) and Zheng (2011) identify an overall negative framing of Chinese Muslims in the Chinese media. Terrorist framing of Uyghur rioters, conflicts, violence and economic underdevelopment in Xinjiang are commonly highlighted in Chinese state media discourse (e.g. ...
... They are treated as grateful recipients of the government's assistance to improve their living conditions, religious freedom and create a stable environment. The portrayal neither undermines their status as a community (Luqiu and Yang, 2018;Zheng, 2011) nor colours them as a victimised society (Witteborn, 2011). Beijing is portrayed as paternal to the majority of its Chinese Muslim citizens through assisting their daily lives and protecting them from the peril of terrorists, and its guardianship implies inclusiveness of Chinese Muslims and ethnic unity. ...
This article explores the media representation of Muslims using critical discourse analysis (CDA). It emphasises the discursive construction of governmental paternalism that forms the dominant ideological disposition of China Daily’s (CD) coverage. The results reveal how Chinese official English newspapers facilitate the government’s dissemination of paternalistic discourse in the news of a large population of Chinese Muslims over the period. The investigation combines topic modelling with topos analysis to identify topics and topoi and to exhibit the ideology through the corpus compiled with CD’s news about Chinese Muslims. Our findings both uncover the extent to which CD is used to promote paternalistic discourse by topic and reveal how paternalism is constructed by topoi. CD can be seen to strongly legitimise the paternalistic framework corresponding with the government’s promotion of social development and security in the region. Reciprocally, most Chinese Muslims are portrayed as obedient and dependent Chinese citizens who benefit from the government’s intervention.
... As China has a controlled and state-owned media, so only central level media like Xinhua News Agency, CCTV permitted to cover international news. So due to controlled media the Muslims representation in news media is the one and the only source for the citizens of China to get an understanding about Muslims and Islam (Luqiu & Yang, 2018). Chinese government has been deeply involved in foreign affairs, related to Muslim world, such as Syrian War and an active strategic and economic partner of Pakistan, just because to be seen as a responsible world's leader. ...
In this study, researcher has analyzed one year news stories of elite English newspapers The New York Times and The Guardian and found N=172 stories related to the conditions of Chinese Muslims and Islam in China by using different framing categories which are Anti-terrorism, Extremism, Conflict, Crime, Culture and Religion, International Efforts and Dehumanizing Act. N=63 are from The Guardian Newspaper and N=109 are from The New York Times that shows the western media has given the favorable N=109 stories to the Chinese Muslims and Islam in China. The framing theory has been adopted as a theoretical framework in this study. This content analysis of selected western newspapers, the results of framing themes represented that the western media have at least focused on the Chinese Muslims. The coding frame of international efforts showed that US is showing more concerns about the rights of Muslims in China. Key Words: China, Islam, Muslims, Uyghur Muslims, Xinjiang, Islamophobia
... As put by Joye (2009: 45), "mediated representations of international crises reflect and consolidate the power relations and divisions that characterise our contemporary world." Luqiu and Yang (2018) also note that Chinese news media are "overly reliant on Western news agencies," which influences the choice of topics and framing. Second, coverage of immigration issues in the US and Europe serves propaganda purposes of the CCP and helps support the strategic narrative about its identity. ...
This article addresses a research gap in the studies of international migration discourse in China's mass media. The focus on the Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party-owned commercialised newspaper famous for its nationalist discourse, elucidates how news about this global issue is used to construct China's identity narrative. The empirical part includes the analysis of the data spanning a decade (2012–2022) collected from the Global Times. It is studied with the help of computational text analysis tools, including topic modelling that is used to identify frames in the coverage of international migration. The analysis reveals that the Global Times devotes disproportionate attention to migration-related political, security, and socio-economic problems in the West, reproducing elements of the mainstream discourse in the Western media. Such overrepresentation, coupled with the selective coverage of China's own experience with international migration is used to emphasise the weaknesses of the Other in contrast to the stable Self.
... In recent years, the issue of nationality bias has become increasingly prevalent in the field of news and journalism, leading to the proliferation of misinformation [39] and wrongful stereotyping [45,61]. Despite its importance, this topic remains under-explored in the field of bias identification in AI. ...
We investigate the potential for nationality biases in natural language processing (NLP) models using human evaluation methods. Biased NLP models can perpetuate stereotypes and lead to algorith-mic discrimination, posing a significant challenge to the fairness and justice of AI systems. Our study employs a two-step mixed-methods approach that includes both quantitative and qualitative analysis to identify and understand the impact of nationality bias in a text generation model. Through our human-centered quantitative analysis, we measure the extent of nationality bias in articles generated by AI sources. We then conduct open-ended interviews with participants, performing qualitative coding and thematic analysis to understand the implications of these biases on human readers. Our findings reveal that biased NLP models tend to replicate and amplify existing societal biases, which can translate to harm if used in a sociotechnical setting. The qualitative analysis from our interviews offers insights into the experience readers have when encountering such articles, highlighting the potential to shift a reader's perception of a country. These findings emphasize the critical role of public perception in shaping AI's impact on society and the need to correct biases in AI systems.
... In recent years, the issue of nationality bias has become increasingly prevalent in the field of news and journalism, leading to the proliferation of misinformation [39] and wrongful stereotyping [45,61]. Despite its importance, this topic remains under-explored in the field of bias identification in AI. ...
We investigate the potential for nationality biases in natural language processing (NLP) models using human evaluation methods. Biased NLP models can perpetuate stereotypes and lead to algorithmic discrimination, posing a significant challenge to the fairness and justice of AI systems. Our study employs a two-step mixed-methods approach that includes both quantitative and qualitative analysis to identify and understand the impact of nationality bias in a text generation model. Through our human-centered quantitative analysis, we measure the extent of nationality bias in articles generated by AI sources. We then conduct open-ended interviews with participants, performing qualitative coding and thematic analysis to understand the implications of these biases on human readers. Our findings reveal that biased NLP models tend to replicate and amplify existing societal biases, which can translate to harm if used in a sociotechnical setting. The qualitative analysis from our interviews offers insights into the experience readers have when encountering such articles, highlighting the potential to shift a reader's perception of a country. These findings emphasize the critical role of public perception in shaping AI's impact on society and the need to correct biases in AI systems.
... In their study of Italian and Spanish media, Cervi et al. (2021) found negative framing of Muslims and Islam associating them with immigration and terrorism. Similarly, tracking the media reports about Islam and Muslims in Chinese Media, Luqiu and Yang (2018) found an overall negative projection of Muslims and also reported a negative perception of Islam among non-Muslim Chinese population. ...
... Research also documents the presence of employment-related discrimination in terms of call back rates (Adida et al., 2010;Valfort, 2020), job status (Ghumman & Jackson, 2008), job suitability (Doris et al., 2009) the presence or demonstration of religious affiliation (Padela et al., 2016;Valfort, 2020), the presence of negative candidate information (Park et al., 2009), attire (Unkelbach et al., 2010), attire in less diverse organizations , and the absence of stereotypeinconsistent information (King & Ahmad, 2010). Research also shows that bias towards Muslims is not limited to North American evaluators (Di Stasio et al., 2021;Grigoryan, 2020;Strabac & Listhaug, 2008) and that bias exists in some media (Luqiu & Yang, 2018). ...
Most employment discrimination research has focused on race and gender. The relatively fewer papers dealing with religion suggests that discrimination exists. We extend the literature by examining the effects of job type (public safety/non-public safety), religion (Muslim/non-Muslim) and Muslim gender on selection decisions. Participants ranked applicants and made judgments on trust and whether to interview applicants after evaluating seven resumes for either a shipping clerk or a security guard position. Participants rated Muslim applicants lower than non-Muslim applicants for the security guard position. We found no evidence of discrimination in the shipping clerk position. Perceived trust may be a possible explanation for some of the decisions people made. We also found that the Muslim female candidate was rated higher than the Muslim male candidate for the security guard position; no gender differences existed for the shipping clerk position. Our findings are consistent with the gender discrimination literature in that job type affected the extent to which religious-based discrimination occurred and the intersectionality literature/models specifying that combinations of demographics can impact judgments. One implication is the need to incorporate religion in discrimination interventions.
... At most, Chinese people acknowledge their racial ignorance but insist on their racial innocence (Cheng 2019). There is a growing body of literature that reveals severe anti-Blackness (Bodomo 2012;Haugen 2012;Mathews 2017) and Islamophobia among many Chinese people (Luqiu and Yang 2018;Yi 2010). To be specific, with the increasing presence of African international students pursuing higher education in China, close contact does not facilitate cross-racial understanding but leads to greater Chinese xenophobia towards Black Africans, who are said to enjoy 'supra-citizen preferential treatment' (超国民待遇 chao guomin daiyu) due to China's state policies (Lan 2017, 57). ...
This article examines how Chinese international students develop a complex understanding of race and racism from a transnational perspective. Through semi-structured interviews and follow-up exchanges with 21 Chinese international undergraduates at a US public research university, the article argues that students’ racial learning was jointly shaped by their upbringing in mainland China and by racial encounters in the US. The findings reveal that Chinese students held contrastive views on race and racism before and after their arrival, due to the disjuncture between ideological impact in the home country and experiential exploration in the host country. Specifically, Chinese students’ lived experiences in the US dramatically shifted their conceptualization of race from a nationality-based identity to the phenotype-based imposed category of ‘Asian’. They also revised their understanding of racist practices from mostly violent and explicit to mostly subtle and implicit. This study contributes to the broader literature on transnational racialization.
... Other important aspects of the topic are also missed in much of the literature, such as data from the often state-controlled media. Limited literature does explore the predominantly extremely negative media portrayal of Islam that focuses on conflict, terrorism, and constructing a "victims and villains narrative" 28,29 This narrative constructs those brought up as and socialised into being Muslims as innocent victims that can be "'saved' through Sinicization" 30 , whereas those who actively choose Islam, for example through conversion, are constructed as villains and traitors. The omission of media data is particularly important given the CCP's extensive control of the media. ...
This research comparatively analyses the cultural roots of Islamophobic policy in China and France using an interdisciplinary, literature-based approach. In China, Han sentiments of cultural superiority interact with the deep influence of Confucianism on Han culture; a history of ethnic conflict particularly between the Uyghurs and Han Chinese; and historical scars from the century of humiliation. This results in a hatred particularly of non-Sinicized Islam, which manifests in the persecution of the Muslim-majority Uyghur cultural group. In France, colonial arrogance interacts with an increase in immigration and consequent diversity after World War II resulting in a shift in laicité’s focus towards minimising visible diversity. This centres on reducing the expression of Islam in public spaces and particularly focuses on Muslim women. In both contexts, then, cultural arrogance interacts with ethnic tensions to result in the perception that Islam that has not been homogenised is incompatible with the dominant culture.
... In the last decade or so, the government narratives around terrorism have been framing 'China's identity as being under threat from Turkic enemies within, who are supported by Islamic terrorists and Western "enemies of China" from outside' (Tobin, 2019, p. 301). As such, the sole state media has intentionally and consistently reinforced the imagined connection between Islam and terrorism in the context of the Uyghur homeland (Harris, 2013;Lams, 2013;Luqiu and Yang, 2018). ...
... However, despite the fact that there are plenty of studies that contribute to the literature on the global perception of Muslims, such topics are understudied in China. In China specifically, researchers of other studies have found that there is an overall negative framing of news coverage of Muslims and Islam, and non-Muslim Chinese hold a negative stereotype of Muslims and Islam [1] . Thus, the goal of this study is trying to find out specifically what are the young Chinese students' expressed attitudes toward Muslims and Islam in China. ...
... Previous research has focused on whether social media serves primarily as a "safe haven" for groups and individuals to create and propagate counter-narratives to mainstream society's hegemonic norms and ideas (Dillette, Benjamin, & Carpenter, 2019;Mauro, 2020). There is also intense discussion of the role of media as an "online amplifier" for hate speech (Bilewicz & Soral, 2020;Luqiu & Yang, 2018;Ozalp, Williams, Burnap, Liu, & Mostafa, 2020). Nevertheless, most of the studies have been focused on hypothesis rather than broad-scale empirical work, and hence greater attention is required to address this evolving relationship in the context of Malaysia. ...
Free speech is not a license for racists to spread propaganda. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 and its subsequent spread across the globe has left a shocking wave of disbelief resulting in an upsurge of xenophobia in the society. Racism is a system of dominance and power designed to uphold the racially privileged. This study delves into the consciousness of Twitter postings during the COVID-19 pandemic and deconstructs the power dynamics in the hashtags used. The study’s data was analysed using Twitter Application Programming Interface (API) to identify the representation within tweet sample sets. The study concludes that social interactions on Twitter constructs power dynamics and these shared values create a new form of power resistance and subjugated knowledge. This leads to a discussion of power between social media intertwined with the machine learning tools in social science and humanities studies. This study contributes to the academic debates about the public sphere and social media's role in constructing meaning in cultural and social change. It also suggests that Twitter develops policies to prohibit hate speech and impose regulations to ensure that online spaces remain civil, safe, and democratic.
... Velasco (2020) argue the significance of media, either conventional or modern platforms with a global audience over the internet/social media, in shaping cultures around the world, and particularly shaping views on Muslim communities. Critical portrayals of Muslims is not only an issue in USA/European media, but also in China, where Muslims are persecuted and Islamophobia is hosted on social media platforms (Luqiu & Yang, 2018;Raza, 2019;Luqiu & Yang, 2019); Chinese state media (either print or electronic media) portrays Muslims as the route cause of the Islamophobic sentiments in Chinese. The situation in the South Asian region is not different from the rest of the world, especially in the Indian media (Mukherjee, 2020;Sanjeev Kumar, 2016;Ireton & Posetti, 2018;I. ...
Islamophobia is a sentiment against the Muslim community; recently, atrocities towards Muslim communities witnessed this sentiment globally. This research investigates the correlation between how news stories covered by mainstream
news channels impede the hate speech/Islamophobic sentiment. To examine the objective mentioned above, we shortlisted thirteen mainstream news channels and the ten most widely reported Islamophobic incidents across the globe for experimentation. Transcripts of the news stories are scraped along with their comments, likes, dislikes, and recommended videos as the users’ responses. We used a word embedding technique for sentiment analysis, e.g., Islamophobic or not, three textual variables, video titles, video transcripts, and comments. This sentiment analysis helped to compute metric variables. The I-score represents the extent of portrayals of Muslims in a particular news story. The next step is to calculate the canonical correlation between video transcripts and their respective responses, explaining the relationship between news portrayal and hate speech. This study provides empirical evidence of how news stories can promote Islamophobic sentiments and eventually atrocities towards Muslim communities. It also provides the implicit impact of reporting news stories that may impact hate speech and crime against specific communities.
... Muslim women were also depicted in accordance with the Islamophobic stereotyping by Swedish media (Jakku, 2018). Even though China is not a Christian society, an analysis of the news reports about Muslims and Islam in Chinese state news media demonstrates an overall negative portrayal of Muslims (Luqiu and Yang, 2018). Recently, a rise of Islamophobic narratives was also witnessed in Chinese cyberspace (Miao, 2020). ...
... This legacy of the negative construction towards Muslims continues to the present day. 8 The study on Islamophobia has been widely studied by scholars from various perspectives including from historical perspective that can be seen from the work by Lutfi Sunar (2017) who studied the histoy of Islamophobia in the Western world and specifically in the United State; Other works focused to study Islamophobia in the in certain places or countries such as the study of Islamophobi in China by Luqiu and Yang (2018); 9 and Islamophobia in the United States under Trump regime by Lajevardi and Oskooii (2018). 10 The work that focused on Islamic group in the US done by Zaiddinnov, (2021), who compared the response of CAIR (The Council on American-Islamic Relations) the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) to counter the terrorist stereotype in the US Public, media and politicians. ...
The number of Muslims in the United States is increasing from year to year as a result of the increasing number of immigrants from Muslim countries who come to work and continue their education as well as the increasing number of Muslims. One of the problems faced by the Muslim community in America today is Islamophobia such as bad narratives, discrimination, and violence against Muslims and their property. This study will examine the role of the Muslim community in America in dealing with the phenomenon of Islamophobia by explaining its strategy through the concept of Non-Governmental Organizations. The data used in this study is literature collected online from websites of Islamic groups in the United States. The results of this study showed that Islamic groups have taken many ways to deal with Islamophobia in this country, namely through political and legal advocacy, media relations, education, and campaigns to garner support and introduce Islam in American society.
... Muslim women were also depicted in accordance with the Islamophobic stereotyping by Swedish media (Jakku, 2018). Even though China is not a Christian society, an analysis of the news reports about Muslims and Islam in Chinese state news media demonstrates an overall negative portrayal of Muslims (Luqiu and Yang, 2018). Recently, a rise of Islamophobic narratives was also witnessed in Chinese cyberspace (Miao, 2020). ...
This study explores the country-specific, regional and cultural differences and similarities between China and two European countries in their coverage of the European refugee issue and seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the various political interests, social values, and journalism cultures in the countries under study. It analyzed and compared 2,368 news articles in Belgian, Swedish, and Chinese newspapers from 2015 to 2017. The analysis demonstrated that Chinese newspapers put less emphasis on welcoming the refugees by politicians and citizens, but are more prone to report on Islamic religion in their coverage of the refugees than the Belgian and Swedish newspapers. The empirical evidence suggests that the differences in reporting are not only a representation of different political interests and social engagement of the three countries, but, to a large extent, a result of different journalism cultures across nations.
... What we know about cultures is influenced by past social interactions, whether direct or indirect. Stereotypes represent the cognition or beliefs about a social group; these can either be positive or negative perceptions about a group [10][11]. ...
Background: There is a cultural shift happening in which social media has overtaken television as the main source of information, as surveyed of 18-to 24-year-olds. Today, 7 in 10 Americans use social media, an increase of 60% usage since 2005. With the increased usage in social media, it is important to examine the impact it has on society. Objective: This study aims to explore the relationship between social media and cross-cultural world-mindedness. The authors wanted to investigate the degree to which cultural perception was impacted by social media use by addressing social cognitive theory and media systems dependency theory. Specifically, the investigators wanted to assess if the type and amount of social media, or media dependence, influenced cultural world-mindedness. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis examined social media use and dependence, perception of environmental protection, tolerance of diversity, world citizenship, and resource sharing. Results: Results indicated there was a weak, negative relationship between environmental protection and social media use and dependence; a weak, positive relationship between world citizenship and social media use and dependence; and a weak, positive relationship between resource sharing and social media factors. To examine political affiliation differences in world-mindedness, a one-way ANOVA was conducted. Results indicated that overall, group differences were present, F(4, 1183) = 98.40, p <.001, η 2 =.25. Based on the effect size (η 2), it was apparent that a large effect was present. Post hoc testing using Bonferroni comparisons indicated that republicans were significantly lower in world-mindedness than all other groups, p <.001. Conclusion: The strongest predictor of world-mindedness was political affiliation, with weaker relationships found between social media frequency and environmental protection, world citizenship, and resource sharing. The frequency of social media may be less important than the selection of media messages.
... Past studies argue that religious discrimination against minority groups shapes their identities and how they interact with the majority groups (Akbaba and Fox 2011). Similarly, media is one of the major sources of information, and interaction with media content plays an important role in ethnic/religious identity (Luqiu and Yang 2018). Therefore, it is important to understand how Christian minority workers, in particular sanitary workers in Pakistan, present their issues in the media and whether the media highlights their concerns. ...
Sanitary workers are globally marginalized both in media and society. Such discrimination is often amplified when such essential workers belong to a religious minority in Muslim majority societies such as Pakistan. Drawing from the frameworks of social representation and social identity theories, this study uses the qualitative method of in-depth interviews with 30 Christian sanitary workers to shed light on the perception of representation of Christian sanitary workers in Pakistan's mainstream media. Upon analyzing the data, three distinct themes emerge: (a) a lack of mainstream media representation, (b) excessive negative media representation, and (c) cognizance of the effects such representation yields. This investigation revealed that sanitary workers believe that they do not have any representation in Pakistan's mainstream media to voice their issues. Moreover, they have serious reservations about their polemic social representation and voice concerns regarding the media that often amplify such depictions. Despite being less educated, the respondents in the study appear to understand the influence of media in a democratic and multicultural society. Therefore, they expect traditional media to highlight their genuine issues (i.e., joblessness, health-related problems, and fair treatment in society), all of which, in their view, can make their life a lot easier.
... It should be uncontroversial to state that Islamophobia is global in the sense that anti-Muslim beliefs, tropes, narratives and symbols spread and motivate action in a wide variety of cultural settings, such as the USA and Western Europe (Green 2019;Zempi and Awan 2019), in Eastern Europe (Kalmar 2018), China (Luqiu and Yang 2018), Sri Lanka and Myanmar (Frydenlund 2019), India (Spodek 2010) and Thailand (Jerryson 2011), just to mention a few. ...
A widespread assumption in research on prejudice and hate crime is that Islamophobia and antisemitism are analogous phenomena: both travel easily across national and cultural boundaries and adapt to new contexts. This article argues that this assumption is incorrect. Islamophobia works well in very different cultural contexts and shows highly diverse localized expressions. Antisemitism is linked to Christian theology even when expressed in Muslim societies and is not global to nearly the same extent as Islamophobia. The key question is this: how can we understand the cultural conditions for the globalization of antisemitism and Islamophobia? To answer this the article looks briefly at Islamophobia and anti-semitism in Chinese and Hindu civilizations and then moves on to introduce the theory of cultural models. Islamophobia is a family of more or less similar cultural models belonging to a range of different cultures across time and space. This is the general answer to the question of why Islamophobia is an intensely globalizing prejudice. Islamophobia should be conceptualized as a number of overlapping cultural models found in various societies. Today, local varieties of Islamophobia seem to come into closer contact, to converge and sometimes to exchange elements as a result of intensifying transnational and global communication.
... Despite not being a Western country, the case of China's media treatment of 'national Islam' and 'foreign Islam' is especially illustrative (Luqiu and Young, 2018). This research concludes that international press agencies of the West (i. ...
The aim of this article is to analyze how the Spanish newspapers covered an international event such as the Egyptian spring from 2011 to 2013. From the perspective of the representation of Arab-Islamic issues, this study carries out a quantitative content analysis on the four reference newspapers in Spain (ABC, El Mundo, El País, and La Vanguardia) to find out whether there was an Islamophobic or Islamophilic treatment during the Egyptian revolution. The results of the 3,045 articles analyzed show that Spanish newspapers were remarkably interested in Egyptian events and that cultural discourses were not relevant in the coverage. However, it is necessary to specify these outcomes by newspaper, because each paper proposed its own take on the matter based on information provided by press agencies.
This study aims to find out the representation of the Taliban 2.0 in international media. The crux of this document argues that the international media has used propaganda techniques while reporting about the Taliban 2.0. Framing theory by Erwin Goffman is induced in this research. To find out the result the international media is divided into the model of Siebert that explained in his book of four theories of press media libertarian, authoritarian, social responsibility, and communist theory practiced in the world. The US, India, the UK, and Russia are selected for the sake of this research. The New York Times, Times of India, and The Times newspapers have been used respectively from the above-stated countries. A quantitative method approach comprising content analysis is used to examine the content of the selected newspapers. The findings reveal that NYT has used 58% propaganda techniques in their news stories while the TOI and The Times have used 56% in their news stories.
Keywords: Representation of Taliban 2.0, International Press Media, Framing Theory, Propaganda Techniques, and Content Analysis.
This chapter examines the nature of gendered Islamophobia in India in relation to the spread of Hindutva under the BJP government. In particular, the chapter focuses on the institutionalization of Islamophobia through examples of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, the Abrogation of Article 370, the Karnataka ban on the hijab in educational institution, the “love jihad” conspiracy, especially in relation to the implementation of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance 2020, and the creation of the “Sulli Deals” and “Bulli Bai” platforms. These examples are analyzed through Alimahomed-Wilson’s “matrix of gendered Islamophobia” as located within the context of India, informed by the history of British colonialism, and the tensions between the Hindu-Muslim communities in India, the independence struggle, and the eventual partition of the Indian sub-continent. The chapter shows how Islamophobia, and in practice, gendered Islamophobia, is a process of othering where the ultimate goal is the erasure of the Muslim identity in Hindutva India.
z İslamofobi, son zamanlarda akademik çalışmalarda sıkça ele alınan bir konu olarak görünürlük kazanmıştır. Bu çalışmalar arasında ise medya ve İslamofobi ilişkiselliğini ele alan araştırmaların yoğunluğu dikkat çekmektedir. Çalışma kapsamında İletişim, Sosyoloji, Felsefe, İlahiyat alanlarında medya ve İslamofobi ilişkisini ele alan çalışmalar değerlendirilmiştir. Bu kapsamda, perspektif sunması açısından, öncelikli olarak uluslararası literatürde konu ile ilgili yer alan akademik metinlerin genel bir çerçevesi çizilmiş ve çalışmalarda karşılaşılan problemler yorumlanmıştır. Bu sonuçlarla birlikte; Türkiye'de geleneksel medya ve İslamofobi, sinema ve İslamofobi, sosyal medya/dijital oyunlar ve İslamofobi meselelerini ele alan tez, makale ve kitapların analizi yapılmıştır. Betimsel araştırma yönteminin kullanıldığı çalışmanın sonucunda, genel olarak medya ve İslamofobi ilişkisine odaklanan araştırmaların Türkiye'de oldukça geç başladığı ve konunun uluslararası literatüre göre yeterli düzeyde olmadığı belirlenmiştir. Ayrıca uluslararası literatürdeki ve Türkiye'deki medya ve İslamofobi çalışmalarının değerlendirilmesi sonucunda, bu çalışmaların felsefi yaklaşım problemi, tarihsel perspektif yoksunluğu ve kavramsallaştırma sorunu gibi birtakım problemler ihtiva ettiği ortaya çıkmıştır. Abstract Islamophobia has recently gained visibility as a subject that has been frequently addressed in academic studies. Among these studies, the intensity of research on the relationship between media and Islamophobia is remarkable. Within the scope of the study, studies dealing with the relationship between media and Islamophobia in the fields of Communication, Sociology, Philosophy, and Theology were evaluated. In this context, in order to present perspective, firstly, a general framework of the academic texts in the international literature has been drawn and the problems encountered in the studies have been interpreted. With these results; thesis, articles, and books about the issues of traditional media and Islamophobia in Turkey, cinema and Islamophobia, social media / digital games and Islamophobia are analyzed. As a result of the study using descriptive research method, the researches focusing on the relationship between media and Islamophobia in general rather started late in Turkey and that the subject has been determined as inadequate relative to the international literature. Also as a result of the evaluation of the literature and studies in the international media and Islamophobia in Turkey, it was revealed that these studies had a number of problems such as philosophical problem, lack of historical perspective and conceptualization problem.
本文讨论了中华人民共和国汉族特权的概念基础和表现。该文表明，汉族特权已从特定的公共政策和治理哲学中得到凸显。这一点在包括劳动力市场和媒体在内的一系列场景下都得到了适当的体现，并涉及到国家机构以及汉族与少数民族之间微观层面的日常互动。最后，文章从理论上解释了为什么坚定的汉族特权话语没有出现，而且在很大程度上仍然是一个未被承认的概念。
In diesem Artikel werden die begrifflichen Grundlagen und die Wirkung der Sonderrechte der Han-Chinesen in der Volksrepublik China erörtert. Es wird behauptet, dass das Privileg der Han-Chinesen durch spezifische öffentliche Maßnahmen und Regierungsphilosophien an Bedeutung gewonnen hat. Dies lässt sich an einer Reihe von Schauplätzen beobachten, darunter der Arbeitsmarkt und die Medien, die staatlichen Institutionen und die alltäglichen Interaktionen auf Mikroebene zwischen den Han-Chinesen und den ethnischen Minderheiten. Abschließend wird in dem Artikel eine Theorie aufgestellt, warum sich kein solider Diskurs über die Privilegien der Han-Chinesen herausgebildet hat und eine weitgehend unerkannte Idee bleibt.
Australia has witnessed a substantial degree of online and offline racism toward Asian and Muslim communities during COVID-19; much of which has been shared and amplified on Twitter. But while a growing body of national and international literature has reported on the spread and form of digital racism during significant crisis events, limited scholarly attention has been paid to how these narratives are resisted in online spaces. In this paper, I present the findings of research deploying Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis to examine constructions of Muslim and Asian communities on Twitter during Australia's COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020-2021. Drawing on the literature surrounding Networked Counterpublics-and analysed through a Systemic Racism lens-my findings illuminate how publics have used Twitter as a space to both legitimize and contest racist narratives during the pandemic, further demonstrating the power of social media as a vehicle for the amplification and resistance of racialized scapegoating in the face of an ongoing global health crisis.
Dubai is a metropolitan city that attracts many foreigners due to its growing economy and tourism. When many non-Muslims observe the Islamic culture and lifestyle, they become interested in learning more about the faith. This research focuses on non-Muslims and new Muslims in Dubai and how information about Islam is disseminated to them. It also examines the challenges they encounter when searching for information. Though the researcher employed a mixed-methods approach, this study highlights the quantitative analysis. A total of 541 survey responses were collected from expatriates residing in Dubai, UAE; their demographic profile was analysed, especially in relation to their media use. The research discovered that respondents had limited access to Islamic information and received minimal clarity on Islamic faith. The results also indicated their preferred choice of medium and sources, hence a media model was created covering radio with digital media to broadcast information for specific residents who were interested to learn about Islamic faith.
Adopting the Critical Discourse Analysis perspective, this study investigates the ideology reflected by the anti-Islam and anti-Muslim discourse in China, the power dynamics revealed by such discourse and how social media discourse differs from and utilises the government discourse. Four ways to disguise the anti-Muslims, anti-Islam prejudice are investigated: appealing to patriotism to demand cultural assimilation; claiming to defend secularism; framing Islam as incompatible with mainstream culture; appealing to consumer rights to reject halal food. Non-Muslims and assimilated Muslims (especially the elites) are found to have the prerogative to dictate who belong to the ingroup, what dietary restrictions are legitimate and whom to blame when undesirable situations arise, while Muslim non-elites are at the receiving end of such dictates. This study also argues that social media discourse expresses antagonism of higher intensity than the government discourse does, and may misappropriate the official narratives to express the interlocutor’s hatred towards Muslims.
Bu çalışmada çevrim içi nefretin en çok görüldüğü alanların başında gelen İslamofobik nefret söyleminin, uzun bir süredir dijital dünyadaki mizahı domine etmekte olan, Türkiye’de yaygın adıyla ‘caps’ olarak kullanılan ‘internet mem’leri aracılığıyla hangi türlerde gerçekleştiği ve Müslümanların, İslamofobik memlerdeki temsili ele alınmıştır. Nitel bir araştırma yöntemi olan tematik analiz yöntemiyle İslamofobik memler, tema ve alt temalara ayırılmış ve memler üzerinden İslamofobik nefret söyleminin çevrim içi mecradaki temsilinin doğası keşfedilmeye çalışılmıştır. İslamofobik içeriklerden oluşturulan veri setinden elde edilen çıktılara göre öncelikle ofansif metin ve zararsız görsel içeren memler, zararsız metin ve ofansif görsel içeren memler ve hem ofansif metin hem de ofansif görsel içeren memler olmak üzere içeriklerin bir kategorisi oluşturulmuş ve veri setindeki memlerin kodlanmasının ardından ortaya ‘Şiddet’, Cinsiyetçilik’, ‘Tek Tipleştirme’ ve ’İnsan dışılaştırma’dan oluşan ana temalar çıkartılmıştır. Medya ve aşırı sağ tarafından ‘Terör’ ve ‘Şiddet’ üzerinden Müslümanlara kalıp yargılar biçilmesi yeni bir olgu değildir. Ancak ofansif ve kara mizah ögeleri barındıran memlerin, Müslümanları insan dışılaştıran yaklaşımları İslamofobinin boyutunun herhangi bir nefret dolu davranışı engelleme mekanizmasının olmadığı bir ortamda nerelere varabileceğini göstermektedir.
The films Citizen Kane and Forrest Gump are employed to show the impact of framing a story on knowledge formation. It advances from Saussure to argue the intervention of the political in explaining the varying of meanings. The chapter presents a genealogy of Critical Muslim studies. It outlines how Critical Muslim Studies diverges from Islamic Critical Theory, Critical Muslim Theory and Critical Muslim of Ziauddin Sardar. The benefits outlined of applying Critical Muslim Studies. A new term, scotoma, is introduced to account for the lack of the colonised narrative in Eurocentrism. The employment of ‘problematisation’ is promoted as applied by Foucault.
With the persistence of Islamophobia, it considers counter-Islamophobia strategies adopt anti-racist approaches but to go beyond calling for tolerance, respect and equality. It asses the value of education, legal definition, apology, civil rights movement, multiculturalism and other approaches in countering discrimination. It calls upon anti-Islamophobia activists to counter Britishness that resists Muslimness being part of its symbol. A decolonial counter-Islamophobia approach challenging the postcolonial symbolic representation of racist Britishness is outlined. This demands the deflection of differences between cultures to unculture, the national symbolic myth. The counter-Islamophobia strategy advances a project for liberating the reformulation of imperial Britishness that promotes a post-racist rather than a post-race society.
Islamophobia has gained common currency but raises intense debate about its relevance in describing discrimination against Muslims. The chapter interrogates the discussion around the term Islamophobia. The need for a definition of Islamophobia and how to formulate a definition. Three other themes common in the study of the Islamophobia paradigm are also discussed: Has the Muslim-British always been antagonistic? Is Islamophobia a reserve of the far-right? How to account for the global nature of Islamophobia.
The multidisciplinary anthology Religious Fundamentalism in the Age of Pandemic provides deep insights concerning the current impact of Covid-19 on various religious groups and believers around the world. Based on contributions of well-known scholars in the field of Religious Fundamentalism, the contributors offer about a window into the origins of religious fundamentalism and the development of these movements as well as the creation of the category itself. Further recommendations regarding specific (fundamentalist) religious groups and actors and their possible development within Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism round up the discussion about the rise of Religious Fundamentalism in the Age of Pandemic.
The multidisciplinary anthology Religious Fundamentalism in the Age of Pandemic provides deep insights concerning the current impact of Covid-19 on various religious groups and believers around the world. Based on contributions of well-known scholars in the field of Religious Fundamentalism, the contributors offer about a window into the origins of religious fundamentalism and the development of these movements as well as the creation of the category itself. Further recommendations regarding specific (fundamentalist) religious groups and actors and their possible development within Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism round up the discussion about the rise of Religious Fundamentalism in the Age of Pandemic.
This article outlines the ways in which Islamophobia, as a growing transnational phenomenon, embraces and engenders structural violence against Muslims in the context of China. How have expressions of anti-Muslim racism become part and parcel of anti-terror strategies in the context of the Global War on Terror (GWOT)? And in what ways has Islamophobia been increasingly embedded within the context of the everyday, especially with regards to exclusionary policies? This paper examines this contemporary issue with attention to historical processes, while remaining cognizant of broader global trends of increasingly accepted religious persecution and racism. In a post-9/11 hyper-securitized world, the Uyghurs' religious Muslim identity became the target of the government's campaign against terrorism. With anti-terror policies so loosely defined, Islam—often synonymous with terrorism and difference—and those who visibly practice it became convenient marks of increased surveillance, suppression, detention, and even torture/death, all officially under the guise of the elusive war on terror and for the purpose of state security. In China, Islamophobia has effectively been state-sanctioned, legislated, and securitized.
Since 2014, observers of Chinese society have noted an upsurge in Islamophobic sentiment among China’s ethnic majority Han. China’s Muslims, in particular those who identify as Hui and Uyghur, report an increase in harassment, both online and in person. This Islamophobic backlash occurs in conjunction with retrenchments by the Chinese state on the right to practice religion. What gives rise to this increase in bigotry? This pilot study examines official discourse about Islam through an inductive analysis of the presentation of Muslims in China’s state media. Using a process of constant comparative analysis, I examine the state media’s portrayal of Muslims in the flagship newspaper, The People’s Daily. Drawing from a sample of 70 articles published between 2014 and 2018, I argue that the party’s depiction of Muslim minorities in China emphasizes ethnic rather than religious identities, while coverage of global Islam emphasizes Islam as dangerous and associated with extremism. I contend that such depictions carry the unintended consequence of arousing suspicions about China’s Muslims among Han.
In Southeast Asia, religion harassment in the form of Islamophobia has seen a sharp increase in recent times. This increase in religious harassment is influenced not by one factor but by many related factors. The multidimensional social crisis that occurred in the Southeast Asian region contributed greatly to the problem of religious harassment. Political, economic, and journalism crisis all have a major impact on the phenomenon of religion harassment in the form of cases of Islamophobia with varying degrees of influence. Political and economic crises are the most influencing factors on the phenomenon of harassment. Therefore, solving the problem of religious harassment in Southeast Asia must start from solving the multidimensional social crisis. Religion harassment in Southeast Asia is a psychological symptom of a particular society that meets with complex social situatio ns related to power struggles and economic domination.
This chapter presents a case study of China’s public diplomacy in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The research draws on textual sources and media reports, as well as on field research conducted in Almaty in January and February 2016 and September 2019. The discussion focuses on how China’s public diplomacy and image-building efforts make use of its Xinjiang region and its transnational Turkic Muslim nationalities, mainly Uyghurs and Kazakhs. It is demonstrated that the Chinese authorities perceive Xinjiang and its Muslims as potential mediators of Sino-Central Asian relations and incorporate them, to a certain degree, into China’s localized information activities and public diplomacy. The chapter goes on to show that China’s public diplomacy in the region seeks to construct a national image of ethno-cultural diversity, religious freedom, historically grounded inter-cultural contact, opportunities for dynamic development, openness, reliability, peacefulness, and other positive values. China’s efforts in Kazakhstan also benefit from the fact that some Kazakhstani intelligentsia view Xinjiang, its transnational Muslim nationalities, and related issues in ways similar to those of PRC actors. Overall, the PRC’s public diplomacy is inhibited by the fact that the party-state has simultaneously regarded its Xinjiang Muslim communities as a security threat and subjected them to repressive domestic policies, particularly since 2017. This research thus reveals a major shortcoming in China’s public diplomacy, in that China’s resolve to use Xinjiang and its transnational Muslim ethnic groups as actors of its public diplomacy in Central Asia contradicts its simultaneous domestic representation and treatment of these very communities as a security threat. It follows that the message of China’s public diplomacy in Central Asia is inconsistent with its domestic policies and thus lacks credibility.
Asia is the largest and the most populous continent on earth. South Asia has a population of around 1.8 billion,thus constituting about one fourth of humanity. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldivesand Afghanistan are the countries in South Asia and many of them are Muslim-majority nations. Although Indiais predominantly a Hindu nation with a total population of 1.4 billion, there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistanand other South Asian nations. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and followers of other religions have lived peacefullyin South Asia for centuries. However, certain incidents of communal violence and other untoward occurrences in SouthAsia suggest that Islamophobia is present here too. The authors discuss demography, cultures and the possible effectof Islamophobia on the mental health of the people of South Asia.
Mediated public diplomacy scholarship investigates the manner in which governments attempt to shape the framing of its leaders, people, and foreign policy in other nations' media outlets. A growing body of literature identifies agenda-building efforts by these governments who often use state-sponsored media platforms to promote some issues and attributes as more salient than others. The current study provides a unique examination of China's use of its Xinhua News Agency as an information subsidy for US news outlets. Study results point to a limited transfer of issue salience between the Chinese news agency and the US news outlets. Non-significant findings were identified regarding attribute agenda building. The results of the study identify a significant intermedia agenda-setting effect between the US news outlets, with The New York Times serving as a conduit between Chinese and US news agendas. Results are discussed in the context of global political public relations and mediated public diplomacy scholarship.
To better understand the public portrayal of minorities, we propose a new and systematic procedure for measuring the standing of different groups that relies on the tone of daily newspaper headlines containing the names of minority groups. This paper assesses the portrayal of Muslims in the British print media between 2001 and 2012, focusing especially on testing scholarly propositions that Muslims are depicted in a systematically negative way. We compare the tone of newspaper headlines across time and across newspaper type and compare the portrayal of Muslims to that of Jews and Christians. We do not find support for arguments that Muslims are consistently portrayed in a negative manner in the British media as a whole. However, our data demonstrate that headlines in right-leaning newspapers are more negative than those in left-leaning newspapers, and that Muslims are consistently portrayed more negatively than Jews and frequently more negatively than Christians. These findings thus offer a more nuanced understanding of British newspaper portrayals of Muslims than exists in the contemporary scholarly literature.
This article addresses the role of journalism in the construction and mediation of global imaginary. I suggest that the notion of global journalism helps us understand how the image of an interconnected world becomes embedded in the news. The operation of global journalism is illustrated with a qualitative content analysis of the coverage of President Obama's “Address to the Muslim World” in quality British, German and Spanish newspapers. The analysis examines how the newspapers make sense of the President's lecture in Cairo as a transnational news event by evaluating it against the political and historical background of the Middle East conflict and the contentious intercultural relations between “the Muslim world” and “the West”. Based on the analysis, I argue that the Western European newspapers craft a strikingly unified narrative of the Cairo event. The article concludes with a discussion on the implications of transnational news narratives and on the relevance of global imaginary in journalism.
This study adds to research on terrorism and international news by combining real-world information about terrorist events with perceptions about the deviance and social significance of events and how these impact the events' coverage prominence. The news values of the USA and China are compared by selecting a set of these highly newsworthy events from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) for study. The NCTC provided archival data about 137 international terrorism events covered in the US and Chinese newspapers (85 of 137 events covered in Chinese media) and an analysis of newspaper coverage of the events (three newspapers in each country) provided perceptions of the events' deviance and social significance. Our findings suggest that Chinese journalists rely more on perceptions of events' social significance than on perceptions of deviance or facts about the damage the events create. In contrast, Americans apparently use a mix of factual and perceptual information to decide how prominently to cover terrorism.
The goal of this study is to determine the possible factors leading to increased anti-Muslim sentiment or Islamophobia in a comparative examination of public opinion in the United States and Europe. Secondary analyses of data from the 2008 Pew Global Attitude Project and the 2010 Pew News Interest Index, allow us to assess the role of religious practice, news interest and political affiliation in the attitudes toward Muslim minorities in several countries. Predictors of anti-Muslim attitudes include being politically more conservative and being older in all countries, and paying close attention to news coverage of the Park51 Islamic Community Center in the United States (which was proposed to be built near Ground Zero in New York). In France, but not in the other countries of the study, the importance of the respondents' religion was positively related to anti-Muslim attitudes.
Prior research found that stereotypical media content shapes the perception of racial groups and social policy. Using the UCLA Communication Studies Digital News Archive, we sampled 146 cable and network news programs aired between 2008 and 2012. Findings revealed that Blacks were actually “invisible” on network news, being underrepresented as both violent perpetrators and victims of crime. However, Whites were accurately represented as criminals. Moreover, Latinos were greatly overrepresented as undocumented immigrants while Muslims were greatly overrepresented as terrorists on network and cable news programs. The implications of these findings are contextualized using the “guard dog” media coverage theory, structural limitations/economic interest of media, ethnic blame discourse, and the community philanthropy perspective.
This article endeavors to trace changes in the images of the Muslim of the Orient, a product of Orientalism, to contemporary images of the Muslim post 9/11, marking a transition from classical Orientalism to a new Orientalism or Islamism. The study demonstrates how most Western scholarship and media, through the construction of so-called Islamophobia, have portrayed Muslims in terms of global terrorism, Islamic jihadism, fanatic Islamism, fundamentalism, fascism, and Islamic authoritarianism. Much of the scholarship and media dealing with Islam and Muslims require critical assessment and revision. The article also addresses ways through which Muslims in academia and the media have opposed negative images of Muslims. For instance, in response to the irrational acts of extremists that have fostered negative stereotypes of Islam, public lectures, sermons, conferences, and media programs have recently and abundantly been made by Muslim scholars and media activists to present Muslims positively at both the national and global levels.
Irish and Muslim communities in Britain are, or have often been, constructed negatively in public discourse, where they have been associated with terrorism and extremism. Despite similarities in the experiences of these communities, little comparative research has been conducted. We address this gap by implementing a critical discourse analysis of national and diaspora press coverage of events involving Irish and Muslim communities that occurred in Great Britain between 1974 and 2007. We identified a consensus within the press that “law-abiding” Irish and Muslim people must stand up against “extremists” within their ranks and defend what newsmakers perceive are British values; in this way Irish and Muslim communities are constructed as both inside and outside Britishness. We conclude that the construction of these communities as “suspect” happens mostly in the ambiguity of news discourse, which contributes to fostering a socio-political climate that has permitted civil liberties to be violated by the state security apparatus.
Comparative framing analysis on coverage of the North Korean nuclear test in the US Associated Press, Chinese Xinhua, and South Korean Yonhap news agencies identified four major media packages. First, a common ‘threat’ frame dominated coverage by all news agencies, represented by reconfiguration of geopolitics and an emphasis on global cooperation in both perception and resolution of the nuclear test. Second, with each nation positioning itself differently in the world power system, the issue was notably domesticated in the news, with Associated Press connecting the nuclear test to the broader ‘War on Terror’ framework found frequently in US media, Xinhua promoting a negotiation principle in handling the issue, and Yonhap framing the test with a ‘Cold War’ perspective. In all three cases, national political interests exerted important impacts on the construction of frames. The compatibility of the seemingly opposite packages (globalizing vs. domesticating) signifies both intensification of worldwide social relations and reassertion of national stands. This finding lends support to the transformationalist view of globalization, which suggests that the nation state still matters in a globalized world, but is being recontextualized in a more complex world of politics and culture.
Contemporary anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia is reproduced through a racialization that includes well rehearsed stereotypes of Islam, perceptions of threat and inferiority, as well as fantasies that the Other (in this case Australian Muslims) do not belong, or are absent. These are not old or colour-based racisms, but they do manifest certain characteristics that allow us to conceive a racialization process in relation to Muslims. Three sets of findings show how constructions of Islam are important means through which racism is reproduced. First, public opinion surveys reveal the extent of Islamaphobia in Australia and the links between threat perception and constructions of alien-ness and Otherness. The second data set is from a content analysis of the racialized pathologies of Muslims and their spaces. The third is from an examination of the undercurrents of Islamaphobia and national cultural selectivity in the politics of responding to asylum seekers. Negative media treatment is strongly linked to antipathetic government dispositions. This negativity has material impacts upon Australian Muslims. It sponsors a more widespread Islamaphobia, (mis)informs opposition to mosque development and ever more restrictive asylum seeker policies, and lies behind arson attacks and racist violence. Ultimately, the racialization of Islam corrupts belonging and citizenship for Muslim Australians.
This paper examines the responses of a small sample of self-identified British Muslims from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and age groups to the reporting of the events of 11 September 2001. Detailed semi-structured interviews, supplemented by e-mailed responses to a related questionnaire, revealed varied terrestrial and satellite viewing patterns. There were distinct perceptions of Eurocentric and US bias in the Western media, and this corresponded with an increased consumption of alternative news sources after the events of 11 September. 24-hour rolling news programmes were criticised for failing to provide in-depth analysis of world events and the motives for the attacks, and for failing to attach equal significance to other ‘ground zeros'. There was a shared sense of grief in response to the events of September 11 but also a profound belief that negative stereotyping, derogatory use of language and sensationalism in the early stages after the attacks contributed significantly to the noted increase in anti-Muslim attacks and resulted in infringements upon civil liberties. The representation of Islam as ‘violent' and as abusive to women was a commonly expressed concern. Many felt that the ‘clash of civilisations' hypothesis was perpetuated by the media.
This article examines the sharp rise in hate crime directed at Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim following the September 11 attacks on the United States. The intense phase of these attacks comprised approximately nine weeks, after which the number of hate crimes fell sharply. The article attributes the abrupt fall in hate crime to four variables: 1) Leadership in the form of effective intervention by the U.S. President; 2) Decisive law enforcement intervention on the federal and local levels; 3) Grassroots outreach to Muslims by religious, civic and educational groups; and much more tentatively; 4) Moral ambiguity in the rapid dissolution of American consensus over the War on Terror following the invasion of Iraq. To illustrate these points, the paper compares the current situation to the treatment of Japanese Americans following Pearl Harbor and to the Red Scare of the 1950s. The impact of technology, especially the internet and the rise of al-Jazeera as alternative sources of information to the government or the major American media outlets, is examined as indirectly contributing to the rapid decline of hate crimes after the initial nine-week period. Finally, hate crime statistics from the FBI and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee from the years 2000–2002 are examined to document the numbers and types of violent hate crimes directed at American Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim.
Two thematic news reports on the three-strikes law and school vouchers were differentially illustrated with photographs. Online news stories were either illustrated with no images, with 2 photographs of Blacks, with 2 photographs of Whites, or with 2 photographs, 1 of a Black and the other of a White person (mixed condition). In none of the four conditions did the text make any reference to the ethnic/racial identity of the subjects in the photographs juxtaposed with the text. White respondents assessed the extent to which each ethnic/racial group was affected by the social problem or issue discussed in the news stories. Differential pictorial illustration of ethnic groups fostered differentiation association of ethnic groups with the social problem. Implicit racial images of Blacks helped prime racial stereotypes about blacks and led to stronger association of Blacks with social problems addressed in the stories. The concept of implicit visual propositioning is discussed as a discursive form through which racial stereotypes of Blacks are subtly activated and maintained in society.
Prejudice researchers have been criticized for failing to assess behaviors that reflect overtly hostile actions (i.e. racial animus; Arkes & Tetlock, 2004; Mackie & Smith, 1998). Two studies sought to begin to fill this gap in the implicit literature by showing that scores on the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) are linked to harmful intergroup behaviors. In Study 1, the IAT predicted self-reported racial discrimination, including verbal slurs, exclusion, and physical harm. In Study 2, the IAT predicted recommended budget cuts for Jewish, Asian, and Black student organizations (i.e. economic discrimination). In each study, evaluative stereotype (but not attitude) IATs predicted behaviors even after controlling for explicit attitudes. In concert, the findings suggest that implicit stereotypes are more predictive of overtly harmful actions than implicit attitudes in the intergroup relations domain.
This article presents a cross-validation study of the Schedule of Racist Events (SRE), a brief inventory that assesses the frequency of various types of racist dis-crimination in Blacks’lives. A new, larger, more representative sample of 520 Af-rican Americans residing in 10 randomly-selected southern California census tracts completed the SRE and a measure of psychiatric symptoms. Results re-vealed that 96% of Blacks reported experiencing some type of racist discrimina-tion in the past year, 98% reported experiencing racism at some point in their lives, and 95% found racism to be stressful. Factor analyses revealed that all items in the SRE subscales load on a single factor, and reliability and validity co-efficients were high and were similar to those previously reported. Participants’ reports of the frequency of racism in their lives were unrelated to participants’ age, social class, and education, but were related to gender, with men reporting more frequent racism than women. Experiencing racism was strongly related to total psychiatric symptoms. This cross-validation study provides further evi-dence on the reliability and validity of the SRE.
Since 9/11 there have been 11 terrorist events on U.S. soil that occurred or were stopped on the planned day of attack. This study of news coverage of those terrorist events revealed a thematic pattern of terrorism coverage in which fear of international terrorism is dominant, particularly as Muslims/Arabs/Islam working together in organized terrorist cells against a “Christian America,” while domestic terrorism is cast as a minor threat that occurs in isolated incidents by troubled individuals.
Media Framing of the Muslim World examines and explains how news about Islam and the Muslim world is produced and consumed, and how it impacts on relations between Islam and the West. The authors cover key issues in this relationship including the reporting on war and conflict, terrorism, asylum seekers and the Arab Spring. © Halim Rane, Jacqui Ewart and John Martinkus 2014. All rights reserved.
The disappearance of Malaysian Airline Flight MH370 attracted high media attention across countries. To explore how news media outlets influence each other in transnational settings, this study focuses on the coverage of MH370 by three major newspapers in the U.S., China, and Hong Kong, and examines the inter-media agenda-setting effect as an indicator of media’s mutual influence. A content analysis of 255 news articles revealed significant correlations among the issue agendas of the 3 newspapers, suggesting the existence of reciprocal, though asymmetrical, influence among the news media in the U.S., China, and Hong Kong. The findings also suggest that news media differ in power and that news media in high-power countries play a key role in shaping the global news agenda.
This chapter provides an analysis of Chinese government policies in the region and the role of local governments in formulating implementing state policies. The chapter asks why local governments have been unable to use decentralized powers to experiment with policies that address local grievances, in the same way that local governments in other parts of China have been able to drive policy innovation.
Drawing upon postcolonial and postcolonial feminist lenses, this study critically analyzes the discourses, evident in the popular press, that serve to construct identities associated with veil-wearing Muslim women. Through print and digital media articles from January 2009 to December 2011, we trace the discursive character of the veil-wearing Muslim woman through conversations before, during, and after Bill 94 was tabled by the Quebec government. Concerned not only with the Western construction of the “other,” we attempted to provide the space necessary to hear Muslim women. Considerable focus was placed on teasing out interviews with Muslim women or responses by Muslim women. Findings suggest that several contradictions exist in terms of Western constructions and how Muslim women in Canada construct their own identities. At the center of these contradictions lies the symbolism of the veil, representing oppression and submission to some and empowerment and resistance to others.
This study investigated the coverage and portrayal of 12 Muslim countries by Newsweek and Time magazine during the given period from 1991-2001. In this connection, these 12 Muslims countries were placed in 3 categories on the basis of their nature of relations with USA In each category, four Muslim countries were included: 1 US Allies (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia & Turkey) 2 US Enemies (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran& Libya) 3 Neutral Counties (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia & Pakistan) Moreover, six hypotheses were developed and tested The researcher has conducted content analysis, of 219 articles regarding twelve Islamic countries, out of which 107 articles were selected from Newsweek and 112 articles were chosen from the Time Magazine. It was found that 1943 article about Muslim countries (35) were Published in 1098 issues of both magazines during the time period of 11 years (1991-2001). In this connection the content analysis of 219 articles of twelve Muslim countries would be undertaken. The findings indicated that 107 articles of Newsweek pertaining to 12 Muslim countries were analyzed; it was found that all these countries received greater negative coverage (31.84%, 1794 sentence) as compared to ratio of the positive coverage °12.79%, 721 sentence). The Newsweek carried 5634 sentences about Muslim countries. Similarly the content analyses of 112 articles of Time magazine related to 12 Muslim countries were undertaken. The magazine carried 5965 sentences of which 12.65% (755) sentences and 29.50% (1760) sentences were positive and negative respectively. It means that the proportion of negative coverage (29.50) of Muslim country was greater than the ratio of positive coverage (12.65%) in Time magazine. On the whole, the both magazine carried 11546 sentences, of which 30.77% (3553) sentences and 12.64% (1460) sentences were negative and positive respectively. It was, therefore, concluded that overall ratio of negative coverage (30.77%) was greater than the proportion of positive coverage (12.64%). The findings indicted that except hypothesis no. 2, all remaining hypotheses were strongly proved. In nutshell, it is concluded that portrayal of all (twelve) Muslim countries by Newsweek and Time magazines was dominantly negative.
The disclosure that high officials within the Reagan administration had covertly diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras funds obtained from the secret sale of weapons to Iran provides us with a splendid opportunity to examine how the foundations of popular support shift when dramatic events occur. According to our theory of priming, the more attention media pay to a particular domain--the more the public is primed with it--the more citizens will incorporate what they know about that domain into their overall judgment of the president. Data from the 1986 National Election Study confirm that intervention in Central America loomed larger in the public's assessment of President Reagan's performance after the Iran-Contra disclosure than before. Priming was most pronounced for aspects of public opinion most directly implicated by the news coverage, more apparent in political notices' judgments than political experts', and stronger in the evaluations of Reagan's overall performance than in assessments of his character.
In the wake of September 11, China has launched its own "war on terror" against Uighur separatists in Xinjiang. But Beijing is employing the wrong strategy; the way to improve the situation is by addressing the Uighurs' legitimate grievances.
China plays an increasing role in the wars and conflicts around the world with its expanding political and economic interests overseas and its diplomatic role in international affairs. More and more Chinese journalists go to the frontlines overseas to cover distant conflicts for domestic audiences. Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 16 Chinese correspondents who have covered conflicts outside China, this study examines Chinese journalists' perceptions and reflections on objectivity in the war zones. The author adopts a term of Chinese-style pragmatic objectivity to mean that objectivity is a convenient approach for Chinese journalists to do war journalism in the field. At the level of objectivity-as-a-value, objectivity is defined as a pragmatic value and a practical ritual for Chinese journalists to do news within the scope they can reach, to protect themselves from criticisms, and to justify their version of the truth. It promotes allegiance and patriotism. At the level of objectivity-as-a-practice, objectivity in war coverage is compromised by China's foreign policies, military constraints, the press's political orientations and editorial polices, and journalists' personal experiences and values. Chinese journalists use Chinese-style objectivity to negotiate their roles in the power struggle with the state, foreign militaries, the newsroom, and journalists.
■ Abstract Political science has tended,to neglect the study of the news,media as political institutions, despite a long history of party-subsidized newspapers and despite a growing,chorus of scholars who,point to an increasing “mediatization” of politics. Still, investigators in sociology, communication, and political science have taken up the close study of news,institutions. Three general approaches,predominate. Political economy,perspectives focus on patterns of media ownership,and the behavior of news institutions in relatively liberal versus relatively repressive states; a second,set of approaches,looks at the social organization of newswork,and relates news content to the daily patterns of interaction of reporters and their sources; a third style of research examines,news as a form of culture that often unconsciously,incorporates general belief systems, assumptions, and values into news writing.
The media is often referred to as a social institution in that it is a major element of contemporary Western society. Through the media, social processes create narratives or stories within interpretative frameworks that are embedded in the cultural and political assumptions of the wider society. Since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in September 2001, the media has played a crucial role in the developing discourse on contemporary terrorism. In the Australian context, this discourse has emerged as one which implicates Australian Muslims, constructing them as a homogenous monolith with an underlying implication that Islam, and by association Australian Muslims, is secular resistant and at odds with the values of the liberal democratic state. Several textual analyses attest to the bias against Muslims in the popular Australian media discourse. However, there have been no studies into how Australian Muslims are interpreting and responding to this discourse. Based on research into the attitudes and perceptions of the media among Australian Muslims, this paper argues that the interpretation of the media discourse as defiantly anti-Muslim and the perception of the media as a powerful purveyor of public opinion has impacted on the construction of Australian Muslim identity. In responding to this discourse, Australian Muslims are creating new narratives of belonging which either reinforce or reject the underlying messages that situate them outside mainstream Australia.
Abstract Implicit Association Tests (IATs) often reveal strong associations of self with positive rather than negative attributes. This poses a problem,in using the IAT to measure associations involving traits with either positive or negative evaluative content. In two studies, we employed non-bipolar but evaluatively balanced Big Five traits as attribute contrasts and explored correlations of IATs with positive (e.g. sociable vs. conscientious) or negative (e.g. reserved vs. chaotic) attributes. Results showed,(a) satisfactory internal consistencies for all IATs, (b) explicit–explicit and implicit–implicit correlations that were moderate to high and comparable,in strength after both were corrected for attenuation and (c) better model fit for latent variable models that linked the implicit and explicit measures to distinct latent factors rather to the same factor. Together, the results suggest that IATs can validly assess the semantic aspect of trait self-concepts and that implicit and explicit self-representations are, although correlated, also distinct constructs. Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: implicit personality self-concept; semantic associations; valence associa- tions; Big Five Often we realize very quickly whether we like or dislike something or somebody,without
Scholars have been increasingly concerned with portrayals of terrorism in mainstream and alternative media outlets following the September 11 and subsequent terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom and Spain. Communication researchers have examined public response and reaction to terrorist attacks, definitions of terrorism, policy questions, media portrayals of terrorism, and framing across different media and nations. This study undertakes a comparative framing analysis of media coverage of terrorism, as reported by prominent U.S. and U.K. newspapers, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. Findings revealed that the U.S. papers engaged in more episodic coverage and the U.K. papers in more thematic coverage of terrorism and terrorism-related events. The U.S. papers were consumed with presenting news associated with the military approach, whereas the U.K. papers were oriented toward diplomatic evaluations of terrorist events.
The aim of the study was to investigate prospectively the direction of the relationship between media exposure and body image disturbance. Participants were 214 female high school students (mean age = 14 years) who completed questionnaire measures of media exposure (magazines and television), internalization of appearance ideals, appearance schemas, body dissatisfaction, and drive for thinness at Time 1, and then again one year later at Time 2. It was found that Time 1 reading of appearance magazines and watching of soap operas predicted Time 2 internalization, appearance schemas, and drive for thinness. However, regression analyses controlling for Time 1 body image variables showed that no media exposure variable predicted change in any body image measure. Neither did body image predict change in media exposure. Appearance schemas, however, did predict change in body dissatisfaction. It was concluded that, for this age group, media exposure and body image co-occur, but that neither one is temporally antecedent to the other. Thus the study demonstrated no causal role for media exposure in the body image of adolescent girls.
This research investigated portrayals of Muslims in the media, drawing upon an analysis of articles appearing in the Times of London, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Detroit Free Press from 1988 to 1992. The research examined the types of stories that were written about Muslims, how Muslims were characterized, and the overall tone of stories. The study yielded results that partially supported initial expectations. Media coverage of Muslims, as expected, centered mainly on events, groups and individuals from the Middle East, in response to crises, war and conflict. Findings lend some support for the expectation that most press coverage of Muslims would be negative in tone and that stories would fail to distinguish Muslims by nationality or ethnicity, and more importantly by general branch of Islam (e.g., Shiite, Sunni, Nation of Islam etc....). The findings generally do not support strong conclusions of negative media bias in reporting about Muslims. Far from establishing any long-term trend about media coverage of Islam, these findings suggest that particular international events, depending on whether they are viewed positively or negatively, will determine the tone of news stories about Muslims.
Stories about alleged terrorism and terrorist activities typically conflate Islam and terrorism, but there are few examples of cases where the news frames used to present these types of stories change over time. This article explores how four key Australian media outlets framed Australia's biggest and to date most costly terrorism investigation, the Dr. Mohamed Haneef case. It tracks the reportage of the story in its first month to determine the types of news frames used and whether they were those typically associated with news stories about alleged terrorism and terrorism-related events. This study found that during the first 10 days, the news frames that typically characterize reportage of these sorts of events dominated, but dramatic changes in the trajectory of the story meant frames rarely associated with this type of reportage were used for the remainder of the period analyzed. Although the news media analyzed in this study were able to draw on alternative frames, they did not seek to reframe their conflation of the alleged suspect's religion with terrorism.
‘Manipulation’ is one of the crucial notions of Critical Discourse Analysis that require further theoretical analysis. This article offers a triangulated approach to manipulation as a form of social power abuse, cognitive mind control and discursive interaction. Socially, manipulation is defined as illegitimate domination confirming social inequality. Cognitively, manipulation as mind control involves the interference with processes of understanding, the formation of biased mental models and social representations such as knowledge and ideologies. Discursively, manipulation generally involves the usual forms and formats of ideological discourse, such as emphasizing Our good things, and emphasizing Their bad things. At all these levels of analysis it is shown how manipulation is different from legitimate mind control, such as in persuasion and providing information, for instance by stipulating that manipulation is in the best interest of the dominated group and against the best interests of dominated groups. Finally, this theory is illustrated by a partial analysis of a speech by Tony Blair in the House of Commons legitimating the participation of the UK in the US-led war against Iraq in 2003.
Purpose
The paper's aim is to examine whether there is a causal link between “race” hate, particularly Islamophobia (defined as anti‐Muslim feeling and violence based on “race” and/or religion), and media treatment of Muslim communities in Britain in recent years.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper looks at the reporting of terror activities and examines the way the media (tabloid press) constructs racists news.
Findings
The article discusses some of the themes developed in a previous paper that looked at government policy towards Muslim communities by examining the media campaign directed against Muslims within this broader political context. The implications for the cultivation of “race” hate are considered.
Practical implications
The paper demonstrates that “race” hate and routine attacks on Muslim communities appear to be increasing and needs to be addressed by developing strategies that are inclusive of all disadvantaged communities, racism, “war on terror”, working class.
Originality/value
The paper adds to the literature on “race” hate by examining these theories in the light of recent and ongoing terror attacks and their impact on Muslim communities in Britain.
This paper contributes to the debate on the meaning of the term 'Islamophobia'. It proposes an examination of the early twentieth-century approaches to Islamophobia, both the term and the phenomenon. The aim is to show that the phenomenon had already been identified at the end of the nineteenth century and that it had been defined by the beginning of the twentieth. That definition could throw some light on the current debate about the meaning of the term.
Background: Mass media (e.g., television news and entertainment programming, films and newspapers) are a primary source for information about mental illnesses. Aims: The possible effects of media coverage and predominant frames in which mental illnesses are portrayed are discussed. Methods: Framing is defined as the means by which media information is organized, presented and interpreted. The literature focused on media coverage of mental illnesses and media framing is reviewed. Results: The frequently negative frames used by the media to portray mental illnesses contribute to the development and persistence of the public's negative attitudes toward persons with mental illnesses. Conclusions: An obvious extension to this work is a systematic analysis of framing functions, structures and elements used in the media to describe mental illnesses. The experimental manipulation of mental illness frames and their consequences on media consumers will help to provide some understanding of how media consumers react specifically to frames of mental illnesses. Declaration of interest: None.