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1981
Volume 10, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2001-0818
  • E-ISSN: 2049-9531

Abstract

This article employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) on a sample from British tabloid newspapers to unearth the representation of Islam and Muslims. It attempts to unpack the evolving discursive language and its impact on the reinvention and diffusion of negative stereotypes such as the ‘terrorism’ frame. With a specific focus the study considers the media’s systematic distortion of Islamic conceptions/religious terminologies such as ‘Islamist’, ‘Fatwa’, ‘Sharia’, ‘Jihad’, ‘Hijab’ and ‘Islamic State’, which are founded on what Edward Said calls the ‘ideology of difference’. Findings from this study show that such conceptions have not only lost their original significance as established in the mainstream Islamic literature, but have become on the one hand associated with the War on Terror and its ramifications and on the other have become exclusively signifying specific pejorative connotations. Fear and threat have become the meanings and frames firmly embedded in these Islamic terminologies. In the minds of the public this association is now taken for granted due to the prevailing values being recurrently circulated through the media, political speeches, ‘think-tanks’ literature and policy-making documents.

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2021-04-01
2026-04-17

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/content/journals/10.1386/ajms_00024_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): discourse; Hijab; ISIS; Islam; Islamophobia; Jihad; Muslims; Sharia

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