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The construction of Islam in the British and American Press
1998-2005
A corpus-based (keywords and collocates) analysis
Tony McEneryLancaster University
Objectives How do news stories construct Islam? Have there been any (recent) changes over time? Are there differences between reporting on Islam
(as a religion) and Muslims (as a people)? Are there any differences/similarities between
tabloids and broadsheets Are there any differences/similarities between
American and British newspapers? How can corpus-based methods be used
alongside CDA or moral panic theory?
Why Islam? Post WWII – demand for unskilled labour
results in migration of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims to the UK
April 2001 Robin Cook reports that Britain’s national dish is chicken tikka masala
September 2001 – terrorist attacks on US July 2005 – terrorist attacks on UK
Data 87 million words of British news
Broadsheets: The Business, The Guardian, The Independent & Independent on Sunday, The Observer, The Times & Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph & Sunday TelegraphTabloids: The Daily Express & Sunday Express, The Daily Mail & Mail on Sunday, Daily Mirror & Sunday Mirror, The People, Daily Star & Sunday Star, The Sun
40 million words of American news: Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle
Freqencies of articles over time
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
1998-01 1998-11 1999-09 2000-07 2001-05 2002-03 2003-01 2003-11 2004-09 2005-07
Analysis WordSmith 4 used: 1. Keywords analysis of UK broadsheets
vs. UK tabloids 2. Collocational and concordance analysis
of Islam, Islamic, Muslim, Muslims 3. Keyword analysis of pre and post 9/11
articles in UK and US news
Broadsheet vs. Tabloid KeywordsBroadsheets (65 million words)
Tabloids (22 million words)
The Business Independent GuardianObserverTimesTelegraph
The Sun Mirror Star People ExpressMail
WordSmith settings 2 Frequency lists compared together p value was set at 0.0000000001 2180 keywords found
Findings: Style and spelling Tabloids
Pronouns: I, my, me, myself, we, he, she Emphatic adjectives: stunning, fantastic, terrible, wonderful
BroadsheetsConjunctions/determiners: the, that, which however, thus, than Formal terms of address: Mr, Ms
(See for example Biber et al 1998: 148)
Moslem – key in the tabloids 7,282 tabloid uses 4,834 in the Daily Mail 2,208 Daily Express
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
98-01
98-05
98-09
99-01
99-05
99-09
00-01
00-05
00-09
01-Jan
01-Ma
01-Sep
02-Jan
02-Ma
02-Sep
03-Jan
03-Ma
03-Sep
04-Jan
04-Ma
04-Sep
05-Jan
05-Ma
Moslem(s)
Muslim(s)
Bin Laden powerful (mastermind, terrorist godfather,
millionaire, Al Qaeda leader) warrior leader (chief, warlord) outcast (dissident, exile, fugitive) insane (maniac, twisted) evil (gloating menace, evil, terrorist,
murderous) fanatical (extremist, fanatic, fanatical)
Tabloid villains Direct references to terrorist attacks:
terror, terrorists, Taliban, Osama, Bin, Laden, bomb, bombs, bomber, bombers, plane, suicide, killers, attack, crash, hijack, September, twin and towers
Emotive/evaluation reaction: atrocity, atrocities, tragedy, carnage, horror, terrible and evil
Other tabloid categories Brainwashing: lure, rant, rants, spew, rouser,
brainwashed
“Children are being brainwashed into becoming Islamic extremists at 300 "Taliban schools" in Britain, it was reported last night. Youngsters are being indoctrinated with radical Islamic ideals by militant groups across the country, said leading British Muslim Dr Zaki Badawi.”
The Sun, December 28, 2001
Also,’scrougerphobia’ and political correctness
Types of belief In the tabloids, Muslims are fanatics and
extremists
In the broadsheets, Muslims are radicals, fundamentalists, separatists but also moderates and progressives
Broadsheet keywords More focus on Islam The media: book, novel, television, film, poetry Other religions: Hindu, Christian, Buddhist,
Judaism World events: Iran, Iraq, Iraqi, Arab, Israeli, Israel,
Palestinian, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria War and conflict: military, conflict, army,
resistance, violence, occupied, ceasefire, genocide, peace, invasion
Muslim(s) vs. Islam(ic) Tabloids – more focus on Muslims (the
people); Muslims as terrorists; evil preachers, Muslims as British and desiring peace, women as victims (honor killings, arranged marriage, hijab), men as potential terrorists or victims of racism
Broadsheets – more focus on Islam (as a religion) - stories on terrorism restricted to the word Islamic.
UK and US keywords before/after 9/11
Moral panic categories developed by McEnery (2005)
1. consequence 2. corrective action3. desired outcome4. moral entrepreneur5. scapegoat6. rhetoric
UK Keywords post 9/11Category Positive Keywords in that Category
Consequence anger, angry, bad, bombing, bombings, conflict, crime,dead, death, destruction, died, evil, fear, fears, injured, kill,killed, killing, murder, terror, threat, victims, violence, wounded, wrong
Corrective action
arrested, fight, fighting, invasion, jail, justice, moderate,occupation, police, revenge, troops
Desired outcome
best, better, freedom, good, peace, support
Moral entrepreneur
America, American, Britain, British
Object of offence
atrocities, attack, attacks, bomb, bombs, criminal,extremism, failed, hatred, illegal, jihad, radical, regime,terrible, terrorism, weapons
Scapegoat Arab, (suicide) bombers, enemy, extremists, immigrants,Iran, Iraq, Iraqi, Islam, mosque, Muslim, Muslims,Pakistan, Palestinian, religious, suicide, terrorists
Rhetoric question, need, must, why
US keywords post 9/11Consequence attacks, sept
Corrective action
American, Americans, forces, intelligence, marine, marines,military, officials, (war on) terror, war (on terror)
Desired outcome
NONE
Moralentrepreneur
Bush, pentagon, (United) States, United (States), US
Object of offence
terrorism
Scapegoat (al) Qaeda, afghan, Afghanistan, al (Qaeda), bin (laden),(Saddam) Hussein, Hussein’s, insurgents, Iraq, Iraq’s, Iraqi,Iraqis, (bin) Laden, Saddam (Hussein), Shiite, Shiites, Sunni,Taliban, terrorist, terrorists,
Rhetoric NONE
Conclusions Muslims as victims or villains Moral panics, PC, scroungerphobia Few distinctions made or explanations
given More neutral global ‘reporting’ stance in
the broadsheets Focus on small number of villains in the
tabloids
Other areas to focus on Additional data – BBC news, Al Jazeera Close examination of stories – e.g. Abu
Hamza or types of Muslims (young women)
Comparison between right/left political stances
Examination of agency, metaphor, presupposition etc.
Issues to address What is bias? What is fair? Does lexical priming work in the same way
for everyone? Need to consider readership and audience
response Is news the only way that people are
informed? Bias of the researcher?