The construction of Islam in the British and American Press 1998-2005 a corpus-based (keywords and collocates) analysis

The construction of Islam in the British and American Press 1998-2005

• A corpus-based (keywords and collocates) analysis

• Tony McEnery

• Lancaster 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 Telegraph

• Tabloids: 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

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 Keywords

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

• Broadsheets

• Conjunctions/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

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 action

• 3. desired outcome

• 4. moral entrepreneur

• 5. scapegoat

• 6. rhetoric

UK Keywords post 9/11

US keywords post 9/11

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?