Online Islamophobia After the Brussels Attacks on March 22Nd 2016

Master Thesis

MSc in Sociology: track migration and ethnic studies

Online Islamophobia after the Brussels attacks on March 22nd 2016.

A critical discourse analysis of Facebook comments on news articles regarding the Brussels attacks by Het Laatste Nieuws and De Standaard

Ezra Dupré (ID: 12759317)

Supervisor: dr. L.M. Hernandez Aguilar

Second reader: dr. M.A. van den Berg

July 6th 2020

Abstract

Online Islamophobia in the Flemish context is facing a research gap. Offline Flemish Islamophobia has been investigated previously. However a significant amount of reports on Belgian Islamophobic behaviour took place online. Social network platforms have become full- fledged social spheres where public discourse debates are encouraged. This thesis investigates the dominant narratives of Islamophobic comments on Flemish news articles posted on Facebook within a month after the Brussels bombing on March 22nd 2016. Because of the cultural and linguistic differences between the French speaking community and Flemish speaking community in Belgium, Islamophobia is bound to be affected by these differences. The comments are posted as a response to articles by the Flemish popular newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws and the Flemish quality newspaper De Standaard. In total 28 416 comments were analysed through Fairclough's critical discourse analysis with an additional focus on semiotic decisions made in the comments. The results indicate that dominant narratives of offline Islamophobic statements conform to online dominant narratives found in the Facebook comments. Dominant narratives supplementary to previously examined offline dominant narratives were detected such as “Muslims do not provide adequate upbringings for their children.” The main Islamophobic themes discussed in the comments cohere and overlap. In conclusion, the different dominant narratives of online Islamophobic comments combine into the online Islamophobia which arose from different forms of prejudice towards Muslims.

Acknowledgements

Without the following people’s support, writing this thesis would not have been possible. I would therefore like to thank these people ahead of the actual thesis. During the Migration and ethnic studies track, my interest in Islamophobia gradually grew. First of all, I would like to thank the professors in the migration track for sparking my interest. Secondly, I would like to thank my supervisor through this thesis, dr. L.M. Hernandez Aguilar, for the supportive guidance and feedback. His comments, motivation and critical eye always helped me forward during the process. Additionally, I would like to thank my second reader dr. M.A. van den Berg for the helpful advice regarding my thesis proposal. Next I would like to thank my fellow students in my thesis seminar group for giving me the critical feedback I needed. Lastly, I would like to thank my mother and my friends for the support and advice they provided.

Table of contents Abstract ...... 3 Acknowledgements ...... 4 1. Introduction ...... 7 1.1. Islam and Islamophobia in Belgium ...... 8 1.2. Academic and societal relevance ...... 10 2. Research questions ...... 10 3. Theoretical framework ...... 12 3.1. Islamophobia ...... 12 3.2. Islamophobia and racism ...... 13 3.3. Social media ...... 15 3.4. Facebook ...... 16 3.5. Cyberhate ...... 17 3.6. Online Islamophobia ...... 18 4. Research design and methods ...... 20 4.1. Data ...... 20 4.2. Data collection ...... 22 4.3. Data analysis ...... 23 4.3.1. Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis ...... 23 4.3.2. Hall’s encoding and decoding ...... 25 4.4. Conceptual model ...... 26 5. Results ...... 27 5.1. Dominant narratives in descriptions Muslims...... 27 5.1.1. Islamic practices need to be secularized to be accepted in Western societies .. 27 5.1.2. Veiling is incompatible with Western values and local rules ...... 28 5.1.3. Islamic belonging is a prior identity marker ...... 28 5.1.4. Islam threatens Belgian traditions ...... 29 5.1.5. Brussels is turning into a Muslim city ...... 30 5.1.6. A process of radicalization of Muslims is underway in Belgium ...... 31 5.1.7. Islam is (and Muslims are) a problem for Western societies ...... 32 5.1.8. Islam is an easy object of derision ...... 33 5.1.9. Islamic religion legitimates extreme forms of women oppression ...... 34 5.1.10. Mosques do not have their place in the local context ...... 35 5.2. Alternative dominant narratives ...... 36 5.2.1. Muslims provide their children with inadequate upbringing ...... 36 5.2.2. Muslims support terrorism ...... 37 5.2.3. Comments opposed to Muslim migration to Belgium ...... 38 5.2.4. Islam and racism ...... 39 5.2.5. Unsubstantiated claims ...... 41 5.3. Semiotics ...... 42 5.3.1. Metaphors ...... 42 5.3.2. Us-them division ...... 43 5.3.3. Aggregation ...... 45 5.3.4. Nomination-functionalization ...... 46 5.3.5. Specification- generalization ...... 47 5.3.6. Other semiotic choices ...... 47 5.4. Differences between HLN and DS ...... 49 5.5. Encoding and decoding ...... 52 6. Discussion and conclusion ...... 54 6.1. Discussion ...... 54 6.2. Limitations...... 69 6.3. Recommendations for future research ...... 70 6.4. Conclusion ...... 70 Bibliography ...... 72 Appendix 1: Diagram proportions dominant narratives ...... 82 Appendix 2: Overview articles Het Laatste Nieuws ...... 83 Appendix 3: Overview articles De Standaard ...... 91

1. Introduction

On 22 March 2016, the Zaventem airport and Maelbeek Metro Station in Brussels were bombed by Belgian members of ISIS causing 31 people to lose their lives and 300 to be injured (Rathore, 2016). Additionally, the Muslim terrorists of the Bataclan in Paris (2015) were Belgian as well. Many far-right politicians blamed the European Union for the attacks because of the Schengen area’s open border system. Far-right European parties undertook a ‘we told you so’-attitude in their reactions to the Bombing (Lorimer, 2016). In Belgium specifically, the discourse regarding the recent Brussel Bombing attacks (2016) has been portrayed in a manner stressing the radicalization of Muslims as the main cause. In the media Islam is almost solely mentioned in combination with ideas of an Islamic State or revolution (Fadil, El Asri, & Bracke, 2014).

During five weeks in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Brussels, more than four million Islamophobic tweets were sent worldwide (Miller, Arcostanzo, Smith, Krasodomski- Jones, Wiedlitzka, Jamali, & Dale, n.d.). The majority of these Tweets were Islamophobic insults. In this timeframe 13,800,000 Tweets explicitly touched upon the attacks in Brussels. In Carl Miller et al.’s research (n.d.). five classifications of Islamophobia were recognized. The first classification is ‘Islam is the Enemy’. Hereby Muslims are considered to be tolerant towards violence and hostility towards the West. The second classification portrays Muslims to be more probable to commit sex offences. As a third classification Muslims are described as tolerant of terrorism. The necessity for offline action against Muslims is the fourth classification. The fifth and last classification includes derogatory, abusive Islamophobic comments aimed at other online accounts.

During the course of 2018, 70 cases of Islamophobia were registered in Belgium (CCIB, 2018). In comparison to other European countries like France or Germany with more than 500 recorded cases this number may seem low. However Belgium’s population is also lower. Out of these 70 cases 29% or 20,3 cases occurred online (CCIB, 2018).

As in other European countries, Islamophobia is already widely spread in Belgium (CCIB, 2018; Mescoli, 2017a). A common feature of Islamophobia has been the forging of a link between terrorist attacks and the Muslim communities in Europe. Against this background, the Brussels bombings enhanced online Islamophobic comments on Flemish news articles.

This thesis will investigate Islamophobic comments in Flemish media outlets in the aftermath of the 2016 Brussels bombings.

1.1. Islam and Islamophobia in Belgium

In Belgium, during the 1960s the demand for foreign workers for the mining and steel industry was high (Juchtmans & Nicaise, 2013). Mostly Muslims from the mediterranean region filled in this demand. This import of ‘foreign workers’ was arranged through bilateral agreements. This organized ‘import of foreign workers’ was terminated in 1974 because of the economic crisis in the 1970s, and then the mines closed in the 1970s (Kanmaz, 2002). In the ensuing decades, more Muslims moved to Belgium under family reunification (Kanmaz, 2002). Since then, Muslims have been seen as competition on the labour market for the lower social class. Due to this increase in visibility on the labor market, Muslims have been portrayed and stigmatized as undesired citizens (Kanmaz, 2002).

The scholarship of Islam is Belgium harks back to the 1980s and therefore is quite young in comparison to anti-Semitism research (Mescoli, 2017a; Taras, 2013). The Belgian discourse on Islam departed in the early 1990. On November 24th 1991, the far right-wing party Flemish Blok (Vlaams Blok) won the elections and increased from two to twelve seats in the parliament. This day is still known as ‘black sunday’. Flemish Blok uses a political discourse centered on Flemish nationalism and racial mindset towards non-EU migrants (Zemni, 2011). Ever since this ‘black sunday’ discourses on migration and Islam became a more significant political matter and led to normalizing Islamophobic slurs and insults.

In Belgium the idea of a homogenic Belgian society as the starting point of the community still rules (Zemni, 2011). In the Belgian public discourse on Islam, Muslims are routinely depicted as a homogeneous group isolated from the general public. These forms of representing Muslims can be seen as what Willem Schinkel (2007) defines as ‘Culturism’, namely, Islam is depicted as a foreign threat to the European values. The so-called issues caused by Muslims are portrayed to be inherent of the Muslim community. Additionally, in this discourse Muslims rarely participate (Zemni, 2011).

In Europe, Muslims are often characterized as ‘the Other.’ (Djelloul & Maréchal, 2014). This orientalist mindset is strengthened by the association of the recent attacks and their alleged Islamic foundation of action (Mescoli, 2017a). The idea of Islam as contradictory to European values is thereby enhanced (Djelloul & Maréchal, 2014). Overall, the Belgian discourse on

Muslims is characterized as a Huntingtonian ‘clash of civilizations’ (Zemni, 2011). A ‘clash of civilizations‘ is a way of measuring a civilization by comparing to another civilization. In this clash the emphasis is put on social issues and the conflict between different cultures and worldviews. In the Islamophobic discourse the current depiction of Muslims is a tool to interpret socioeconomic issues as cultural issues (Zemni, 2011). The clash-of-civilizations, which mostly indicates the demonization of Muslims has been going on for roughly 1 400 years. This timeframe shows that anti Muslims sentiments were present before the concept of Islamophobia arose (Taras, 2013).

In the Belgian discourse the, mostly Islamic, culture of ‘immigrants’ is still seen as the biggest difficulty for integration (Zemni, 2011). In Flanders Muslims are characterized as threats in the media and by politicians (Zemni, 2011). This characterization can generate “xeno- racist” attitudes towards Muslims (Fekete, 2004).

The political system of Belgium consists of two divided systems. The social and cultural discrepancy between Belgium and Wallonia are its main cause (Billiet, Maddens & Frognier, 2006). Flanders is the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. Being Flemish can be a sub- identity to being Belgian. The conservation of Flemish cultural heritage is related to the Flemish cultural identity. Possible outlooks towards migrants and Muslims are divergent in Wallonia as in Flanders. This divergence could be seen as based on the differences in the Walloon and Flemish sub- identities. While, Walloons worry about the outsider’s economic threat, Flemings worry more about preserving their culture (Billiet, Maddens & Frognier, 2006). This has lead to a regular stereotyping of Flemings being xenophobic. In Flanders, language and religion represent the most present symbolic boundaries between Flemish people and ‘outsiders’.

In addition to separate political systems, culture and media are also completely disconnected from one another. In Flanders there are no Francophone newspapers or other media, and vice versa (Billiet, Maddens & Frognier, 2006). Each community has their own monolingual media station. The differences in cultures, social sensitivities, preferences and customs are enhanced by following state reforms. All these differences combined, make up the decision to only include comments on Flemish newspapers as data.

1.2. Academic and societal relevance

Many existing articles explain the polarisation of Belgian opinions on Muslims and Belgian Islamophobia. However language has an important effect on discourse and the manner in which anger and prejudice is expressed. Therefore it is valuable to explore Flanders as a more specific Dutch speaking research population. Additionally, the cultural identities in Wallonia and Flanders appears to be divergent. Thus Islamophobia in the French and Dutch communities are bound to play out differently as well. Elsa Mescoli (2017a) investigated the discursive content of Islamophobia in Belgium. However, her research was not specified to survey the particularities of Flanders on the operations of Islamophobia on the internet. This thesis seeks to fill in this research gap.

According to different authors (Awan, 2014; Feldman, Littler, Dack & Copsey, 2013; Zemni 2011), online Islamophobia is an under researched subject within the growing literature on Islamophobia. Online newspapers and social media posts on Muslims have been previously researched (Zemni, 2011), however, the readers’ reactions and comments to those news articles have not been analyzed in the Flemish context yet. Independent reactions to news articles on right-wing anti-Islam statements have not yet been looked into in depth (Ekman, 2015). Multiple Flemish newspapers are known for their readers’ extreme reactions on their news websites. Imran Awan (2014) argues that the amount of online anti-Muslim hate and prejudice has been on the rise, and thus cyber hate continues to be a complicated issue. Awan (2014) also urges to explore this field more thoroughly. Against this background, this thesis seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon of online Islamophobia.

2. Research questions

The main research question for this thesis reads: Which dominant narratives of Islamophobia are present in the online comments of Het Laatste Nieuws and De Standaard up to one month after the terrorist attacks in Brussels in 2016? Sub- questions complementing this main line of inquiry are:

- How are the comments on news outlets Facebook pages being used by the commentators to describe and represent Muslims?

- Which are the main differences, if any, in the comments on Islam between the different newpapers the Het Laatste Nieuws and De Standaard?

- How do encoding, decoding and the interaction between the articles and their comments operate?

3. Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework guiding this research is based on the conceptualization of online and offline Islamophobia and cyber hate, while being complemented by the Runnymede trust (2017) discussion of Islamophobia and Mescoli’s (2017a) research on the dominant narratives of Islamophobia in the Belgian context.

3.1. Islamophobia

Islamophobia represents not only a challenge in Belgium and Flanders, but as different research has shown Islamophobia has become normalized throughout Europe (ENAR, 2011; Lorimer, 2016; Runnymede Trust, 2017). Islamophobia comprises the discriminatory behaviour towards a minority group (Muslims) whilst paying attention to the cultural practices of that community. This is a typical trait in racism and prejudice. In contemporary Europe, racism lies more focus on cultural practices than on “race” itself. Therefore Islamophobia fits within the classification of anti-Muslim racism (Runnymede Trust, 2017). Islamophobia will be defines in this thesis as:

any distinction, exclusion, or restriction towards, or preference against, Muslims (or those perceived to be Muslims) that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life. (Runnymede trust, 2017).

The elements of Islamophobia by the Runnymede trust (2017) largely overlap with the themes of dominant Islamophobic narratives in Belgium previously illustrated. Therefore I used the the ten dominant Islamophobic narratives by Mescoli (2017a) as the main theoretical framework during this thesis. The narratives take place in three overlapping domains: politics, mass-media and everyday life. During this thesis attention is mostly paid towards the mass- media domain. Within the mass-media domain three main themes tend to recur, namely, “Islam threatens Belgian traditions”, “a process of radicalization of Muslims is underway in Belgium” and “Brussels is turning into a Muslim city (Mescoli, 2017a).” Furthermore, Mescoli (2017a, p.18) describes 10 dominant Islamophobic narratives in Belgium. They are the following;

- Islamic practices need to be secularized to be accepted in Western societies

- Veiling is incompatible with Western values and local rules

- Islamic belonging (claimed or assigned) is a prior identity marker

- Islam threatens Belgian traditions

- Brussels is turning into a Muslim city

- A process of radicalization of Muslims is underway in Belgium

- Islam is (and Muslims are) a problem for Western societies

- Islam as an easy target of derision

- Islamic religion legitimates extreme forms of oppression against women

- Mosques do not have their place in the local context

3.2. Islamophobia and racism

In the Islamophobia scholarship hardly any attention is paid to the association between race and Islam (Meer, 2013). Islamophobia can be identified as a type of racism. An additional racial dynamic is brought about by religion, which confirms that racism cannot only relate to ascription of skin color. However, religion does connect to ascription of color (Naber, 2008). Racism against Islam is distinct from previous forms of racism in history. Islamophobia is based on Orientalism (Said, 1985). 1Islam, to Islamophobes, is prove of all that wrong with everything non-Western. Which inevitably confirms what is right about the West (Sayyid, 2011). Nevertheless, the goal of modern anti-Islam sentiments is not to civilize others but to mediate in conflicts based on humanitarian principles. It is not as much seizing resources as it is distributing democracy (Sayyid, 2011).

Modern racism has generated anti-Semitism and anti-Negritude as white suprematist concepts (Taguieff 2008). They were later supplemented by anti-Arabism and anti-Islamism

1 Orientalism according to Said (1978, pp. 1-2.) is “a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience. The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. Yet none of this is merely imaginative. The Orient is an integral part of European material civilization and culture. Orientalism expresses and represents that part culturally and even ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, and even colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles.”

13 or Islamophobia (Taras, 2013). According to Taguieff (2008) these types of white suprematist racism have three things in common. Firstly, they classify people in terms of their imputed community of origin. These communities of origin are seen as a fundament in these people’s identities. Secondly, people within these classifications are excluded and stigmatized in an absolute manner. The pervasiveness of Islamophobic mindsets can be explained through racialization based on religion, race, culture and ethnicity. These variables make it possible to categorize groups of people within a fusion of these variable as inferior and threatening (Bleich, 2006). Lastly, the people in the classifications are regarded as barbaric, uncivilized, uneducated and inferior (Taguieff, 2008).

The anti-immigration and anti-minority discourses in Europe are umbrella notions for the Islamophobic discourse (Taras, 2013). Returning to the topic of the connection between anti-semitism and anti-Muslim sentiments, in contemporary Europe Muslims are portrayed as conspiring in order to take over the world, which may result in the formation of a new entity called Eurabia (Ye’or, 2001).

In public discourse, Islamophobia as form of racism is often contested based of two main arguments: First, by differentiatingreligion from ethnic groups and second by characterizing religion as voluntarily chosen. Firstly, some policymakers believe Islamophobia cannot be categorized as racism because Muslims are not a race. Therefore technically racism against something that does not exist is not possible (Sayyid, 2011), a position that assumes the existances of races. In contrast to these believes Sayyid (2011) argues that race is also affected by social and political circumstances.

Secondly when discussing anti-Muslim sentiments, the argument of racism towards Muslims as a minority cannot be similar to racism towards racial minorities comes up regularly (Sayyid, 2011). This argument is substantiated by the idea that religion is a free choice. Subsequently, being Muslims is seen as a choice, in comparison to race which is supposedly determined by birth. Therefore it is thought that people being victim of racism based on race deserve more legal protection than Muslims. This train of thought on racism against Muslims overlooks that Muslims do not have the choice to be born in a Muslim household (Meer & Modood, 2009).

In public discourses earlier racist worries are often replaced by worries concerning. While historic racism is torn into pieces, Muslims as a anti heros can fill in those shreds in racism (Sayyid, 2011). The scapegoat of traditional racism is replaced with Muslims as a scapegoat.

Islamophobia is commonly refused to be seen as an issue. Complementary this is safeguarded as a practice. Islamophobia is not categorized as racism. Furthermore, it is understood as necessary as a rational reply to the Muslim threat of Western principles (Sayyid, 2011).

3.3. Social media

Possibilities for online communication have advanced immensely the past years. Social media has developed into an essential element in people's everyday lives (Curci-Wallis, 2019). Online communication platforms, among which online social networks, have become more available to a larger public through the availability of laptops and smartphones (Lapidot-Lefler & Barak , 2012).

The notion of public sphere can be transferred to an online social sphere. Public discourse is attainable online through individuals using social media (Çela, 2015; Rasmussen 2008). Social media platforms have revolutionized public discourse (Çela, 2015). Social media platforms can be a new manner to distribute news to a broader audience (Welbers & Opgenhaffen, 2019). The news is more and more defined by social media networks (Clark & Marchi, 2017).

All kinds of different news outlets that circulate their news, cause there to be more varied news topics going around in the online public discourse. This broader assortment of news messages to a broader audience, consequently generates a broader amount of reactions on these news messages (Rasmussen, 2008). Online social media are fully-fledged public spheres. Just as Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN) and De Standaard (DS) state in their codes of conduct on Facebook, they facilitate and encourage online social dialogue (Rasmussen, 2008). The interactivity is thought to empower the online audience (Beyers, 2004).

Websites whose content is partially created by its users is what En-Chieh Chao (2015) named ‘Web 2.0’ and many social media websites are precisely categorized as ‘Web 2.0’ websites. Online commenting sections are a sub-division of Web 2.0. Below news articles,

15 readers are encouraged to give comments and discuss the topics touched upon the articles. These online commenting sections offers to the audience a platform to express opinions that would normally not being expressed publicly (Darwish, Magdy, Rahimi, Baldwin, Abokhodair, 2018). Thus, online commenting sections are convenient for spreading hate speech given the benefit of anonymity (Hlavach & Freivogel, 2011).

News outlets have a great share in providing information. This share is even greater regarding to topics the general public typically has little access to. Everyday news outlets decide which news articles to publish. Additionally news outlets make linguistic decisions on wording etc. which will form the public opinion and perception of current matters in the world (McCombs, 2014). In the case of a crisis situation such as a terror attack, the population is in need of mass media to inform oneself and search for explanations to process the event (Heyndrickx, 2014).

3.4. Facebook

Facebook has become an online platform for news outlets to circulate their news messages, next to being an online communication platform. Many news outlets have by now their own Facebook page on which they post their news articles. Facebook users only have to follow a news outlets’ Facebook page to receive notifications of the latest news. Moreover, the majority of news articles shared on news outlets’ Facebook pages are free of charge. This makes these news outlets’ Facebook pages convenient for their readers. The news outlets’ Facebook pages have comment sections for their readers to reveal their opinions on the articles. In the comment sections the readers’ comments on the articles and the articles’ topics are often discussed (Curci-Wallis, 2019).

The most used social media platform in the world is Facebook. In 2019, Facebook had 2 498 billion active users per months (Statista, 2019). Using Facebook is a way to interact with other people. According to Simon Lindgren (2017), interaction with others is what binds a society together. Therefore, Facebook is an element that binds society together as well. Facebook is considered to be the most substantial social network for reading and sharing news (Newman, Fletcher, Levy & Nielsen, 2016). Unfortunately the lack of action undertaken by Facebook itself against cyber hate towards Muslims encouraged even more cyber hate (Oboler, 2016).

3.5. Cyberhate

In the existing literature there is no consensus on a single definition of cyber hate. Awan (2014) defines cyber hate as “the nexus of those communications and concepts where a perpetrator utilizes electronic technology and the convergence of space, movement and behavior in a ‘safe’ virtual environment to ‘control’ and target ‘opponents’ considered to be a ‘threat’ ” (Awan & Blakemore, 2012).

The circulation of opinions became more accessible with the rise of electronic means. The internet can both segregate and bring together communities in a cyberspace (Perry & Olsson, 2009). The internet is socially generated and this is again culturally informed (Castells, 2001). Many users of the internet see it as a lawless space with very little consequences. Comment sections are difficult to regulate since the paradox of freedom of speech is not yet fully regulated by all governments. Moreover, the internet gives the advantage of anonymity (Hlavach & Freivogel, 2011; Perry & Olsson, 2009).

The face to face contact in offline social setting can create social pressure. People tend to not speak their mind in offline communication out of fear for instant backlash against their statements. In online communication people are likely to speak their minds more easily because in the case of online backlash at their comments, ignoring this backlash is as easy as going offline (Curci-Wallis, 2019).

In online communication a highly discussed concept is the online disinhibition effect. The online disinhibition effect is defined as “a lowering of behavioral inhibitions in the online environment” (Joinson, 2007, p. 76; Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2012). Curci-Wallis (2019) it is described as a lowering of psychological restraints to conceal emotions and undisclosed needs in online interpersonal behaviours (Joinson, 2007). Many social behaviour in cyberspace is ascribed to the online disinhibition effect. This social behaviour can be positive such as offering help and philanthropy or it can be negative such as online flaming and verbal attacks (Joinson, 2001). Negative portrayals of the online disinhibition effects are not revealed in the actual, offline social world (Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2012).

A conventional form of toxic online disinhibition is online flaming behaviour (Alonzo & Aiken, 2004). Online flaming behaviour is the practise in online communication of expressing hostile remarks towards others (Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2012). Online flaming involves multiple linguistic decisions such as profanity, offensive nicknames, threats,

17 aggression and improper sexual comments (Dyer, Green, Pitts, & Millward, 1995). Online flaming can be boosted and portrayed through many question marks, exclamation points and capital letters (Turnage, 2007).

There are two factors that can influence the occurrence of the online disinhibition effect. First, there is anonymity, the perception of anonymity can generate a sensation of not being accountable for one’s negative acting. This feeling of not being held accountable for one’s actions can boost undertakings of toxic online disinhibition (Christopherson, 2007). Anonymity is intended as unidentifiable instead of nameless. Being unidentifiable involves other Facebook commentators not knowing personal features such as profession and address (Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2012). Second, online disinhibition can be increased by invisibility. The majority of online communication occurs without visuals. Most online communication is in written form. Online textual communication has the quality of being dependent on others’ level of awareness, perception, acknowledgement and recognition (Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2012). Hereby social presence is decreased. This can contribute to a process of deindividuation based on communication. Subsequently, occurrences of online disinhibition take place.

3.6. Online Islamophobia

Aside from the multiple definitions of Islamophobia, Awan (2014) advocates for an independent definition of online Islamophobia. Accordingly, the level of attention given to street level Islamophobia should also be given to online Islamophobia for the influence of both forms of Islamophobia is reciprocal. On the one hand, physical Islamophobia has an impact on the online angers towards Muslims online. On the other hand, the expansion of online Islamophobia can cause the normalization of online misconducts and escalate into physical Islamophobia (Allport, 1954; Matamoros-Fernández, 2018).

Muslims more often than not are perceived online as a subordonate group and are routinely attacked online because of their faith (Perry, 2001). The base of online extremist messages is often common racial lineage which is associated with an idea of common values and culture (Kaplan & Bjorgo, 1998). Online Islamophobia has increased ever since the terror attacks on 9/11/2001. In various countries an online atmosphere was constructed which facilitated anti-Muslim sentiments in Facebook comment sections (Amnesty International, 2012). In online communication a group of passive participants condemning other commentators’ Islamophobic statements, namely the bystanders. News outlets play a

18 considerable roles in the group of Islamophobic bystanders that increases more and more (Taras, 2013).

In social media discourses emotional reactions to social and political issues get more attention that reasoned arguments (Yardi & Boyd, 2010). Therefore, Facebook reactions and comments have become a profitable manner of putting anger into motion, becoming a power instrument (Ost, 2004). Conclusions of association of Muslims with certain issues are made by the public without having the proper arguments (Mescoli, 2017a). Often there is a presumed Islamic influence and often Muslims are represented as the scapegoat for unrelated problems (Vercauteren, 2005).

In existing research on online Islamophobia in Belgium, Facebook reactions are often debated. Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández (2018) discussed how Facebook reactions can be an instrument for expressing hatred towards certain groups. Portraying the “other” as inferior or the enemy can become a mean to protect the interest of specific identities over others (Dunn, Klocker & Salabay, 2007). This is what Matamoros-Fernández (2018) called ‘platformed racism’, in which Islamophobia in particular stands in as ‘a form of racism that reinforces cultural privilege (Matamoros-Fernández, 2018).’ In this sense, as Liz Fekete (2004) argues, patterns of racism inform the European Islamophobic mindset. Furthermore, the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims in the media exacerbates the dissemination of hateful narratives, which regularly occur in the readers’ comments on a certain articles in the media (Mescoli, 2017a).

4. Research design and methods

This research will analyze Facebook comments of Het Laatste Nieuws and De Standaard news articles regarding the Brussels terrorist attacks in 2016. I collected the data from the news outlets Facebook pages. The fitting analysis is Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis. Besides the meaning of the comments in question, the semiotic choices made by the commentators will also be examined. I created a custom conceptual model which illustrates the data analysis further.

4.1. Data

The type of data I used in this thesis are written Facebook comments on articles concerning the Brussels terrorist attacks on 16/03/2016 on the Flemish news page on Facebook of Het Laatste Nieuws (“the latest news”) and De Standaard (“ the standard”). The timeframe within which the relevant comments were analysed is one month after the attacks: 22/03/2016-22/04/2016.

Within the field of the Flemish written press a distinction between popular and quality newspapers has been made (Manssens & Walgrave, 1998). On the one hand, De Standaard represents an example of a high quality newspaper (De Bens, 1997; Stouthuysen, 1999). De standaard is known to provide more background information than other Flemish news papers (De Bens & Raeymaeckers, 2010). The readers of high quality newspapers have to put in effort to read the articles. This is known as news with a ‘delayed reward.’ (Jansen, 1987; Stouthuysen, 1999). The division between news and opinion articles are clear for news papers categorized as quality newspapers. The goal of quality news papers is generally to inform their readers, not to entertain them with sensationalized news articles (Stouthuysen, 1999). The articles entail a broad international glance (Heyndrickx, 2014; Manssens & Walgrave, 1998). More political and judicial experts are heard in the articles (Manssens & Walgrave, 1998). The goal audience of a quality newspaper is highly educated and from a higher social class (Santeddu, 2018). A conventional online DS reader is an employed male aged 45 to 54. This typical reader has a university diploma (Beyers, 2004). Because the goal audience differs from a popular newspapers’ goal audience, the content and language use also vary (Santeddu, 2018).

On the other hand, Het Laatste Nieuws can be seen as an example of a more popular Flemish newspaper (De Bens & Raeymaeckers, 2010). HLN is known to be the most popular newspaper in Flanders (Heyndrickx, 2014). Popular newspapers can be defined as newspapers

20 with ‘immediate rewards’ (Jansen, 1987; Stouthuysen, 1999). The readers do not have to put in much effort to understand and process the news. The topics of popular newspapers’ articles regard mostly sports, regional and sensational news (Jansen, 1987). The division between articles with the goal to inform the audience or entertain the audience are faded (Stouthuysen, 1999). The goal audience of popular news papers concerns all ages and social classes (Persgroep Advertising, 2018). The reports on terrorism are more frequent and easily digestible (Jansen, 1987; Stouthuysen, 1999). The reports in terrorism are shaped by the interest of the audience to increase a sensational, entertaining reputation (Heyndrickx, 2014). Popular news papers are more likely to let victims, witnesses and family take the floor (Heyndrickx, 2014; Manssens & Walgrave, 1998).

Additionally, I chose the two newspapers in question for their distinct publishing houses. In Flanders only four publishing houses dominate the news industry. Het Laatste Nieuws is published by ‘de Persgroep’ (‘The Press Group’), while De Standaard is published by ‘Mediahuis’ (‘Media House’). The difference between HLN as a popular newspaper and DS as a quality newspaper can be explained because of their distinct publishing houses (Heyndrickx, 2014).

A third reason for selecting Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN) and De Standaard (DS) for this thesis has to do with the Belgian communities. The three Belgian communities have three associated languages. Both newspapers are in Flemish. Solely the comments from news articles concerning the research question will be selected for further analysis. The comments were published as reactions to the news articles regarding the terrorist attacks in the airport of Zaventem and the metro-station of Maelbeek. The timeframe in which the comments will be analysed is 22/03/2016 until 22/04/2016. Therefore the findings will only be able to describe the results concerning this period and these two newspapers.

Both HLN and DS have a code of conduct on their Facebook pages. From these code of conducts I selected the regulations relevant to online Islamophobia. DS declares the following: “While you are here, you can share your opinion with others, which is very valuable to the debate. Please avoid the following affairs: personal attacks, racist or discriminatory comments, encouragement of self-injury or death, trolling and commenting with a false profile. If you do not pay attention to these matters and we notice this, we will remove your reaction. If you violate these agreements several times, you will be removed from this page. That is waste of your and our time, but necessary to keep the debate decent.”

HLN presents the following code of conduct: “HLN keeps you informed on this Facebook page about what is happening at home and abroad. We think it is important that everyone can give his or her opinion, but we want it to remain pleasant for everyone. This is why there are a number of guidelines that we urge everyone to adhere to. Respect: opinions are free, but keep in mind that not everyone necessarily agrees with your opinion. Keep your reactions substantive and well-founded and also express your opinion with respect for the other person. Expressions of racism, discrimination, sexism or negationism cannot be accepted. Nor are reactions that offend, taunt, discriminate, bully, threaten or unnecessarily hurt others.”

4.2. Data collection

Using the method of data collection for this thesis I gathered and organized the comments on news articles from the two newspapers on their Facebook page. As a first step, I scanned all titles of news articles within the timeframe for both newspapers. The used search terms were the Flemish words for attack, terrorist, bomb, Zaventem, Maalbeek and terrorist attack. Additionally, the articles including any of the suspects of the attacks were incorporated into the data collection. The suspects within the timeframe were Najim Laacharoui, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, Khalid El Bakraoui, Salah Abdeslam, Mohamed Abrini and Osama Krayem. If a news article title is relevant to the research, it was preserved for further analysis.

As a second step, I gathered the relevant articles and their comments. Each preserved article and its comments were given a code. For example: the first relevant article from the HLN Facebook page got the code: “HLN1.” All preserved articles were evaluated for a second time. Resulting in some articles not being included for further analysis. The main exclusion criteria hereby was the titles including the names of suspects. Since a few of the suspects were also suspects in the Paris attacks a few months prior. However this research is not regarding the Paris attacks.

In total 73 articles were included from the HLN Facebook page. This resulted in 21 575 comments on those articles in question. From the DS Facebook page, 92 articles were included for further analysis. The amount of comments on these articles is 6841. The sum including all analyzed comments is 28 416. The comments are collected per article in a document. In appendix 2 and appendix 3 an overview can be found regarding the articles, amount of comments per article and translated titles.

However, many comments are not concerning the titles or Islamophobia. Yet I made additional notes about less relevant comments because they can give more insight in the context of other more relevant comments. This data collection method has multiple advantages, namely, the amount of data is large and accessible. The main challenge when using this data collection method is that it is time consuming.

4.3. Data analysis

The research questions will be explored deductively except for one. The definition for online Islamophobia will be formed inductively. The level of analysis this thesis will focus on will be the Islamophobic Facebook comments on Flemish online news articles about Islam after the Brussels’ bombing in 2016. Thus, the people that wrote these comments had to be able to understand Flemish and the articles. Furthermore, they had to have access to the articles and their online Facebook commenting sections. The commenters will be anonymized since the research does not focus on who commented, instead on what was commented.

The selected data will be analysed through discourse analysis. A relationship between different texts is central in discourse analysis. In this thesis I paid attention to the relation between the articles and their online comments. Discourse analysis has the aim to research social relations and draw conclusions which may set off social change (Jorgensen & Philips, 2002). The correspondence of information about underlying mental states and behaviour is not the only function of language. Instead language brings about the social world and social relations (Jorgensen & Philips, 2002). Discourses too add to the development of the structures of meaning and knowledge, social relations and social identities (Jorgensen & Philips, 2002).

4.3.1. Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis

Within the discourse analysis field, I utilized Fairclough’s outlook on critical discourse analysis (CDA). Discourse, according to Fairclough (1992), is not a one way street, but rather, constitutive and constituted. All instances of language use are a communicative occurrence entailing three dimensions, namely text, discursive practice and social practice (Fairclough, 1992). The first dimension is text. Text includes visual imagery, writing and speech. The analysis of a text pays attention to the linguistic aspects like vocabulary, grammar, syntax and sentence coherence. For the analysis of a text Fairclough (1992) suggests multiple instruments. For instance, grammar, wording, metaphors and interactional control.

The second dimension is the discursive practice. A discursive practice concerns the consumption and production of texts. “Analysis of discursive practice focuses on how authors of texts draw on already existing discourses and genres to create a text, and on how receivers of texts also apply available discourses and genres in the consumption and interpretation of the texts (Fairclough, 1992).”

The third and final dimension is the social practice. Social practice involves the larger social practice of which text and discursive practice belong to. Discursive practice mediated in the exchange between text and social practice. For the analysis of social practices social and cultural theory as a non-discursive aspect are essential (Fairclough, 1992).

The data analysis consists of two components which will be utilized simultaneously. The first component is the content of the comments concerning the research questions. Pieces of comments will be coded with previously created labels within a labelling list. Furthermore, other labels can be created inductively during the coding process. The additional labels are labels that depict Muslims in an unfavorable way through other reappearing declarations, patterns, thoughts and stereotypes.

The second component of the data analysis pays more attention to the linguistics. To do so four possible semiotic decisions made by commentators will be analyzed. Most of these semiotic decisions are understood as representational strategies (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Representational strategies are semiotic decisions that can used to depict others in pleasant or unpleasant way. Machin and Mayr (2012) state that up until this day a neutral manner to depict another person does not occur. All decisions made to depict a person will accentuate particular features of identity. Which are themselves related to specific sorts of discourses. Commentators on Facebook can use representational strategies to accentuate features of Muslim identities (Curci-Wallis, 2019). Drawing attention to specific features of others’ Muslim identities can lead to possibly false associations regarding that identity (Machin & Mayr, 2012).

The semiotic decisions that I used to analyze the Facebook comments in question are the following:

● Specification-genericization

This semiotic decision considers whether a person depicted is described as a generic kind or as a specific individual (Machin & Mayr, 2012). For example: the description of a man as a

24 specific individual acting in the world gives a different impression than that man being described as a Muslims man acting in the world.

● Nomination-functionalization

This semiotic decision evaluates whether a person is described considering their nomination or considering their function. Deciding to represent another person in terms of their function reduces them to their role (Machin & Mayr, 2012). For example: the connotation associated with the statement “Tom wants to install a new bike parking in his village” is very different from “The major wants to install a new bike parking in his village.”

● Aggregation

This semiotic decision assess when persons are talked about as if they are quantifiable or statistics. Machin and Mayr (2012) provide the example of “Many thousands of immigrants are arriving in city X.” Aggregation can imply that it is supported by scientific evidence when in fact it is not (Van Dijck, 1991).

● Us versus them division

This semiotic decision analyzes pronouns like “us” opposite to the others or “them.” This indicates an own group with “our” ideas opposite to a collective “other” with other ideas (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The us versus them division introduces the thought of otherness. However, “we” is an ambiguous word choice since it is hardly ever clear who “we” are (Fairclough, 2002).

4.3.2. Hall’s encoding and decoding

Following Stuart Hall (1991) and contrary to dominant views, audiences to news articles are not passive subjects. News outlets produces messages. Relying upon their socio-economic and political background and personal experiences audiences make sense of these messages. The reactions on news outlets’ messages leave a footprint on the internet. Hall’s (1991) theory of communication has four steps. The first step is production. Here the message is created by using the society’s values and beliefs. During production the message is encoded. The second step is the circulation. At this step the way of presenting the message is decided and executed. The third step is usage or consumption. The audiences who received the messages decode the message. Because of diverse backgrounds of the audience, the encoding will also be diverse.

The fourth and last step is the reproduction. This step entails the responses after the previous steps.

4.4. Conceptual model

A research design is supposed to be custom-made for the particular qualities of that research (Jorgensen & Philips, 2002). Therefore, I created a custom-made conceptual model which illustrates the analytical framework below.

5. Results

In this section, I present the results of the data analysis, describing them in different categories. First of all, I explain the dominant narratives of how Muslims are described. Second, I describe the recognized dominant narratives. Next, I discuss the commentators’ semiotic decisions, to them explain differences between HLN and DS comments. And lastly, I describe the process of decoding and encoding. The findings will be complemented with direct quotes of the (anonymized) commentators on the Facebook pages of Het Laatste Nieuws and De Standaard, The quotes are translations from Flemish into English in order to prevent retrospective identification of the commentators.

5.1. Dominant narratives in descriptions Muslims

The dominant narratives when describing Muslims in this research design amounted to 1110 reactions in total. On HLN’s Facebook page there were 890 reactions that conform with dominant narratives. On DS’ Facebook page, only 220 reactions fit within this category.

5.1.1. Islamic practices need to be secularized to be accepted in Western societies The first dominant narrative to stand out concerns secularization. While in HLN, there were 150 comments concerning secularization, for DS there were only a total 39 comments. Throughout all of the comments express the desire to ban all religion. Not to the same degree but still a significant amount of times the desire to ban Islam specifically was articulated. The most common motivation for these desires was the idea of atheism. Commentator A. declares: “Don’t pray for Belgium. We’re an atheist country and aim to keep it that way.” Multiple commentators quote Karl Marx when commenting “Religion is the opium of the people.” A statement taking this even further is: “Religion the most common mental illness.”

However religion is acknowledged to be a bearer of hope in difficult times by a minority of the commentators. The emphasis of the comments’ desire to ban all religions, lies on the lack of scientific evidence for religion. Religion is viewed as outdated and medieval. Further commenting on this topic, commentator B addresses the Belgian government: “As a government, just stop subsidizing religions.”Allah or God is mentioned as an imaginary friend on multiple occasions. Two commentators ironically state to being a “pastafarian” or believing in “the holy jar of chocolate spread.” Commentator C even suggests to “put the Quran under

27 the category of fairytale books.” Islam is described to be used as an excuse to kill. Islam is said to equate to terror, violence and misery.

5.1.2. Veiling is incompatible with Western values and local rules For HLN, there were 26 comments and for DS 22 comments concerning headscarves. The statement “the headscarf is incompatible with Western values and local rules” is frequently mentioned. It is the most prevailing comment on this topic. This opinion is explained through the idea that headscarves insinuate that the person wearing a headscarf has not adapted very well to society. Additionally the non-headscarf wearing community has been thought if as already tolerant enough towards other concerns.

A second commonly expressed opinion is that wearing a headscarf is a form of female oppression. Many commentators share the idea that Muslim women only wear headscarves because of social pressure from other Muslims. Headscarves are referred to by the derogatory term: “kopvodden” or “animal head rags.” The Dutch language makes a difference between human heads and animal heads. The term “kop” or “animal head” creates the term to be even more racialy derogatory.

Thirdly, many commentators do not explicitly specify that headscarves are thought to be incompatible with Western values and local rules. Though these same commentators nevertheless have the opinion that headscarves are inappropriate in the Belgian society. These commentators express fear of non-Muslim women being forced to wear headscarves in the future. An example of such comment is provided by commentator D.: “I don’t plan on wearing a headscarf.” Lastly a few commentators claim to think headscarves are a form of provocation and a political statement, rather than related to only religion. Commentator E. discloses the following idea: “ I am also disgusted by those headscarves, it shocks me again and again and I think it is merely provocation.”

5.1.3. Islamic belonging is a prior identity marker This component of dominant Islamophobic narratives gives an impression of confusion. The distinction between being non-white, being foreign and being Muslim is often mixed up. From time to time Islamic belonging was confused with being foreign. For example, some commentators assumed that all Moroccans are Muslim.

Apart from foreign belonging as a prior identity maker, Muslim belonging as a prior identity maker was only mentioned a few times. A handful of Muslim scholars, journalists and politicians were discredited in the comments for being Muslim. Dyab Abou Jahjah was discredited in the comments. Abou Jahjah is a Belgian- Lebanese author and was an columnist for DS at the time of the Brussels attacks. Dyab Abou Jahjah is presented negatively in the comments mainly for being Muslim. Thereafter, Meyrem Almaci, a Turkish Muslim president of the Flemish environmental political party, was also discredited in the comments. It is emphasized that she is a foreigner with insufficient knowledge of the Dutch language. For example: “Significant doesn’t mean almost ‘all of them.’ However it is used by people who don’t know the nuance of the Dutch language like opinion makers and politicians like Abou Jahjah and Meyrem Almaci.” Regarding Almaci, she is additionally discredited for being a “foreigner” leading a political party in the Flemish government.

Other than Muslims in the public eye, other commentators are being discredited after stating they identify as Muslim. For example, a comment from commentator who stated she identified as Muslim was discredited with a simple: “Shut up, you are a Muslim whore.”

5.1.4. Islam threatens Belgian traditions The amount of comments regarding Islam threatening Belgian traditions on HLN articles is 112 while on DS articles there are only 22. The main standpoint on Islam threatening Belgian traditions is that Muslims do not integrate very well into Belgian society. Muslims put very little to no effort into adapting their ways to Belgian society. Muslims and integration do not go together. Some commentators like commentator I imply that Muslims try to impose their values onto the Belgian non-Muslim population and Islamize Western society. Commentator I narrates the following: “I came to the conclusion that when Muslims, who insist on multiculturalism and freedom of religion, when they become the majority, will want to replace multiculturalism with a monoculture, namely their Islam.” One of the commentators is the alleged ex- president of PEGIDA, and organization of Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West.

An additional remark that is regularly disclosed is the need to defend “our” values in response to Muslims imposing theirs on the non-Muslim community . Commentator F demonstrated this point of view by stating “it is true that we defend our particularity too little with regard to the demands of the Muslim community… We must show our own cultural norms

29 and values just as they (want to)do so and certainly not allow ourselves to be cornered.” One of the values ‘we’ should defend to a greater extent is the separation of church and state.

Other commentators suggest that Muslims do not comply to Belgian laws and instead only comply to Sharia law. Commentator G provides an example. “The Muslim population is concentrated in “their” neighborhoods (ghettos) and a statistically large part does not attempt to integrate and assimilate, but retains the character of life in their original country, their religion, their customs, laws, clothing, cultural customs and language. In a number of Western European countries, the laws of Sharia apply in entire neighborhoods in major cities, while the police and local authorities are afraid to enter.”

5.1.5. Brussels is turning into a Muslim city There were 245 comments for HLN and 29 comments for DS concerning Brussels as a upcoming Muslim city. The majority of comments on this topic concern Molenbeek-Saint- Jean, a submunicipality of the Brussels Capital Region. Many of the comments are critiquing Molenbeek as a result of the terrorist of the Paris attack hiding in Molenbeek before committing a second attack in Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station. Commentators have made the assumption that because the terrorists were able to hide in Molenbeek, Muslim residents on Molenbeek must have helped them. Further down in the results section, these assumptions will be explained. Many commentators have come up with derogatory nicknames associated with Islam for Molenbeek: Mollahbeek, Molenbeek-istan, Mosque-beek, Molen-shit, Blown-up- beek.” Throughout many reactions on various articles, commentators refer to “cleaning up Molenbeek.” This is a reference to a statement politician Jan Jambon, former minister of security and home affairs at the time of the statement, and current prime minister of Flanders. With the statement he expresses the desire to “separate the chaff from the wheat” or to remove and separate the radicalized terrorists from the Muslim community in Molenbeek. The statement was made following the arrest of two terrorists responsible for the Paris attack. Molenbeek is also known as the “terrorist municipality.” In reference to Muslims, Brussels is introduced as a “hotbed” and “breeding pond.” Commentator J describes Brussels as “Muslims and more Muslims.” In addition to Molenbeek, Brussels was also described through derogatory nicknames associated with Islam: “The new Lebanon, IslamBrussels, Brussel- okko”.

5.1.6. A process of radicalization of Muslims is underway in Belgium For this dominant narrative I encounter for HLN 141 reactions and for DS 43 reactions. Various commentators express a scare of radicalization and extremism. Commentator K stated the following: “… You do not understand that radicalism is simply part of Islam.” The commentators understand radicalization as invisible and hidden in public. Commentator L clarifies this perspective as follows: “We cannot see with the naked eye who is an extremist and who is not.” This perspective goes on by statements suggesting that Muslims can very much distinguish radicalized Muslims in their community with the naked eye. Therefore multiple commentators have the opinion that Muslims should take responsibility for radicalization. Muslims should resolve the problem of radicalization within their community.

The majority of the comments regarding radicalization concern speculations and theories about its causes. The causal theories of radicalization differ quite strongly between the comments on HLN or DS articles.

The commentators of HLN articles came up with four plausible causal theories. The first cause is ascribed to the lousy integration of Muslims in Belgian society. The second possible cause could be the ‘bad imams’ who proclaim messages of radicalization and recruit young Muslims for ISIS. Thirdly, Muslims are thought to radicalize in prison. Finally, the radicalization is also ascribed to Muslims’ disadvantaged situations, discrimination, unemployment and consequently frustration. Overall the commentators mention their theories rather swiftly. Additionally, they do not go into detail as off to why they consider these factors to be plausible causes for Muslim radicalization. 2

A few examples from the HLN comments: “For every terrorist that is arrested, ten additional youths radicalize”, “Large parts of the Muslim community refuse to integrate and even seem to distance themselves from the (native) Flemings. Perhaps this is not directly responsible for the attacks, but it does promote radicalization.”

The commentators of DS articles came up with six possible causes for Muslim radicalization. Firstly, a commentator suspects radicalization to be caused through online recruitment. The second possible cause is ascribed to disadvantaged neighborhoods with frustrated residents. The third potential cause is a continuation of the second cause. These frustrated residents of these disadvantaged neighborhoods are, according to the commentators, often migrants and Muslims who cannot identify with the Belgian identity, which causes even more frustration. The Muslims in question are thought to struggle with the complex reality of dislocation from social, cultural and moral religious contexts. Additionally multiple commentators suggest radicalization is generated by the Muslim upbringing and culture. The last two possible causes have to do with politics. The commentators believe radicalization was facilitated by the government’s excessively negligent policy regarding radicalization. Lastly, numerous commentators insist that radicalization is provoked by the European interference in the Middle East and European bombings in Syria. 3

These last two plausible causes were mentioned countless times by both HLN and DS commentators. The Belgian government as the culprit of the Brussels attacks or as incapable to make good decisions after the Brussels attacks was mentioned 1403 times. This is an exceptional amount of comments about one cause for one dominant narrative considering the total amount of comments regarding all dominant narratives about Islam is 1110.

Aside from causes of radicalization the HLN and DS comments conform on two standpoints. First off there is an understanding that the majority of radicalized Muslims are young or adolescents. The second conformation is illustrated by a statement by commentator M: ”A moderate Islam does not exist at all, it is an invention (hope) of the West.”

5.1.7. Islam is (and Muslims are) a problem for Western societies Islam being a problem for Western societies is not as prevalent as a dominant Islamophobic narrative in the comment sections. In the comments on HLN articles it only appears as a

3 A few examples from the DS comments: “By bombing places over there and then leaving a snake pit behind … that does contribute to radicalization here”, “There are other socioeconomic causes that facilitate radicalization more easily. Period.”

32 dominant narrative 12 times while in DS comments it is apparent four times. The main concern regarding Islam is the standpoint that the Western culture and Islamic culture are too different and thereby it is impossible to coexist in the Belgian society. This standpoint originates in the idea that Muslims residing in Belgium do not make much effort to adjust their norms, values and ways of doing things to the Western norms and values. Three commentators wrote that Islam does not fit into Western societies because Muslims have anti-Western values, such as homophobia, a totalitarian ideology and the urge to conquer. One commentator reacted with the following statement: “Muslims have anti-Western values, they are all scum→ big problem!” Some commentators even state that Muslims in Western countries do not assimilate to the Western way of life. This commentator implies that assimilation instead of integration is the goal for the Belgian society. Various times commentators made the same remarks: “This is Western Europe and for all those who can not accept our norms and values, you may leave. Bye Bye.”

Other commentators make their opinion clear that they, as non-Muslims do not want to adjust their ways of life anymore to Islam. Some commentators disclosed that Muslims have implemented Sharia law instead of the national laws in major European cities. According to them this has escalated to the point where the local authorities do not dare to enter these burrows. Adding onto this opinion, others state that Muslims want everything in Western societies to be organized according to their religion. These commentators specify that the separation of church and state and democracy are Western values that Muslims are not familiar with.

A different argument as to why Muslims should adjust to a Western way of life is that when Westerners go to Islamic countries they would also have to adjust to Islamic values. The commentators with this opinion attach much value to mutual respect. The Western mindset, norms and values that Muslims allegedly disrespect, were not specified.

5.1.8. Islam is an easy object of derision In the comments on HLN articles, Islam was the object of derision 113 times in total, while in the comments on DS articles, a total of 29 times. The majority of jokes made by commentators are about the promised 72 virgins when Muslims arrive in paradise. A recurring joke suggests that “there will be no 72 virgins but a 72 year old virgin instead.” Additional variations on this joke are made using virgin men leading to homosexual activity or 72 goats. A second element

33 of Islam that is made fun of is eating halal. The majority of jokes are about Salah Abdeslam, one of the men responsible for the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks. Salah is regularly referred to as “salami”, a type of pork sausage. Salah is also referred to as “salaad or lettuce” since his name is pronounced similarly to the Flemish dialect word for lettuce. Besides nicknames for Salah Abdeslam, multiple commentators referred to IS as “Idiot State” instead of Islamic state.

In addition to these categorized jokes, all sorts of other jokes regarding Islam appeared in the comments. The proclamation often made before a Muslim terrorist attack “Allahu Akbar” is replaced with “Allah snack bar” since snack bars are regularly run by Muslims. Another example is “Islam-mieteke.” Islamiet is the Flemish word for Muslim person. However the word “Islamieteke” is a pun meaning “Islam-sissy.” A final illustration of a Muslim joke present in the comments is the following:

- Person A: Possible attack? - Person B: No, a Muslim farted

5.1.9. Islamic religion legitimates extreme forms of women oppression Regarding the oppression of Muslim women, HLN counts 51 comments and DS counts 19 comments. Returning to the dominant narrative regarding headscarves, this topic is most mentioned as a means used by Muslims to oppress women. Commentator P announced this standpoint while adding a peculiar opinion about Muslim women: “I am disgusted by all those rags here is our progressive society and I am disgusted by all the women who let themselves be oppressed.” In the comments there seems to be an overall consensus about the lack of equality between Muslim men and women. Some commentators realize that there also is no perfect equality between men and women in non-Muslim societies. However, these commentators state that non-Muslim societies are still a lot more progressive in trying to achieve that equality than Muslims. The comments on the DS articles give more of a general explanation of oppression, while the comments on the HLN articles provide specific illustrations of female oppression in Islam. Various instances are listed as types of of the oppresion of Muslim women, which are: honor killings, female child marriages, arranged marriages, domestic violence, women are not allowed to have their own opinion… For example, commentator Q reacted with:

“Moreover, the typically Flemish woman respects her values and norms, and she will usually try to cross the threshold and attempt to tell her story. For her there is no risk of retaliation, being rejected, shame about loss of virginity. But Muslim women usually do not dare to report their situation to the police. Domestic violence is even tolerated by their own family… .”

Someone else commented: “Good Muslims are just as bad as bad Muslims. They all approve of discrimination against women.”

Another recurring theme of the oppresion of Muslim women is rape. Commentator N lists many things he/she dislikes about Islam. This is a fragment of that list in question. “... Because it is not just terrorism, many assaults and rapes as well.” Commentator O takes this notion even further: “The Quran contains nothing but murder and rape.”

5.1.10. Mosques do not have their place in the local context In the HLN comments 39 comments suggested Mosques do not belong in the Belgian context. Ten DS commentators shared that opinion. Returning to the dominant narrative in regard to radicalization, Mosques are depicted as the hotbed of radicalization and imams preaching hate. Therefore many commentators believe mosques do not belong in Belgian society in so far as preaching hate and radicalization is perceived to be the opposite to integration. Subsequently mosques should stop receiving the Belgian government’s financial aid. This attitude towards mosques derives from the other dominant narrative considering secularization. While mosques continue to be subsidized by the Belgian government, the separation of church and state cannot be achieved as a “Western value.” Most of the comments in HLN articles express desire to demolish all mosques in Belgium without specific arguments to support that desire. The commentators on DS articles provided two apparent justifications for the desire to demolish mosques. The first argument is that feeling like the non-Muslim, mostly Christian community already tolerates a lot from Muslims. They feel like mosques are the final straw. The second argument is very specific. Commentator R goes into detail: “We are obliged to listen to the noise of the mosques and even several times a day.”

5.2. Alternative dominant narratives

Throughout the analysed comments, new dominant narratives additional to Mescoli’s dominant narratives of Islamophobia (2017a) stood out. I have clarified these alternative dominant narratives of online Islamophobia below.

5.2.1. Muslims provide their children with inadequate upbringing The narratives regarding Muslim upbringing occurred several times in both comment news outlets’ comment sections. The main attitude towards Muslim upbringing is that the commentators think Muslims do not raise their children well or Muslims do not raise their children at all. Commentator V disclosed the following: “Muslim parent and parenting? Contradictio in terminis.”

The narrative posits that Muslim parents spend too little time giving their children the attention they need. Some commentators believe Muslims cannot provide their children with enough attention simply because they have too many children. Commentator U stated: “The Muslims breed like rats, and then they feed that vipers’ brood but they forget to RAISE them !!!!” The inadequate Muslim upbringing generates a generation of frustrated Muslim youth according to many commentators.

In multiple comment sections, the suspicion about Muslims youth attacking the police and press when Salah Abdeslam was arrested in Molenbeek was very present and critiqued. Various commentators blame the Muslim youth’s parents for their unacceptable behaviour. The commentators with this opinion expressed their ideas for a suitable punishment for these Muslim youths in question. These comments are hostile and range from expulsion, community service, an end to the government’s child benefits for the families in question… to sending the families back “to their own country”, mandatory military service, chopping of the youth’s arms and legs and lastly, the death penalty. For example: “In my opinion the death penalty should be reintroduced for them, send them back to Syria and never let them in the country again.” Lastly, in numerous instances the Muslim upbringing is considered to be the cause of Muslim radicalization and terrorism.

5.2.2. Muslims support terrorism This additional narrative occurs in two separate formats, namely active and passive support of terrorism. The passive Muslim support of terrorism is less backed up by facts than it is by a general feeling and suspicion. Multiple commentators have the assumption that all Muslims are accessory to terrorism. Other commentators have the more specific assumption that all Muslims are IS sympathizers. This argument for passive terrorism support implies a jihad conspiracy theory about Muslims quietly taking over the world. Other comments that imply passive support for terrorism are the demands from commentators directed to Muslims to openly rebel against terrorism. And yet, when Muslims openly stand against terrorism by organizing marches, openly mourn the victims at the metro station, commentators accuse them of not being sincere, perceived as merely performing an act. Commentator W presents an excellent example: “This is what we call sanctimonious. Look out. At a mourning place there are many people so it is the perfect place to explode. I don’t trust those men for a second.”

The active Muslim support of terrorism is backed up by the fact that multiple terrorists were arrested in Molenbeek, a submunicipality of Brussels with many Muslim residents. Many commentators drew conclusions and suggested that the whole Muslims community hid the terrorists in their midst. This suggestion seems to be based on the commentators’ understanding of the Muslim principle of Takiyya. Many comments imply that Muslims will always protect their “fellow brothers” (fellow Muslims). Commentator X illustrated this train of thought in the following way: “Islam itself does not allow for Muslims fighting by our side. Muslims will always protect Muslims, not us.”

Finally, the comments were analyzed to identify whether the commentators believed if the terrorists responsible for the Brussels attacks were in fact Muslim. This analysis was made after this topic was a frequent discussion in the comment sections. This discussion was present due to many comments suggesting being Muslim can lead to becoming a terrorist. Other opinions are that it is naive to think that moderate Muslims exist and that all Muslims are terrorists. The commentators who agree with this mindset, justify themselves by stating that it is necessary to call a spade a spade. The graphs below will illustrate the results of comments that explicitly stated the terrorists are or aren’t Muslim.

5.2.3. Comments opposed to Muslim migration to Belgium Large number of comments suggest the government should ban Muslims from immigrating to Belgium or the government should deport all Muslims residing in Belgium. The argument for this attitude is the perception that Muslims always cause trouble. Muslims bring misery with them when they immigrate to Belgium. Another argument is that commentators do not seem to have a problem with other religions thus Muslims must be the problem. “Almost no Belgian has a problem with other skin colors or religions, but when the words Islam or Muslim are mentioned, you can read the horror on the faces of the people on the street, regardless of race or color. There are dozens of races in Belgium who are doing well, but every race who has a different religious belief has a hard time with Muslims.”

Multiple comments plainly state that Belgium needs a “Muslim integration stop.” Commentators expressed the view that even though the Belgian government brought Muslims into the country, that does not mean they should stay. This view is accompanied by the idea that Muslims have no added value to the Belgian society. Thus, in conclusion of this argument, commentators feel like Muslims have no business being in Belgium.

Another reason to deport all Muslims is connected to the last alternative narrative of Islamophobia: being Muslim leads to terrorism. Commentator Z puts it simple: “Islam outside.” Islam is perceived to be a sick ideology. Commentator AA makes this very clear: “All Muslims adhere to that sick ideology OUTWARDS WITH THAT SCUM !!!!!!” And finally commentator BB combines all arguments for Muslims deportation: “Those dirty sand monkey OUTSIDE!!! they have no business being here. The same thing with those dirty muslim rats who challenge the police. ungrateful feces!!!”

5.2.4. Islam and racism Throughout all the comments it is apparent that xenofobia and racism underpins the remarks of the commentators. In the HLN comments there were a total of 403 comments with racist or xenophobic content, while in the DS comments there were 85 comments . In the first place, these racist and xenophobic comments will be discussed and subsequently the comments concerning Islam in particular will be debated.

General racism and xenophobia Overall there were four main manners in which commentators referred to “others” in the comment section. The first one is “race.” In numerous comments “non-native”, white Belgians are referred to as one of the following names: “medieval race, dirty race, filthy race, trash can race, nut sack race, brown race, muslim race, strange foreign race and race from the middle of nowhere.” The second manner to refer to unknown foreign people is “kind.” The following names were used: “your kind, other kind, dirty kind, kind of folk, kind of people.” Kind is mostly used with a negative connotation. The third manner used to describe “others” is “folk.” Namely the following nicknames: “primitive folk, retarded folk, disgusting folk, folk of shit, rooten folk, ungrateful folk, other folk, strange foreign folk, bastard folk, dirty folk, filthy folk and that immigrant folk.” Lastly, the commentators expressed a general dislike for people of color. This is mainly expressed with comments including “brown” with negative connotations.

Namely: “with their brown faces, brown monkeys, brown assholes, dirty browns, brown sons of bitches, dirty smelly brown scum, brown liars, it must have been a brown police officer, dirty brown breed, brown aerie, everything with a brown tint outside, the shit brown suits you.”

Additionally the terms “n****r”, “choco” and “bounty” are still commonly used in the comment sections to refer to people of color. Many commentators are focused on the skin color of “others.” Commentator HH declares: “First off, our country was pure and people were Western European tinted.” Another comment made was: “All non-white people look alike and they radiate cruelty.” Additionally jokes are made in the style of “Who else would commit terrorist attacks? the Eskimo’s?” In the comments it has not been brought to the commentators’ minds that “Eskimo” is considered a derogatory name.

Multiple commentators refer to “allochtonen.” A term used to indicate people who were not born in Belgium and/or have foreign parents. In contrast to this term, some commentators state that they are “pure-bred Belgians” and allochtonen are not. One particular nationality is strongly targeted by racist and xenophobic comments: the Moroccans. Moroccans are victims to many derogatory nicknames as “makkak”, a pun translating into ‘moroc-shit’ whilst meaning also primate.

To end the segment concerning racism, various commentators feel like critiquing other cultures is being seen as racist. Commentator II shares his opinion about the cause of the Brussels’ terrorist attacks: “By being allowed to utter any kind of criticism for years without being accused of racism…”

Racism towards Muslims Within the comments with xenophobic or racist nicknames for “others”, Muslims also get called many derogatory nicknames. Namely, filthy race, black monkeys, filthy monkeys, sand n****rs, brown riffraff … . This explicitely shows that Islam is associated with race throughout the comments. One commentator did correct another comment as follows: “brown race? you mean Muslim race?!” This commentator clarifies that religion and race are not always combined. However, this commentator did call Muslims a race, just not necessarily brown.

Different commentators state that they are not racist “but… .” Commentator KK reacted: “I am not a racist but I am anti-Islam.” Subsequently commentator LL states: “I am

40 definitely not a racist but for the kind like those 2 brown monkeys like that Salah pig Abde- salami en his gay friend, I am 100% racist.” Thus commentator LL declared not to be a racist but then goes on to call two particular radical Muslims “brown monkeys.” This is quite the contradictory statement. Some commentators, like MM, make racist remarks towards Muslims without contradictions or excuses. For example: “I honestly would not like it if my granddaughter or grandson were to bring home someone like that (referring to Muslims)!” Commentator MM does not justify his opinion.

In the comments it is also mentioned that Muslims are racists to the non-Muslim residents. Commentator JJ describes it as follows: “They (Muslims) are calling us racists because we dare to say how matters really stand, but that is also stigmatizing.”

Another idea concerning racism linked to Muslims is that they cause “pure-bred Belgians” to become racists. If Muslims would adapt to Belgian society, there would be no racism. Another opinion is that Muslims help refugees and that causes “pure-bred Belgians” to become racists. Additional to this narrative portraying Muslims as causing racism are the comments trying to justify racism against Muslims. Muslims are perceived to live too much according to their religion. Besides that, Muslims only interact with other Muslims and never with other citizens. This is a justification for racism against Muslims for some commentators.

5.2.5. Unsubstantiated claims Besides the main alternative dominant narratives of Islamophobia, there are three less dominant but reappearing perspectives on Muslims and Islam. First of all, Muslims are depicted as being violent by nature. Commentator J gives a fitting example of exactly that opinion: “There should be no doubt that violence is inherent to Islam.” The second reappearing perspective is that of Muslims being pedofiles. Moreover, Muslims are adressed as pedofiles quite explicitly. Commentator GG shares this idea: “In Islam they are allowed to marry and fuck children. They are the biggest pedos in the world.” Additionally Commentator O claims that “The Quran contains nothing more but murder, rape and child abuse”, insinuating Islam allows child abuse. Thirdly, numerous comments claim to not trusting Muslims. Likewise, this claim is not substantiated with arguments.

Throughout the comments Muslims are referred to by using numerous nickname and slurs. The main slurs are: Muslim scum, Muslim trash, pussy Muslims, rats, vermin, brown

41 bastards, cowards, sand n****rs, filth, retarded folk, a bunch of lunatics, strange foreign scum, carpet fuckers, dirty people, “they”, filthy folk, barbarian folk, tuberculosis Muslims, viper's brood, filthy dirty sand monkeys, parasites, camel fuckers and “one pot of pork fat”, a pun on a Flemish saying meaning they are all the same. Furthermore many comments state that all Muslims are the same without providing arguments as off to why. Commentator CC provides a suitable illustration with their comment: “When push comes to shove, all those Muslims are all the same.” Another opinion is that Islam screws up everything and no Muslim is a good one. Commentator EE provides a very explicit comment concerning this opinion: “There is no but no good one in the midst of them (referring to Muslims), and I can now, I have something like this in my family, then you know. I don’t wish that on anyone.”

Besides screwing everything up, various commentators claims that “Muslims are not real Belgians” and “they are all a bunch of scroungers” living of government support (Commentator DD). An additional anti-Muslim comment without any explanation is the comment of Commentator EE: “Islam makes me puke!!!” Another recurring unsubstantiated claim made in the comments is that Muslims are uncivilized. This mindset expressed by multiple commentators states that Muslims have a prehistoric culture, they still need to enter the Middle Ages and the enlightenment. These commentators believe that the Western societies are the only ones that have become civilized.

5.3. Semiotics

5.3.1. Metaphors Throughout the comments many metaphors and sayings were utilized to express opinions on Muslims. Regarding the terrorist attacks themselves, there is a trend of sayings such as “too little to late, having water under the bridge, closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, it is not five minutes to midnight, it is five minutes past midnight.” Others suggest we should “call a spade a spade” and “ this is only the tip of the iceberg because the terrorists pop up like mushrooms after rain.” On multiple occasions, the refugee crisis as referred to as a “trojan horse” since the commentators suggest terrorists come to Europe disguised as refugees. On the contrary to this opinion, many commentators do not want to generalize all Muslims. They also use saying to do so, but more about this in the section on generalization.

Many commentators criticize the Belgian general policies and politicians for being an accessory to the attacks while utilizing certain saying such as: “you reap what you sow” and “what goes around comes around.” Numerous commentators referred to Belgian politics as “ostrich politics with politicians sticking their heads in the sand”,” umbrella government, with politicians trying to escape their responsibilities.” The Belgian government is also called “a Calimero government”, meaning politicians shifting their responsibilities to others like Calimero says in the cartoon: “they are big and I am little, what an injustice.” And lastly “if the government can’t stand the heat, they should get out of the kitchen.” Many commentators feel like the government’s policy of indifference to radicalization was “putting the fox in charge of the hen house and therefore the Belgian population are sitting ducks to terrorism.”

While revealing their opinions on Muslims the commentators utilize sayings as well. Overall the saying unravel into Muslims being very lucky for being spoiled by the Belgian government with social welfare. They are ungrateful for what they are given. Muslims always protect each other. “When push comes to shove, all Muslims are the same.” And just like terrorist, mosques also “pop up like mushrooms after rain.” One commentator even uses the following metaphor: “They are the snakes you feed but they will bite your hand anyway. An we are going to be bitten a lot in the upcoming months, trust me. (unfortunately!)”

5.3.2. Us-them division The “us-them” division is the semiotic strategy that is adopted the most throughout the comments. Overall there are four distinct “us-them” distinctions to be identified. The first “us- them” division made is the “white- colored” distinction. An illustration of this particular distinction is: “If we, whites, would do this in their monkey countries, our whole family would simply be massacred.” Also the next statement emphasizes racial differences and other distinctions. “Why do people waste their breath on that race? Just slaughter them as they do to us! That is the only way! It is they or us and I think this is still OUR (real Belgians) country.”

The next “us-them” division concern the distinction between “Belgian” and everyone “strange and foreign.” It is apparent from the comments that people with Belgian “ancestry” value being born in the Belgian territory. Even people born in Belgium with foreign “ancestry” are not considered “real” Belgians. This becomes visible in the following declarations. When discussing the foreign guest workers in the Belgian mines, someone comments: “It was never mentioned that us Belgians, wished that foreigners stayed here !!!” Another commentator

43 shares the same opinion: “I am a “human” from here … and at this moment I feel, like so many others here… that you will NEVER belong here with your (foreign) attitudes.” Many react to the articles with an expression of fear that “we” are losing Belgium to strangers and foreigners. A general consensus can be made up out of the comments that foreigners are seen as freeloaders and leeches. For example the following comments: “I have nothing against a sand n****r who works but all those freeloaders who have been arriving here for years and clear out the cash registers, that I have something against. Is it not enough that we have to support our own freeloaders and then we have to support those strangers as well? I can go on like this for a while. Is it not enough that we have to support those Belgians here in prison and now we also have to support those strangers in prison? C130 and send them back to where they came from.”

Besides “strangers” as a distinct “them”, Muslims are also displayed as a third “them” group. A commentator made this “non-Muslim-Muslim” division apparent by sommenting: “Muslims will always protect Muslims, not us.” Considering the context of this particular comment “us” implies non-Muslims. Often Western culture is depicted as opposite to Muslim culture. For example: “Islam in its current form cannot coexist with our Western culture.” Other commentators lay more focus on Muslims who do not assimilate to Western culture. An illustration is: “If the Muslim population would adapt to Western norms and values, we would not be arguing here (referring to the comment sections) and racism against them would be out of the question.” Commonly, Islam is depicted to be equal to terrorism. Therefore, commentators make a division between “us”, the non-Muslims and “them”, the terrorist Muslims. For example: “Detonate your bombs in your mosques from now on, and stay away from our precious places. Because it is in your genes and not in ours.” With this statement it is implied that terrorist traits are inherited through Muslim genes. An additional example: “Luckily I am not like those who bring terror. I solely stick to words, that is the difference between my culture and their culture.”

The last “us-them” division is the distinction between those who are terrorists and those who are not. Hereby many commentators do make the distinction between Muslim terrorists and ‘good’ Muslims. Non-Muslims and “good” Muslims are paired together in a battle against terrorists. For example: “Let us work together against them”, “Non-Muslims and Muslims together against those fucking bastards … “, “stop with this ‘us-them” narrative, we should work side by side until we remove every cockroach from our society ...” The Muslim terrorists

44 as the ‘them’ group are occasionally specified as ISIS. The following comment illustrates the division of “us” with ISIS: “This is the new normal. They will continue to hate us until we surrender. Either we destroy the caliphate, or the caliphate will destroy us.”

In some comment sections it became clear that commentators are aware that media and politics are a cause of polarization in the online debate regarding Muslims. They also express their disliking of this polarization process that was going on.

Occasionally, it was unclear from the comments who was meant by “us” and “them” due to a lack of context of those comments. For example: “They do not want to be bothered by us, and we do not want to be bothered by them.” It is unclear if this comment can be included in any of the previously discussed “us-them” divisions or whether this comment does not fit into any division.

5.3.3. Aggregation In various comments claims regarding statistics on Muslims are made. However, these statistics claims are hardly ever supported by scientific evidence. Additionally these claims are within wide ranges that confirm that at least one contradictory claim is not scientific. For instance, multiple claims are made regarding the amount of Muslim residents in Brussels. These amounts of Muslims range from 250 000 till 600 000. Within this range, an additional claim is made that 3000 up to 5000 Muslims in Brussels are radicalized. One commentator claims that 50% of Belgian Muslims are fundamentalist Muslims. This comment is the only comment supported with a so called scientific research.

There also is much discussion on the topic of the amount of radicalized Muslims out of all Muslims. Some comments state that only 1% of all Muslims are radicalized. Others state that 25% of all Muslims are radicalized. In the comments there is also a ambivalence on the amount of Muslims worldwide. Some comments state 1 billion, other state close to 2 billion. This is a enormously wide range. When calculating 25% of so called radicalized Muslims out of all Muslims worldwide, the amount of radicalized Muslims is 20 million to 250 million. Another commentators claims there are 320 million radicalized Muslims. When speaking of radicalized Muslim the insinuation of this being equal to terrorism is made. Furthermore, a claim is presented that ISIS is made up of only 60 000 people. The range concerning the amount

45 of Muslim terrorists residing in Europe, waiting to commit a following attack is once again pretty wide. The range lies between 400 Muslim terrorists in Europe to 100 million.

In the comment sections the wrongdoings by Muslims are emphasized by declaring alleged unsupported statistics. For example the following claims: “Last year, 95% of all terror was of Islamic origin.” or “If you know some history, you would know that Islam has 270 million deaths on its conscience already. Compared to WWII, there were 70 million deaths … Moreover multiple commentators insist that 70% up to 90% of the Belgian prison population is made up of Muslims. A different commentator declares that 9 out of 10 Muslims is said to live of the government’s social welfare. And finally, many comments announce that 90% of the ‘real’ Belgian population is scared of Muslims and would want to close the borders.

Overall these alleged statistic claims give the impression that Muslims are going to take over Belgium and Muslims are a burden on the “real” Belgian population. This gives Muslims negative representation in the comments.

5.3.4. Nomination-functionalization The semiotic strategy of nomination versus functionalization is used the least out of all semiotic strategies. Muslim can be seen as a loaded word choice since it can portray a stereotype and represent them in an unfavorable manner. In the comment sections Muslims are mainly functionalized as violent, manipulative and brainwashed beings.

One commentator summarizes the main topic of functionalization in the comments: “The bombs are simply the proverbial last straw. There is simply too much misery with Muslims. “Muslims youth throw things at police, Muslims attack journalists, Muslims flock to streets after arrest of terrorist Salah Abdeslam.” If they don't get their way, they get very aggressive.” Another commentator functionalized Muslims to attempt to explain why Muslims do not have jobs: “they 1) do not want to speak our language, 2) do not go to school and therefore do not graduate, 3) are lazy, 3) have an unfitting attitude for this society, 5) immediately want to talk us into doing things to their liking.”

Another common thread throughout the functionalizing comments is Muslims supporting terrorism. For example: “Muslims like to kill themselves and others with terrorist attacks.” Another instance of this kind of functionalization is: “The terrorists are Muslims who

46 only intend to kill people and introduce their rotten religion.” Another commentator stated: “Don’t be fooled: Muslims hate us wholeheartedly and applaud any attack on the ‘white imperialist’.”

In the same way a variety of functionalization was made concerning Muslims approving discrimination against women, Muslims breed like rats and rabbits, Muslims intensely defend their religion, have no sense of nuance, follow dogmatic texts, attack anyone who is critical of Islam. In the cases where there was nomination, the comments were directed at other commentators who stated they identify as Muslim.

5.3.5. Specification- generalization The majority of the “specification versus generalization” semiotic strategy are similar to one another. The specifications of Muslims are mainly requests to not generalize the terrorists responsible for the Brussels attack to all Muslims. For example: “you cannot ignore that Islam is much more extensive (than terrorism).” Other common sayings used to request other commentators to not generalize Muslims are to “not tar all Muslims with the same brush, separate the wheat from the chaff, never judge a book by its cover, to not compare apples with oranges.”

On the other side, various commentators state that all Muslims are the same. A saying used in the comments to express this is “Muslims are all tweedledum and tweedledee.” One commentator takes his comment to another level insulting Muslims within his own family: “Don’t talk to me about not generalizing them, THERE IS NOT ONE, BUT NO GOOD ONES AT ALL, AND I CAN KNOW, I HAVE SUCH A THING IN MY FAMILY AND THEN YOU KNOW. I DON’T WISH THAT ON ANYONE.”

5.3.6. Other semiotic choices Complementary to these preset semiotic strategies, some other semiotic choices were made by the commentators to make their comments stand out or to make their remarks come across even more. The first additional semiotic choice by the commentators is to use hashtags. For example: “#stop diaper policy.” This hashtag emphasizes this commentators dislike of the policy that provides advantages for foreigners in Belgium. Diaper policy provides these advantages just as diaper provides the advantage of not defecating in ones pants. Other commentators ended their comment with “#StopTerrorismNow” or “#CleanUpMolenbeek.”

A second additional semiotic choice is to comment in a Flemish dialect. This asserts some kind of dominance towards foreigners who often can read the general Dutch language but can not read the written version of certain dialects. For example: “Whit does that hae tae dae wi’it. Desppite we shuid nae hae tae pay fur that foreign scum!!!!!”

Thirdly emoticons are used in the comments but by a minority of the commentators. It is noteworthy that single emoticons are used more often after ironic, sarcastic and comments intended as humorous. Some examples of emoticons after these types of comments are: , , , , , . When commenting on Muslim in unfavorable ways, other emoticons are chosen. Additionally these emoticon are used in clusters more often. For example: , , , .

Likewise punctuation marks are used to attempt an enhancement strength of a comment. For example: “Belgium really sucks, government this is your fault GD !!!!!” In this example a cluster of exclamation marks is used to imply shouting. The same occurs with clusters of question marks, such as ?????? or a combination of both ???!!! . Other alternative textual punctuation marks are used such as brackets, quotations marks and ellipsis.

GD is used as an abbreviation of God dammit. Subsequently other abbreviations are used throughout the comments such as BDW, an abbreviation of Bart De Wever, a Flemish politician. Next to these semiotic choices some commentators emphasize elements in their comment by using capital letters. For example: “ Aaaaannnnnd it’s a FOREIGNER !!! that says it all I think !!! ”

The last semiotic decision made by the commentators is to utilize certain verbs to emphasize certain meanings of their comments. When discussing Muslims, foreigners, strangers etcetera numerous verbs used as metaphors, meaning ‘to clean up’ are used. The meaning of extracting “bad” Muslims from the Muslim community. The verbs used are: “clean out, clean up, do a big cleaning, expurgate, cleanse, purify, do a spring cleaning, do raids, clean the fatherland, wipe clean, sweep clean.” Many commentators use the phrase “major cleaning in the scum” as a slogan. In Flemish the slogan is more catchy since it rhymes in Flemish. A metaphor used by a commentator accentuates there are different gradations of scum

48 and therefore they need different types of cleaning. “Cleaning is done according to how filthy something is, with a broom or if necessary with a high pressure washer.” Expanding on cleaning up the Muslim community various commentators have the opinion that the Belgian government should clean themselves up before doing anything else.

There is another trend that uses verbs as a metaphor, namely exterminate. It is prevalent in the comments that Muslims are described as “weeds.” A common statements is Muslims need to be “destroyed or exterminated at the roots just like weeds.” Additionally terrorism is also implied to be a weed. An illustration goes as follows: “terrorism will continue to grow, read: be rampant like weeds.”

One commentator provides a unique standpoint on the migration of Muslims to Europe using a particular verb. He states the following: “It is very clear what is going on: this is modern colonizing. It is clear that they are taking over Europe.”

Adopting certain verbs is also a strategy to express discontent about the government’s previous actions and future plans. One particular article uses verbs in the past tense to provide the public with information of the government's standpoint on the attacks. This created a major backlash in the comment section. For example: “The three most unnecessary words in our vocabulary: had, when and if.” Another example was written in English: “Yeah yeah … Could …. Would … Should …. No one benefits from that now.” The backlash was so substantial that commentators started to make jokes about the verbs used in the article. “Had, had, and you guessed it: had. That does not help us now. Had I had four wheels instead of hands and feet, I would have been a Ferrari.” Another criticism on politicians’ statements is that they depicted the terrorists too positively. Many comments ask the following rhetorical question: “Are they going to declare them saints or beatify them?” This is a peculiar thing to rhetorically ask because many commentators believe the terrorists are in fact Muslims. Declaring Muslims saints or beatified is quite contradictory.

5.4. Differences between HLN and DS

A first difference between HLN and DS is the amount of articles within the timeframe of a month after the Brussels attacks. DS has published 19 articles less than HLN. However the articles by DS are spread more evenly over the total of days. HLN published more articles

49 regarding the topic in the days after the attacks and less articles towards the end of the timeframe. A second difference is the amount of comments. HLN’s comment amount for 76 % of all comments combined, leaving DS to have 24% of the combined reactions. The HLN article with the most comments regards the suspects of the attack in Zaventem. The DS article with the most comments concerns statements by Donald Trump about torturing Abdeslam. The article with the least amount if comment for HLN is about the identity of a Belgian-Moroccan ex-soccer player that was stolen by one of the terrorists. For DS the article least reacted to regards a collection of images of Maalbeek metro station one month after the attacks.

When calculating the percentage of dominant Islamophobic comments compared to the total of all comments per news outlet, the percentage is higher for HLN. This calculation is based on solely the dominant narratives by Mescoli (2017). The additional dominant Islamophobic narratives will be discussed separately. In the HLN comment section about 80% of all comments is coded as a dominant Islamophobic comment. In de DS comment section it was less than that. Only 20% was coded as a dominant narrative. The most prevalent dominant narratives differs per news outlet as well.

The least prevalent dominant narrative is the same for both the HLN and DS comments. It is ‘Islamic belonging (claimed or assigned) is a prior identity marker.’ The most prevalent dominant narrative for HLN comments is ‘Brussels is turning into a Muslim city.’ The most frequently used dominant narrative in the DS comments was ‘a process of radicalization of Muslims is underway in Belgium.’

Overall the comments present a number of differences between the commentators of the two news outlets. What stand out is that the commentators reacting to HLN news articles comment more in a presents the world as black or white. An in between solution or coexisting with Muslim does not seem an option for many HLN commentators. They adhere a more “us versus them” mentality. Many HLN commentators disclosed that they thought double nationalities should be abolished due to it not being possible to be both Belgian and for example Moroccan. The same mindset is applied in the reactions on a Muslim man telling the story of him being both Muslim and a soccer hooligan. HLN commentators do not agree that that combination is possible. Subsequently the discussion on whether terrorists are Muslim or not, is presented in a very black and white way of thinking. In the comments on DS articles there is also a fair share of a black and white mindset. However, the comments on other previous

50 comments are more nuanced and substantiated. For example the following comment: “If Muslims do not work, they are freeloaders. If they do work, they are taking our job …” Another example is the argument if non-Muslims reacting aggressively are not just as bad as Muslims. “Can someone tell me what the difference is between a Muslim idiot who wants to exterminate all non-Muslims and the non-Muslim idiots in this comment section who want to exterminate all Muslims?” On the topic of radicalization, it is notable that DS comments present a more varied amount of reasons for radicalization than the HLN comments.

Overall the DS comments give the impression that the commentators have a broader overview of the situation. DS commentators’ comments countering Islamophobia are more thought through in perspective to the severity of the situation. For example multiple DS commentators refer to the Brussels attacks as less important than they are made out to be since a lot more people die in traffic accidents than in terror attacks. Another opinion put into perspective is the closing of the Belgian borders to keep out terrorists. DS commentators counter this idea with the knowledge that the men responsible for the Brussels attacks were born and raised in Brussels. Thus closing the border would enclose terrorists in Belgium. A last point often made in the DS comments is that it is hypocritical to condemn the governments’ actions in regards to the attacks since the governments are elected democratically by the Belgian citizens.

Besides being less nuances, HLN comments are generally more aggressive and violent in contentwise. HLN commentators specify that they want to torture terrorists and Muslims more frequently than DS commentators. The mention of various types of torture is 6 times higher in the HLN comment section. The most brought up torture techniques are: general torture, references to the Holocaust like gas chambers, making terrorists eat pork, taking away human rights, letting “the people” handle it, rape, leaving them with Marc Dutroux (a Belgian pedofile and serial murderer) castration, hanging by testicles, a thousand cuts, oubliette, starvation, amputation of various limbs, ripping out vocal cords, eternal isolation … DS comments on torture are more nuanced. They bring nuance to the discussion by stating torture for information leads to false confessions. Additionally it is contradictory to violate people’s human right to protect Western values such as human rights.

Next to torture the death penalty is also mentioned in HLN comments six times more than the times it was mentioned in DS comments. The most common ways to perform the death

51 penalty are giving them the bullet, guillotine, bombing, hanging, cutting throat and the electric chair. Other than torture and the death penalty multiple HLN commentators state the second amendment and want to carry firearms to defend ‘the people.’ However the second amendment originates in the U.S.A and it is generally forbidden in Belgium to carry firearms.

Overall HLN comments radiate a more patriotic and chauvinistic energy than DS comments do. HLN commentators specify their patriotism even more towards Flanders instead of Belgium as a whole. In the HLN comments there are also more conspiracy theories concerning the Brussels attacks. For example: many diversions by the police, witnesses and the terrorists themselves, the attacks being a decoy, the police helping the terrorists, the illuminati, Zionists or the Rothschild being responsible for the attacks. HLN comments contain more emoticons than DS comments.

5.5. Encoding and decoding

Most reactions on the presented news articles are secluded, meaning no other reaction are posted on that comment. The other comments that are not secluded get various amount of reactions. This can range from one reaction to hundreds of reactions, resulting in long discussions. These longer threads of reaction can proceed in two ways. Either the majority of reactions on a comments agrees with that comment, or the majority of the reactions on a comment does not agree with that statement. The second option often leads to a heated debate.

It stands out that one remark made by one commentators can transform into a slogan or be heavily quoted by many others. For example: “big clean up in the scum” or “ closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.” These sayings became a trend throughout both news outlets’ comment sections.

Various commentators declare they think other commentators are not willing to listen to arguments other than their own. They indicate that debating with someone that does not want to actively listen is like debating with no one at all. Another form of debating with no one at all becomes apparent after it strikes that some comments are deleted from the comment section. It is not clear whether this is done by the commentators themselves, the news outlets or Facebook. Comments from commentators reacting to other comments remain visible in the comment sections when the comment they are reacting to is deleted. This makes it hard to

52 follow in some debates since the reader does not know what statements people are reacting to. Except for deleting certain comments, the news outlets do not comment in the comment sections apart from one time. HLN commented on comments in the comment section once. People were concerned a homeless man was not going to be included in the general obituary of the attacks’ victims. HLN confirmed that this man would indeed be included and paid their respects to the other victims.

Apart from reacting to other commentators in a polite manner, debate can get ungracious. For example the reactions on aggressive language are as follows: “#sillyoldbittercunt” and “you do use very aggresive language for someone who ends their comment with #peace.” Non-white commentators are frequently discredited by other commentators. For example: “Shut up, we are pure-bred Belgians and you are not.” One recurring commentator is reminded of previous inappropriate comments on other news articles linking a screenshot of these comments to the reaction. When reacting to other comments, regularly very specific element of those comments are criticized.

Besides of reactions to other comments, many commentators provide a fair share of criticism towards the presented articles. This mainly concerns typographical errors, releases of unconfirmed information and photographs as illustrations of the articles in question.

Next to critique on the specific articles presented, numerous commentators also critiqued the Flemish news outlets in general. The Flemish news outlets are thought to be to focussed on sensation and not on the quality of the news. Little instances make it into news articles to easily according to many commentators. For example the following quote: “It seems as if every fart is a news flash.” Other comments include criticism on Flemish reporting and journalism in general. The level of Flemish journalism has seriously declined over the past few years. Also, the news outlets are thought to be manipulative and not neutral. Both news outlet are perceived to have broadcasted information before it was confirmed by government or the prosecution. Lastly the media receives some backlash for either giving terrorists, Muslims and foreigners too much or just too little attention.

6. Discussion and conclusion

6.1. Discussion

Within the discussion section of this research an effort is made to investigate the data in function of the research question: Which dominant narratives of Islamophobia are present in the online comments of Het Laatste Nieuws and De Standaard up to one month after the terrorist attacks in Brussels in 2016? In this section I analyzed the results found on the basis of existing scientific literature. I will discuss the findings per research question.

How are the comments on news outlets Facebook pages being used by the commentators to describe and represent Muslims? The commentators used online comments as a way of start flaming towards Muslims. All the illustrations of online flaming described by Dyer et al. (1995) were performed in the comments of this research. This is apparent from the expressions of GVD and attacks on religion, sand monkeys among other offensive nicknames, threats to deport all Belgian Muslims, aggressive comments concerning torture and inappropriate sexual comments such as ‘Shut up, Muslim whore!’ The methods to boost online flaming by (Turnage, 2007) were also widespread throughout the comments.

The comments are used as an instrument to express Islamophobic comments via metaphors. Metaphors communicate analogical reasoning and obligate their readers to create a similarity relation between two conceptual domains. This can generate an emotional impact. Metaphors can possibly bring about sentiments of threats or anxiety on the one hand. On the other hand it can lead to feeling of security (Schwarz-Friesel & Skirl, n.d.). In the comments metaphors are a strategy to persuade other readers of a certain standpoint. Metaphors can make it easier to understand abstract situations (Schwarz-Friesel & Skirl, n.d.). For example the ‘Trojan horse’ metaphor used in the comments can help to understand the conspirized Muslim replacement of the non-Muslim population through “demograpic bombs. (Bracke & Fernandez Aguilar, 2020).

These two functions can potentially explain why metaphors regarding terrorism and Islam are so widespread in the comments. A metaphor that is also discussed by Schwarz-Friesel and Skirl (n.d.) is terrorists as organic beings such as plants. This metaphor provides sentiments of safety since plants are easily mastered.

The comments are used to portray Muslims as dehumanized beings such as rodents, sand monkeys, rats, cockroaches etc. These forms of portraying Muslims as animals is also prevalent in Steuter and Wills’ research (2009). Portraying Muslims as insects implies an association to the lowest mode of life in the animal kingdom. Representing Muslims as rodents and insects suggests Muslims show rodent-like behaviour such as gnawing at structures needed in society while society was under the impression they were not in danger (Steuter & Wills, 2009). Similarly, Muslims are depicted in the comments as beings that breed like animals. This type of dehumanization indicated a fear of the group of ‘others’ expansion (Steuter & Wills, 2009). The manner in which the comments describe Muslims as animals equates much with Goldberg’s animalization (2015). Animals are described as things which humans can easily control and use as instruments.

In the comments Muslims are also described as organic beings as discussed previously. In both Schwarz-Friesel and Skirl (n.d.) as in Steuter and Wills (2009) discourses portray Muslims as ‘cancer.’ However, this is never mentioned in the comments of this research. As discussed in previously reviewed literature, Steuter and Wills (2009) argue that portraying Muslims as the ‘other’ in public discourse leads to dehumanization, which in turn, may potentially lead to further organization, polarization, and eradication.

Muslims are also generalized in the comments. This is also the case in the Belgian offline public discourse (Juchtmans & Nicaise, 2013). This can potentially introduce an oversimplification and stereotyping of Muslims. Because of this Muslims are only seen as a uniform group (Juchtmans & Nicaise, 2013).

The commentators utilize the semiotic choice of aggregation to express orientalist ideas about Muslims. Sayyid (2014) states that spreading wrongful, demonising information on Islam is an example of orientalism. One of the comments in this research stated that nine out of ten Belgian Muslims live of welfare benefits. Muslims as a economic threat is a common topic in the discourse of Oboler’s research (2016). In both discourses Muslims are thought to drain the welfare system.

The perceived discordance of civilized Western and barbaric Islamic values is the basis of Islamophobia (Steuter & Will, 2009; Taras, 2013). The comments are an instrument to emphasize this incompatibility between the two value systems. However the most prevalent expressions of the ‘us vs them’ mindset concern the us vs Muslims and terrorism. Many

55 comments confuse Muslims with terrorists and visa versa. Because of this Muslims are categorized with terrorists (Meer & Modood, 2009).

Throughout the comments the semiotic decision of functionalization is used to depict Muslims to be manipulative, violent and brainwashed liars. According to Oboler (2016) this is a strategy to undermine resistance to anti-Muslim hate.

Overall the semiotic decisions made in the comments show that expressions of Islamophobia are flexible. Islamophobia is specific to language, idioms, national and regional contexts.

Which are the main differences, if any, in the comments on Islam between the different the Het Laatste Nieuws and De Standaard? Overall DS published 19 articles more than HLN on the topic of the Brussels attacks. Heyndrickx (2014) also described this difference in the amount of articles. This logically provides more opportunities to comments on those articles. However HLN received numerous more comments than DS did.

The HLN commentators use more of a ‘us vs them’-mindset or blank and white- thinking when commenting. The comments on DS articles are more nuanced and at least entail more attempts to substantiate and argue their opinions. Overall the DS comments give the impression that the commentators have a broader overview of the situation.

In the comments, HLN comments appear to be more aggressive and violent. According to Heyndrickx (2014) the opposite is true in terms of the articles themselves. The articles of quality newspapers on the subject of the Brussels attacks are more violent and aggressive. Additionally HLN comments are more patriotic and chauvinistic than DS comments. This may possibly be explained through the fact that DS articles generally pay more attention to international affairs than HLN comments (Manssens & Walgrave, 1998). Therefore the topic up for discussion already differs from the beginning of the debate, namely the original article that is decoded. Beside the different levels of patriotism in the comments, the main topic discussed in the comments also alter. The topics of the published articles do not completely conform to both newspapers in question. For example DS published an article with tips to travel by plain efficiently after the attacks. This topic is not mentioned in the HLN comments in any

56 way. Moreover HLN published an article on koala’s arriving in the zoo after a delay caused by the attacks. Once again this topic is not mentioned in the DS comments Pieters (2011) clarifies that this is how media frames do not define how the audience thinks and forms an opinion, but rather what topics the audience has opinions on.

HLN comments contain more emoticons and metaphors than DS comments. It makes sense that linguistically speaking the comments differ per newspaper since the audiences also differ. Also, the linguistic choices differ per newspaper since they are directed to different goal audiences (Santeddu, 2018).

How do encoding, decoding and the interaction between the articles and their comments operate? Throughout the comments a general environment of us-them thinking arose. Pieters (2011) offers an explanation as of to why this us-them thinking is so apparent. The media spreads discourses which include cognitive us vs them model. Readers of those cognitive us vs them models are engaged in in these models. Consequently readers adopt the same models. Media users adjust their opinions and attitudes to preset models. Therefore media has the power to influence public discourses and also existing power relations (Oktar, 2001). Media plays a significant role in how crisis situations are framed. Likewise, differences in reporting news can bring about different sentiments by readers.

The us vs them models are additionally shaped by narratives by media in order to understand and process crisis situations better. Narratives in the media intended to help readers make sense of situations often imply a sense of community (Denton, 2004). In the comments the narrative of us vs them presents us, Muslims and non-Muslims combined against them, terrorists. This sense of community is comparable to the sense of community in the ‘War on terror’ after the 9/11 terror attacks which Pieters (2011) discusses.

In the comments, various critiques on the articles posted by HLN and DS. The main critiques were typographical errors, releases of unconfirmed information and photographs as illustrations of the articles in question. This expression of discontent with the articles can be interpreted as a direct form on decoding and encoding. The articles were decoded and discontent about them was realized by the readers. Subsequently comments stating this critique were posted, which is a form of encoding. Furthermore, this form of encoding and decoding also presents itself for the critiques provided in the Flemish news outlets in general. A

57 widespread critique on the Flemish news outlets’ reporting on the Brussels attacks is the reporting is too focussed on sensation instead of producing quality news articles. The function of a news outlet to accurately report on what is going on in the world is compromised by the goals of news outlets to make profits (Heyndrickx, 2014). Sensation draws more possible readers to a news article. This commercialisation of the media leads to news stories being selected for their sensation level and appeal to the readers (Pieters, 2011). Another critique prevalent in the comments following this opinion is that the quality of Flemish journalism is declining. The reporting on the Brussels attacks is thought to be manipulative and not at all neutral. Both Heyndrickx (2014) and Pieters (2011) confirm that reporting is not neutral. Reporters do not only describe facts, they reconstruct events.

Additionally the Flemish media is commonly accused of releasing information before it was confirmed by the police. This can be an accurate critique. Information regarding terror attacks is mainly obtained via security services. The communication of this information can be chaotic in the instance of a terror attacks. Consequently the reporters and their readers can get misinformed (Heyndrickx, 2014). Multiple times comments stated that the terrorists, Muslims and foreigners received too much attention in the reporting on the Brussels attacks. This is also the case in Heyndrickx’ (2014) research. A possible consequence that was also mentioned by the commentators is the fear of terrorism increasing disproportionally. This can lead to more support for policies that violate human rights in order to protect oneself against terrorists (Nellis, Savage & Forest, 2012). This effect of the perception that terrorists and Muslims receive too much attention in the media becomes visible in other comments. Many commentators express that they wish that the terrorists’ human rights were taking away, that they were tortured or even sentenced to death.

Apart from encoding new messages towards the articles published and the Flemish media in general, the comments also contained newly encoded messages towards other comments and commentators. Apart from reacting to other commentators in a polite manner, debates can get ungracious. Often when commentators make claims without providing the sources of these claims, other comments will request these sources. Commentators are highly critical of each others statements and claims. The trail of newly encoded messages towards an already encoded messages towards the articles can range from one to hundreds of comments. Some comments are removed by the commentators themselves, the news outlets or Facebook. Comments from commentators reacting to other comments remain visible in the comment sections when the comment they are reacting to is deleted. Because of this, it is more difficult

58 to comprehend the entire debate going on. Only HLN re-encoded a comment in the comments section on their own article. This comment regards Rosaria, a homeless man victims to the attacks in Zaventem, being included in the obituary of the attacks ‘victims in the newspaper. Lastly it sticks out that metaphors such as big clean up in the scum and closing the stable doors after the horse has bolted became trends and slogans the more time passes. One commentator announces a comment and they became adopted in many other comments on different articles in both newspapers.

Which dominant narratives of Islamophobia are present in the online comments of Het Laatste Nieuws and De Standaard up to one month after the terrorist attacks in Brussels in 2016? All the dominant Islamophobic narratives defined by Mescoli (2017a) are present in the comments. However some are present more widespread than others. In addition to Mescoli’s ten dominant narratives, alternative dominant Islamophobic narratives stood out. Each dominant narrative found in the comments will be discussed separately in the following segment.

Islamic practices need to be secularized to be accepted in Western societies Deriving out of the comments there are five main arguments to secularize Islamic practices to a greater extent. First of all Belgium is seen an atheist country and therefore the government should cease subsidizing religions, which includes Islam. This argument for the secularization of Islam is coherent to Fadil’s statement (2016) that secularization is linked to state sovereignty as a prerogative of a nation (Mahmood, 2016). The separation of state and church is often mentioned as a Western principle that Muslims allegedly do not comprehend. This is also one out of three main topics of Islamophobic discourse according to Fernandez (2009). In Belgian offline Islamophobic discourse this opinion recurs as Muslims being a threat to the secular state (Spruyt & Elchardus, 2012).

Secondly, religion is described as “opium for the people” in the comments. Other references to religion are made as religion having the ability to provide something to hold onto during difficult times. However religion and thus Islam is perceived as outdated, medieval and not appropriate in a modern Western society. In the comments, this is brought about by the opinion that Allah is an imaginary friend and the Quran is a fairytale book. General focus lies on the lack of scientific evidence for Allah.

European Islam can be looked at from the standpoint to “gradually decrease the importance of the sacred within social life and individual subjectivity (Mescoli, 2017a).” Islamic practices are preferred to be individualized and privatized (Fadil, 2011). This became prevalent in the comments concerning the topic of head scarfs. Various comments expressed the desire for Muslims to not publically express their religion. Along with this desire there was some backlash concerning a prayer room for Muslim employees at Zaventem airport. Mescoli (2017a) also addresses this subject as well. Praying in a work setting can induce disagreements with non-Muslims colleagues (Adam and Rea, 2010). A final argument for the secularization of Islam is that it is a cover up and an excuse to kill. In other words, the desire to secularize Islam stems from the idea that all Muslims are potential violent threats to Western society (Fadil, 2016).

Overall European Islam is observed from an offline viewpoint of local secularization (Grillo, 2004). This viewpoint can also be applied to the comments in question.

Veiling is incompatible with Western values and local rules Throughout the comments this dominant narrative was mentioned literally relatively often. However, veiling was replaced by headscarf. Veiling and covering one's face was not brought up in the comments. Instead head scarfs or hijabs were perceived as incompatible with Western values and local rules in the debates. First off, wearing a headscarf is understood as being not well adapted to Belgian society. Muslim women wearing a headscarf brings about a sense of discomfort for non-Muslims (Mescoli, 2017a; Rahman, Fung & Yeo, 2016). For many commentators wearing a headscarf is viewed as Muslims returning more rigidly to Muslim tradition and not complying with Western values (Fadil et al., 2014). Secondly the head scarf is depicted in online comments as a form of female oppression (Adelman, 2011; O’Neill, Gidengil, Côté & Young, 2015; Rahman, Fung & Yeo, 2016).

Commentators have the impression that Muslim women only wear the hijab because of social pressure or because it is obligatory as a Muslim woman (Rahman, Fung & Yeo, 2016). Other commentators fear that they as non-Muslim women would be forced to wear a headscarf in the near future. Finally the headscarf is seen as a provocation challenging Western values (Abdurraqib, 2006).

Mescoli (2017a) discusses the headscarf in a workplace setting. This setting is never specifically mentioned in the comments as discriminatory towards Muslim women wearing a headscarf. However the anti-veiling sentiment described by Mescoli (2017a) can be transcribed

60 into anti-headscarf sentiments in the comments. Namely the anti-headscarf sentimentiments in the comments giving off anti- immigrant prejudicial attitudes (Saroglou, Lamkaddem, Van Pachterbeke & Buxant, 2009).

Islamic belonging (claimed or assigned) is a prior identity marker Overall the Islamic belonging, belonging to the category of being colored or the natively belonging to a foreign country are confused throughout the comments. This points out the overall prior identity maker of Islamic belonging is simply being the ‘other.’ The discrediting of Muslim professionals can be based on having a foreign origin. Notwithstanding the role of religion in this type of discrediting cannot be dissolved (Mescoli, 2017a).

The results from this research comply very much with Mescoli’s research (2017a). However there were only two instances where Muslims professionals working in the public eye were discredited for being Muslim, namely Dyab Abou Jahjah and Meyrem Almaci. Mescoli (2017a) states that this type of discrediting can cause the effort put into becoming a Muslim professional in the public eye, to be relatively higher than it would be for non-Muslims. Additionally this kind of social pressure can cause Muslim professional to hide the faith in public.

Islam threatens Belgian traditions Regarding Islam as a threat to Belgian traditions, this dominant narrative of Islamophobia is mainly depicted as a cultural threat to our way of life (Oboler, 2016). Throughout the comments Muslims are described as a threat because they supposedly do not put in enough effort to integrate into the Belgian society. Concerning integration, the concept is often confused with the concept of assimilation. Numerous comments concern statements in ‘integration’ while the context gives the impression that ‘assimilation’ would have been a more appropriate choice of words for that discourse. This becomes apparent in Juchtmans and Nicaise’s research (2013) regarding Belgian offline public discourse on Islam and Muslims. A possible consequence is that these discourses focussed assimilation can inspire integration policies to pay more attention to assimilation than to a flexible integration into Belgian society (Mescoli, 2017a). Oboler (2016) provides the example of assimilation meaning to give up Muslim values such as eating halal. One of the articles’ title questioned whether allowing Muslims to open halal butcheries was a cause to the terror attacks.

Additional to not putting in much effort to ‘integrate’, Muslims are thought to wanting to impose their values on ‘us’, non-Muslims. Muslims are represented as wanting to transform our multicultural society into a monocultural society, their Muslim society. These statements trigger other commentators to motivate non-Muslims to defend ‘our’ values. Mescoli (2017a) defined this phenomenon as a fear of ‘islamisation.’ It is the fear that economic, political and social order will be altered to Muslims’ desires and needs. This fear is boosted through the comments claiming Belgian and Muslim traditions are incompatible. In the comments the alleged ex president of PEGIDA takes part in the debates making extreme claims against Islamification. Subsequently, comments claim that Muslims do not comply with Belgian laws and instead have introduced Sharia Law. This is one of the types of ‘threats to our way of life’ by Oboler (2016).

Brussels is turning into a Muslim city The narratives of Brussels transforming into a Muslim city mainly paid attention to the Brussels’ sub municipality of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean. Molenbeek is depicted as a terrorist municipality and a breeding ground for Muslims. This depiction of Molenbeek conforms with Mescoli’s findings (2017a) on this dominant Islamophobic narrative. In that research Molenbeek was described as a “den where Muslims would gradually stiffen their faith and practice and couple them with violent political discourse and action (Mescoli, 2017a).” Both Brussels and Molenbeek are referred to in the comments by using derogatory nicknames linked to Islam. These nicknames combine Belgian cities with associations with Muslims. This action suggests the conspiracy theory of replacement where the European non-Muslim population is slowly replaced with Muslims via biopower or reproduction (Bracke & Fernandez-Aguilar, 2020).

A process of radicalization of Muslims is underway in Belgium The discourse concerning is Muslim radicalization in Belgium is inescapable in the comments. Other researches about Islamophobic discourse after the Brussels attacks came to the same conclusion (Fadil, 2016; Mescoli, 2017a). Fundamentalism and radicalization is described as inherent to Islam throughout the comments. In Juchtmans and Nicaise’s research (2013) Muslims are also described as fundamentalists is the offline Belgian discourse on Islam. In the comments claims are made that there are no moderate Muslims, only Muslim extremist is a form of undermining the resistance to hate against Muslims (Oboler, 2016). Meer and Modood (2009) found that 77% of their respondents considered Islam to have numerous fanatical followers. Mescoli (2017a) provides a plausible explanation for this radicalization discourse.

It is relatively easy to confuse Islam and terrorism in public opinions. Therefore mistaking one category for another is an easy mistake to make. The radicalization discourse relies on this confusion. As mentioned before Brussels, Molenbeek in particular, is seen as a “radicalisation hub” both in this research as in Mescoli’s research (2017a).

In the comments it is commonly assumed that Muslims know who is radicalized and who is not. Consequently commentators express the demand of Muslims fixing the radicalization problem. Summarized the possible causes of Muslim radicalization by HLN commentators are bad integration, bad imams, prison, disadvantaged situations. The possible causes according to DS commentators are online recruitment, disadvantaged neighborhoods with frustrated residents, not identifying with belgian identity, Muslim upbringing and culture, negligent policy tegenover radicalization, European interference in Middle East and Syria. Overall radicalized Muslims are perceived to be adolescents and young adults.

The Muslim radicalization discourse is enlarged by statements from politicians. Mescoli (2017a) refers to Jan Jambon’s statement of Muslims dancing on the streets after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam who was a suspect in the Paris terror attacks in 2015. This event is also widely discussed in the comments. Another statement by Jan Jambon heavily quoted in this radicalization discourse in the comments is ‘cleaning up Molenbeek.’

Oboler (2016) discussed the possible consequences of a radicalization discourse such as the one going on in the comments of HLN and DS news articles on Facebook. A radicalization discourse and broader anti-Muslim statements can motivate Muslims to radicalize.

Islam is (and Muslims are) a problem for Western societies Within this Islamophobic narrative the main idea presented is that the Western culture is too different from the Islamic culture to be able to coexist. This idea is also prevalent in the discourse in Raymond Taras’ research (2013). Spruyt and Elchardus (2012) found that Muslims are thought to be less compatible with Western society than foreigners in general. A possible explanation for this that Muslims are associated with a more specific culture than foreigners in general.

In the comments Muslims are perceived to have anti-Western values. The reason why Muslims are a problem for Western societies is explained as Muslims do not adapt to our Western society. In Meer and Modood’s research (2009) 68 % of the respondents scrutinized

Islam as closer in culture to medieval times than present day. In this narrative sharia is provided as an example of medieval practices and Muslims not adapting to Western society. A general opinion in the comments is that Muslims want that everything to be done to their liking. These comments are a representation of the argument of a clash of civilizations by Zemni (2011).

Islam as an easy target of derision The most prevalent examples of Islam being the target of derision is jokes about 72 virgins in paradise, halal jokes, puns regarding Salah Abdeslam and the reference to IS as Idiot State. This type of mockery confirms Mescoli’s dominant narrative of derision (2017a). Mescoli (2017a) refers to a Charlie Hebdo cartoon after the Paris attacks in 2015. Likewise, an article of the new Charlie Hebdo cartoon appeared after the Brussels attacks. Derision is in many cases not prosecuted because of the freedom of speech. Derision as an Islamophobic narrative is not as easy to detect.

Islamic religion legitimates extreme forms of oppression against women The underlying idea of the examples given of female Muslim oppression is that there is no equality between male and female in Islam in the comments. As mentioned before, headscarves are perceived as a form of female oppression in the comments. This is also the case in the offline Belgian discourse on Muslims (Juchtmans & Nicaise, 2013). The Islamophobic discourse in Mescoli’s research (2017a) takes this a step further and discusses the use of burqa. Some comments state that Muslim women let themselves be oppressed and therefore there is an atmosphere of less sympathy for Muslims. Muslims are described as not only oppressed by non-Muslims but Muslims are female oppressors themselves. This opinion is also present in Meer and Modood’s research (2009). Throughout all comments various instances of Muslim female oppression are discussed. They are honor killings, female child marriages, arranged marriages, domestic violence, women are not allowed to have their own opinion etc.

Mosques do not have their place in the local context In this narrative it is often stated that mosques are breeding ponds for radicalization and places where Imams preach hate. Therefore the government should end the subsidizing of mosques. Additionally this will improve the separation between church and state as a Western value. According to Oboler (2016) undermining worship infrastructure is a strategy of eliminating Muslims from society.

Multiple times there were calls to demolish all mosques in the comments. Commentators justify this desire with the arguments that non-Muslims already tolerate enough and because Mosques make to much noise at the call to prayer. In the offline discourse regarding Muslims in Mescoli’s research (2017a) there were calls to burn mosques as well.

Mescoli (2017a) provides a plausible reason why the Islamophobic discourse pays attention to mosques. Muslims are not equal to full-fledged citizens in public discourse (Allievi, 2009). This realization uncovers a collective of non-Muslims and Muslims. This idea suggests that the Islamophobic narrative against Muslim worship places is justified.

Alternative dominant narratives Muslims provide their children with inadequate upbringing The alternative dominant narrative of Muslims providing inadequate upbringing for their children is present in the comments of only several articles. The main opinion is that Muslims are not capable to raise their children properly. An explanation provided by the commentators is that Muslims have to many children which prevents Muslim parents to give each child the attention it deserves. This can lead to a frustrated generation. The example of bad Muslim upbringing that is most quoted is the Muslim youth attacking the police at the arrest of Salah Abdeslam. It is also often speculated that a Muslim upbringing is the cause of Muslim radicalization and even terrorism.

Muslims support terrorism In the comments it is commonly thought that all Muslims are ISIS sympathisants. The conspiracy theory regarding Muslims having a jihad to take over the world is supported by Ye’or (2005). She also acknowledges the discourse regarding this conspiracy theory of Muslims wanting to take over Europe. The alleged goals of this conspired jihad is to create ‘Eurabia.’ In the Belgian offline discourse on Islam, Muslims are represented as people with a desire to dominate, even more than foreigners in general are (Spruyt & Elchardus, 2012).

Many comments insist that the Muslim community, in Molenbeek in particular, has hid terrorists in their midst. This claim is supported by the commentators understanding of the Muslims concept of Takkiya. Meer and Modood (2009) support this claims as a dominant element in the Islamophobic discourse. The Muslim community is seen as a threat to security rather than a disadvantaged minority. This views arises from the comments holding all Muslims accountable for the terror attacks committed by only a few people. The idea that Muslims are 65 not doing enough to prevent support for terrorists in their communities is supported by Meer and Modood (2009) who’s results also include this statement. The concerns about Muslims being a security threat can become a beginning of intrinsic ideological, cultural and religious fears (Amiraux 2007). This is also one of the three main topic of Islamophobic discourse according to Fernandez (2009).

After the Paris terror attacks, the association between Muslims and terrorism was a prominent Islamophobic narrative (Awan, 2016; Darwish et al., 2018). In Oboler’s research (2016) a statement identical to a statement frequently used in this research was identified. Namely, not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims. The debate whether all Muslims are terrorists or all terrorists are Muslim is present as a discourse in multiple other researches.

Comments opposed to Muslim migration to Belgium The most common reasons to stop Muslim immigration to Belgium are that Muslims cause trouble, bring misery in comparison to other religions that integrated well. Commentators also refer back to the first immigration of Muslims as guest workers in Belgium in the 1960’s. Their opinion is that just because their ancestors were temporary guest workers, they should be allowed to stay. According to these same comments, Muslims add no value to Belgian society. A last reason to stop Muslim immigration to Belgium in the association between Muslims and terrorism. Some commentators are convinced that being Muslim automatically leads to becoming a terrorist. According to Billiet and Swyngedouw (2009) people with anti-foreigner sentiments most likely also have anti-Muslim sentiments. However, having and expressing anti Muslim sentiments is more extensive than general anti-foreigner sentiments in the Belgian offline public discourse (Strabac & Listhaug, 2008). A sentence mentioned in the comments double as one of the ‘five walls of Islamophobic hate’ by Awan (2016), namely “Muslims should be deported.”

Unsubstantiated claims The accusation that Muslims are inherently violent is frequently made in the comments. In Field’s (2007) study 56% of respondent were convinced that identifying as Muslims can lead to violent behaviour. This belief is also apparent in the Belgian offline public discourse (Spruyt & Elchardus, 2012). According to Falk (2008) this association is common for people to make.

Meer and Modood (2009) also found that Muslims are thought to be inherently violent in the public discourse.

The assumptions and suggestions that Muslims are pedofiles, Muslims cannot be trusted and specific derogatory names towards Muslims are not mentioned in other relevant literature on this subject.

It is striking that the derogatory nicknames for Muslims expressed in the comments are not always humanized. Muslims are also referred to as animals, namely rats, vermin, sand monkeys etc. Apart for being portrayed as animals, Muslims are hinted to being weeds that need extermination. Another form of dehumanization of Muslims present in the comments is the rejection of Muslims deserving human rights. By expressing the desire to take away human rights, the acknowledgement of Muslims being human is withdrew. The argument for wanting to take away their human rights is presented as Islam being against human rights as a cause of ISIS’ terror attacks (Oboler 2013). According to Oboler (2016) dehumanization of the ‘other’ is a possible war strategy. Dehumanizing the ‘other’ makes it less difficult to kill the enemy. Also it causes you to feel less guilty about this killing of your enemy (Oboler, 2016). Dehumanizing messages are very similar to racist propaganda. Oboler (2016) advocates for a treatment of dehumanization the same as for racist messages.

Something else that stands out in the discussions in the comment section is the orientalist mindset with underlying features of colonialist discourse towards Muslims. Statements contain saying that Muslims are not civilized, they still need to go through the prehistoric times, mid ages and enlightenment. This mindset is peculiar since Islam in Belgium does not have any relation to colonization since Congo was Belgium’s only colony. This mindset relates to Goldberg’s (2002) racial historicism. This mentality puts Europeans over underdeveloped Others, in this case: Muslims. Racial historicism states that the underdeveloped Others have a contrasting maturity and developments as opposed to Europeans (Goldberg, 2002).

Islam and racism In general, expressions of anti-Muslim sentiments are thought out to be a stepping stone to harsher and other forms of prejudice and even biological racism (Rootham, 2010). The

67 expression of anti-Muslim sentiments are more prevalent in the Belgian offline public discourse than the expression of xenophobic sentiments (Spruyt & Elchardus, 2012).

The common reference of Muslims to folk, kind and race together with dehumanization of Muslims and desire to a Muslim migration stop are clear instances of xenophobia against Muslims. Taras’ two elements of xenophobia (2013) are present in the comments. Namely the fear and hatred against foreigners and the assertion of primacy over Muslims. Taras (2013) clarifies that xenophobia can be based on both fantasy or reality. Xenophobia against Muslims also contains difficulties with Muslims born in Belgium. This is apparent in the comments as well. Furthermore xenophobes will pay much attention to refugees and asylum seekers (Oboler, 2016).

Throughout the comments Moroccans are most attacked directly for their nationality. Moroccans are mainly discriminated on the base of their skin color and ethnicity instead of religion (Mescoli, 2017a).

In the comments it is also mentioned that Muslims are racists not the non-Muslim residents. Medovoi (2012) explains this trains of thought as follows. The world today is depicted as tolerant towards race. However terror attacks symbolize everything that is intolerant. Terrorists have not exceeded the color line. In the comments the presented explanation is different. Muslims are said to announce that non-Muslim are racist on the base of critiquing Islam. Some commentators feel like stigmatising non-Muslims as racist is a racist act in itself. A consecutive offline discourse in Belgium is that by Muslims calling non- Muslims racist, they adopt a victim mentality rather quickly (Meer & Modood, 2009; Spruyt & Elchardus, 2012). This way the probable critique on Islam is muffled by using ‘Islamophobia’ as an excuse (Meer & Modood, 2009). Spruyt and Elchardus (2012) recognise the trend of accusation of Muslims attempting to counter criticism on their religion with allegations of racist comments. Many commentators do not endure the critiques in the comments on their racist comments against Muslims. The main argument to not silence their racist comments is that in the good old days it was indeed accepted to make such comments. According to Oboler (2013) this is a form of undermining resistance to hatred against Muslims.

Overall impressions on dominant Islamophobic narratives The ranking of the most widespread dominant narratives differs per news outlet and differs from Mescoli’s ranking (2017a). In appendix 1 a diagram of the proportions of the comments regarding dominant narratives is illustrated. Overall it is striking that the preset dominant narrative crosses over reasonably. The comments on Muslims oppression females are coherent to the comments about veiling. The comments about mosques not being appropriate in Belgian society are linked to the separation of church and state as a Western value that Muslims are thought to misunderstand. The comments regarding Muslim radicalization overlap with the critiques on Muslim upbringing. And lastly the comments stating Muslims support terrorism pay much attention to Brussels as a city that is becoming more inhabited by Muslims. This kind of overlap is also present in Mescoli’s research (2017a). It is prominent that apart from the comments on veiling and female oppression, the comments in this research are not as gendered as the discourse analysis presented by Mescoli (2017a). Muslim women are not particularly picked on in this online discourse analysis.

6.2. Limitations

Each research experienced some limitations. The limitations to this research I specified below. To start, a limitation in the data collection occurred. On Facebook, the results when searching for something specific will differ according to the account of the user. The results of a Facebook search are dependent on a user’s friends, what these friends likes and who they connected with. According to Curci-Wallis (2019), an unbiased Facebook search is unattainable. Therefore the results of which articles to analyse may differ when another user searches the same key words.

A second limitation to this research is the impossibility of a longitudinal research. It would be relevant to look into the evolution of Islamophobia in the comments sections of HLN and DS articles on the Brussels’ attacks throughout multiple years. There are currently still news articles on the topic of the Brussels attacks being posted to HLN and DS’ Facebook pages. According to Pieters (2011) this is a common limitation to critical discourse analysis due to a lack of time. On the same note it was not feasible to research all of the seven Flemish news outlets, their Facebook pages and their comment sections.

6.3. Recommendations for future research

A first recommendation for future research is to look into racism in Facebook comment sections of Flemish news outlets. From the results, more general racist comments without connections to Islam were apparent. Furthermore future research could investigate the incorrect information that is spread in the comment sections. Many commentators made wrongful claims regarding Muslims and Islam. This could influence the public discourse when Facebook users accept these claims as truthful. Additionally a comparable research for the other five Flemish news outlets would possibly augment the parallel reliability. Future research could also investigate the differences between comments on Flemish and Walloon news articles regarding the Brussels attacks. To conclude, future research could provide more insight into counter dominant narratives of online Islamophobia as described by Mescoli (2017b).

6.4. Conclusion

More than 30 deaths and 300 injuries were caused by the terror attacks in Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station on the 22nd of March 2016 (Rathore, 2016). The public discourse after the Brussels bombing paid much attention to prejudice towards Muslims. Islamophobia is widespread in Belgium (CCIB, 2018; Mescoli, 2017a). 29% of Islamophobic instances were registered took place online (CCIB, 2018). The Belgian offline discourse about Islam centralizes the clash of civilizations (Zemni, 2011). This Islamophobic discourse was intensified in online comments on news articles by virtue of the Brussels bombing. The rise of anti-Islam cyberhate is a complex issue (Awan, 2014). Online social media are fully-fledged public spheres. The most used social media platform in the world is Facebook. Many news outlets have their own Facebook page on which they post their news articles. Mescoli (2017a) investigated the discursive content of Islamophobia in Belgium. However, her research was not specified to survey the particularities of Flanders on the operations of Islamophobia on the internet. This thesis investigated Islamophobic comments in Flemish media outlets in the aftermath of the 2016 Brussels bombings.

The dominant narratives of Islamophobia in the comments of HLN and DS news articles regarding the Brussels bombing on Facebook concur with the dominant narratives in the literature in offline dominant narratives of Islamophobia. The ten dominant narratives by Mescoli (2017a) are all prevalent in this thesis as well. However the popularity of these dominant narratives differed per newspaper. Additionally other dominant narratives were

70 found in the comments such as Muslims supporting terrorists, racism and xenophobia towards Muslims and dehumanization of Muslims. The freshly found dominant narratives of Muslims providing an inadequate upbringing for their children and Muslims being pedofiles were not suggested by other literature. Except for those two, the dominant narratives in the online comments comply with the offline Belgian dominant narratives. As Spruyt and Elchardus (2012) stated anti-Muslim prejudice in public discourse is the results of a melting pot of other forms of prejudice. In this research the dominant narratives also overlap to become in fact a online Islamophobic discourse.

The comments on the relevant news articles were utilized by the commentators to boost online flaming towards Muslims. This became apparent from the expressions of GVD and attacks on religion, sand monkeys among other offensive nicknames, threats to deport all Belgian Muslims, aggressive comments concerning torture and inappropriate sexual comments. Within comments various semiotic decisions were used to empower the meaning of the comments themselves. The semiotic decisions of using metaphors, generalizing, dehumanizing, aggregation, abundant use of punctuation marks strengthened the Islamophobic messages meant in the comments.

Throughout the comments differences between comments on HLN articles or DS articles became clear. The goal audiences differed from HLN as a popular newspapers to DS as a quality newspaper as stated by Santeddu (2018). The comments on HLN articles were more plentiful than the amount of comments in DS articles. HLN comments gave of an impression of maintaining a more ‘us vs them’ mindset than DS articles. Additionally the HLN comments express more aggressive messages. DS commentators are more nuanced in their arguments made in the comments. SD comments also contain less overuse of emoticons, metaphors and punctuation marks.

Opposed to dominant narratives of online Islamophobic discourse, counter dominant narratives also emerged in the comments. Future research can provide more insight into this matter.

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Appendix 1: diagram proportions dominant narratives

Appendix 2: Overview articles Het Laatste Nieuws

Overview HLN articles

Date News article # comments

22/03/2016 Attention: these wrong messages circulate on the internet 961 after the attacks.

Boss UZ- Gasthuisberg: "Injuries show that there were 162 nails in the bombs."

Life in Belgium stands still: all stations closed, training 245 Red Devils canceled.

In the picture: travellers run for their lives at Brussels 136 Airport.

Attacks Zaventem and Brussels: everything we know. 36

Still people blocked in metrostation Maalbeek. 111

More explosives found in Zaventem. 190

Terror comes closer, how do you explain that to your 124 child?

A bomb exploded in Brussels' metro: 20 deaths and 106 185 injured.

LIVE: "one death at attack Brussels airport for sure." 945

Is this luggage employee the hero of Zaventem? 191

These are the suspects of the attack in Zaventem. 1284

Attacks Zaventem and Brussels: everything we know. 205

"Four culprits attacks on the run." 449

OPINION: These attacks are changing our lives. 171

IS claims responsibility attacks. 159

Explosion in metrostation Maalbeek. 445

Bomb ... help! I love you. 288

Brussels under the spell of terror: minute per minute 59 overview.

23/03/2016 Young American escapes death for the third time at 164 attacks.

Muslims worldwide condemn attacks Brussels strongly. 647

"Shame on you, Trump. You know NOTHING about 272 Brussels."

"Third terrorist attacks Brussels still not caught." 158

New footage from terminal after attacks Brussels. 47

Brussels brothers El Bakraoui identified as suicide 851 bombers.

Vanhengel: "We have failed." 1100

"Fugitive terrorist left departure hall remarkably calm." 163

Suicide terrorist leaves will: "I feel frightened. And I don't 284 want end in prison."

Abdeslam knew of this. 701

24/03/2016 Morocco arrests terror cell. 538

What to do in the event of a terrorist attack. 283

Pupils justify attacks ("but it was just as a joke") 490

Belgium receives strong criticism after attacks in Brussels: 305 "They owe it to themselves."

Salah Abdeslam doesn't cooperate anymore since attacks 804 Brussels and wants to leave to France.

"El Bakraoui was even deported for a second time in august 194 by Turkey"

Youngest El Bakraoui also violated probation requirements 155 and was released again.

Live: Possible second culprit in Maalbeek-heavy criticism: 75 who lost sight of the culprits?

25/03/2016 Geens: "Past of brothers El Bakraoui is not as negative as it 238 is presented nowadays."

Jambon: "One person from the police apparatus has 359 blundered!"

This man first escaped attacks in airport, afterwards from the 42 attack in metro.

LIVE: special forces strom house in Schaarbeek: "Man 102 shot."

LIVE: Chief of police about withheld information: "Error 56 made"- Man arrested for terror who ...

Terror has no religion: Muslims mourn for victims 790 immensely.

26/03/2016 IS-summit right before attacks Paris: "Belgium is going to be 207 easy."

RTBF-journalist lost his daughter at attacks: "we don't need 235 hate but love."

"Is terrorist journalist with hat?" 253

Third bomb would have destroyed terminal completely. 252

27/03/2016 Jambon: "We could have stopped Ibrahim El Bakraoui in 251 Turkey."

28/03/2016 Death toll after attacks increases to 35. 131

29/03/2016 FBI warned a few days before attacks for the brothers El 103 Bakraoui.

"Terrorist stole identity of Belgian-Moroccan ex-soccer 28 player Inter."

30/03/2016 Dit is what you get to see when you drive past heavily 44 damaged metro station Maalbeek.

31/03/2016 In Memoriam: the victims of the attacks in the metro and in 242 the airport.

"Muslim and hooligan, but that does not make me a terrorist 218 or scum.

Police searches for second metro bomb. 66

01/04/2016 Fusion Brussels' police zones: "not debatable because it 378 comes from Flanders.

06/04/2016 "Wife suicide bomber is 7 months pregnant." 888

07/04/2016 There is going to be a march against terror and fear in 239 Brussels after all.

08/04/2016 The Syrian warrior from Sweden: Who is Osama Krayem? 74

With these images, terrorist is bound to be recognized, but 286 do friends and family want to report him?

Not only Abrini detained, Osama Krayem also arrested. 324

09/04/2016 Muslim associations gather at metro station Maalbeek: 473 "strong together."

Abrinin has been detained, but prosecution is still not sure 111 whether he is "man with hat."

10/04/2016 Police is searching for backpack with explosives. 63

11/04/2016 "Terrorists had meeting with ISIS leaders in Syria about 94 attacks in Brussels."

Mohamed Abrini brings Salah Abdeslam in an awkward 175 position.

14/04/2016 Strong together after terror: Patrik saved colleagues' lives in 31 Zaventem.

15/04/2016 Survivor Zaventem finds his third guardian angel: "it's you, I 189 recognized you immediately."

16/04/2016 After delay because of attacks: three koala's arrived in Pairi 54 Daiza.

Jambon's scapegoat receives back-up 86

17/04/2016 March against terror starts in Brussels. 119

20/04/2016 Laachraoui worked at the Zaventem airport for 5 years. 308

22/04/2016 Sebastian Bellin: Victim attacks Zaventem, finishes 10 232 Miles: "That is much more than a finish line."

Appendix 3: Overview articles De Standaard

Overview DS articles

Date News article # comments

22/03/2016 This luggage employee brought numerous people to 221 safety.

IS: "We promise dreary days to crusade states." 87

Bombs are worse in limited space. 41

Also an explosion in Maalbeek metro station. 78

Fire brigade reports: ten killed at Maalbeek, eleven at 5 Zaventem.

Also a mention of explosion in Maalbeek metro station. 8

Photo suspects published. 59

The shadow of Salah Abdeslam? 60

Time line. The attacks in Brussels hour to hour. 11

IS claims attacks. 2

Deaths and wounded at explosion in Zaventem. 155

No physical security at entrance Zaventem. 69

Terror in Brussels is main news worldwide. 11

This explosive spread terror in Brussels and Paris. 6

Madrid, London, Paris and now Brussels. 32

Avoid extreme language and dose it. 38

23/03/2016 Adele honors victims attacks during concert. 31

Teenager survives attacks in Brussels, Paris and Boston. 121

Metro driver already back on the job a day after attacks. 30

Attacks are an attack on Islamic values as well. 78

Donald Trump: "Torturing Abdeslam possibly could 409 have prevented Brussels attacks."

I am standing here, in the third wagon, I am standing at 2 the door.

MIVB honors attacks in touching video. 4

I am a doctor. I cannot run away. 82

Two culprits attacks identified. 6

De Wever: furious that people who were born here would 318 do something like that.

Overview: 'Blood brother' once again. 39

24/03/2016 A second terrorist on the run. 9

Live: six persons arrested at different police actions in 37 Brussels.

Salah Abdeslam want to be extradited to France as soon 95 as possible.

Sven Mary attacked because he defends Abdeslam. 193

Turkish government: Turkey deported El Bakraoui twice. 72

The Netherlands knew El Barkaoui was coming. 13

Map: the path of Ibrahim El Bakraoui. 13

Belgium let suicide terrorist slip through the cracks. 69

25/06/2016 Charlie Hebdo mocks attacks Brussels. 377

Belgian IS warriors claim attacks in new video. 325

Mother of Léopold: organ donation fits within his value 76 pattern.

BOLO for new suspect in attacks Brussels and Paris. 20

Salah Abdeslam does not speak anymore since Saturday. 87

Live: police arrested another seventh suspect. 25

26/03/2016 Prosecution confirms arrest of Fayçal C. 9

RTBF-journalist lost daughter in attacks. 105

27/03/2016 Antwerp IS warrior claims attacks (and executes a man). 162

28/03/2016 Death toll increases: four more patients succumb because 17 of woundings.

The continuous blaming each other must really stop now. 170

29/03/2016 Brussels' metro not yet open on Wednesday. 1

IS threatens with new attacks. 171

Najim was not a bad boy. 88

30/03/2016 Wife of victim shares special message. 47

Terrorists looked up information about Wetstraat 16 on the 9 internet.

Airport police snarls destructively after attacks. 60

Mohamed Abrini seems to be 'man with hat.' 72

31/03/2016 After the attacks: More angry than afraid (and we 37 contradict ourselves).

FBI is going to help Belgium with investigation after 48 attacks.

01/04/2016 It is horrible that the Belgian people have to suffer for it's 143 government's actions.

02/04/2016 Minister Geens: Let us not recuperate the attacks 38 politically.

Apartment kamikazes Brussels was rented under fake 15 Portugese name.

03/04/2016 Trump calls migration politics as cause for Brussels attacks. 146

04/04/2016 Acceptance of veiled Muslimas and bakers without ham 219 facilitated attacks Brussels.

Message terrorist Zaventem clears names other suspects. 47

05/04/2016 Video footage show chaos right after attacks in Maalbeek. 7

If I cannot say anything about Abdeslam, the chairman 61 should come and explain it himself

06/04/2016 Dutch relatives sue Zaventem 94

08/04/2016 Research commission attacks takes a closer look at Brussels 50 and PS.

Syria warrior potentially warned mother for attacks 177 Antwerp.

Terror suspect Mohamed Abrini arrested. 51

Video: This is how Abrini was arrested. 21

Is the terror network completely arrested. 49

We recognise his hat, but not the man himself. 39

09/04/2016 Muslim associations gather at Maalbeek metro station for 311 commemoration moment.

Abrini confesses to being 'man with hat.' 88

In search of a backpack full of explosive. 35

There is fear that to that IS is sending new terrorists. 59

10/04/2016 Terror group actually wanted to strike again in France. 39

11/04/2016 Flying from Zaventem? Leave on time. 8

12/04/2016 Flying from Zaventem? Tips to travel smoothly. 30

Two brothers arrested for attacks in Brussels. 5

This is how Salah Abdeslam is looking today. 70

13/04/2016 Europe warned for attacks even before lack of control of 15 airport security

IS-magazine: preparations attacks Paris and Brussels started 14 with brothers El Bakraoui.

How do you interrogate a terrorist? 33

15/04/2016 Second metro terrorist: I knew exactly what we were doing. 16

16/04/2016 Asylum center Sijsele evacuated. 26

17/04/2016 Victims of terror can count on quick compensation. 15

You can come across the march against terror here. 48

18/04/2016 Abdeslam moves to prison Beveren, Abrini to Brugge. 30

Or Jambon keeps his promise, or he apologizes. 377

21/04/2016 Trains to and from Zaventem riding again from Friday on. 39

22/04/2016 In the picture: Maalbeek, a month after 22/3. 1

Gilles Laurent: filmmaker, philosopher, green boy. 1

Terrorist Laachraoui was 'IS warder.' 4