Misrepresentations of Muslims in the Media the Role of Fox and Friends in the Construction of Fear
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Misrepresentations of Muslims in the Media The Role of Fox and Friends in the Construction of Fear 1st Semester Project Report Group members: Wiktoria Jablonska, Dina Aryani Sanjoto Pedersen, Kübra Bahadir, Maiken Kuld Nielsen Supervisor: Kimberly Renée Chopin Number of characters: 144798 Abstract Despite what statistics show on domestic terrorism in the United States of America, news outlets still have a tendency to misrepresent Muslims and the religion of Islam. The 2017 New York City truck attack was promptly announced an act of terrorism by the news media, while the cause of the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting was attributed to the mental health of the perpetrator. However, the common denominator for both cases is that they, by some definitions, conform to the characteristics of terrorist acts. This project is comprised of a critical discourse analysis of the Fox and Friends news/talk programme’s coverage of the aforementioned cases of terrorism, where the key differentiator is the religious and ethnic background of the perpetrators. This project aims to examine the discursive practices that revolve around the cases, and how the discourse changes accordingly. In extension to this, the study looks to determine, through the use of the theory of moral panic, if the changes in the coverage play a role in the negative perception of Muslims. More specifically, this project looks at how the conservative news media, Fox News, changes their discourse according to the case in question, and how this might aid in the construction of moral panic. On the basis of these measures, the project concludes that Fox News changes its discourse depending on the ethnicity and/or religious background of a perpetrator, resulting in the misrepresentation of Muslims. Consequently, the programme contributes to the construction of moral panic, whereas the moral panic is understood as Islamophobia. 2 Abbreviation List CDA: Critical discourse analysis POTUS: President of The United States CEO: Chief Executive Officer CPRLV: Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence DOD: Department of Defense ISIS: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria NBC: National Broadcasting Company NYC: New York City NYPD: New York Police Department UAE: United Arab Emirates US: United States 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 6 1.1. Research area and problem formulation ...................................................................... 7 1.2. Project Dimension ....................................................................................................... 8 2. Literary review ................................................................................................................... 9 2.1. What is terrorism? ....................................................................................................... 9 2.2. What is radicalization? ................................................................................................ 9 2.3. The Rise of Islamophobia in the United States ......................................................... 11 2.4. Presidential Election 2016 ......................................................................................... 13 2.5. Fox News ................................................................................................................... 14 2.5.1. Fox News’ political standpoint .......................................................................... 15 3. Methodology .................................................................................................................... 17 3.1. Philosophy of Science ............................................................................................... 17 3.2. Research Design ........................................................................................................ 18 3.3. Empirical Material ..................................................................................................... 20 3.4. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) - as a theory and method ................................... 20 3.4.1. Key concepts ...................................................................................................... 22 3.4.2. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model ............................................................... 23 3.5. Delimitations ............................................................................................................. 24 4. Theoretical framework ..................................................................................................... 26 4.1. Moral Panic Theory ................................................................................................... 26 4.1.1. Moral Panic and the Media ................................................................................ 29 5. Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 31 5.1. Analytical Strategy .................................................................................................... 31 5.2. Case 1 - The New York City Truck Attack ............................................................... 31 5.2.1. Analysis of the broadcast 1 (Appendix 1) .......................................................... 32 5.2.2. Analysis of the Fragment 2 (Appendix 2) .......................................................... 34 5.2.3. Analysis of the Fragment 3 (Appendix 3) .......................................................... 36 5.2.4. Analysis of the Fragment 4 (Appendix 4) .......................................................... 38 5.3. Case 2 – The Sutherland Springs Church Shooting .................................................. 39 5.3.1. Analysis of the Fragment 5 (Appendix 5) .......................................................... 40 5.3.2. Analysis of the Fragment 6 (Appendix 6) .......................................................... 42 5.3.3. Analysis of the Fragment 7 (Appendix 7) .......................................................... 45 5.4. Social Practice ........................................................................................................... 47 5.4.1. Case 1 ................................................................................................................. 51 4 5.4.2. Case 2 ................................................................................................................. 53 6. Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 55 7. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 62 8. Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 64 5 1. Introduction Conflicts between Muslim and Western societies is a phenomenon that has been observed for centuries, starting with Christian imperialism and Muslim expansion into Christian lands (Smith, 2017). In more recent times, since the 1980’s, the alleged threat of Muslims has been upheld by a number of journalists and politicians in the Western world. Nowadays, especially following the 9/11 attacks, there has been a substantial increase in frequency of resentment and negative attitudes towards Islam in some (Clay, 2011). With the rise of far-right populism in the United States, a possibly amplified sense of fear and animosity towards Muslim communities has developed within the American society. While the recent rise of ISIS and the election of the US President Donald Trump and his arguably discriminatory rhetoric can be connected to the recent growth in Islamophobia inclinations, many scholars argue that the American media plays a significant role in increasing the anti-Muslim tendencies (Arana, 2015). This project is looking to determine how FOX News as a news outlet covers and portrays two separate acts of terrorism, where the most significant differentiator is the background of the perpetrator. One of the cases chosen for this project is the truck attack which took place in New York City in October of 2017. A driver of a rented truck drove onto a bike path in Lower Manhattan, resulting in eight casualties while twelve people were injured. The driver, who migrated to the US from Uzbekistan in 2010 on a visa from the Diversity Visa Lottery programme, is believed to have ties to radical Islamic communities. According to the NYPD, the suspect had left a suicide note, pledging his allegiance to ISIS. Nevertheless, he was pacified by gunshots of a police officer, and was later treated for his injuries at a hospital, thus remaining alive despite his note (Yan and Andone, 2017). The second chosen case is the Sutherland Springs church shooting, which took place in Texas in November of 2017. A white man entered the church with a rifle and killed 26 church-goers and injured 20 people. He was a former US Airman and has been described as an atheist. At the scene, the suspect was subject to gunshot wounds, but was later found in his vehicle, which he had crashed, possibly deceased by a self- inflicted gunshot wound (Carissimo and Martinez, 2017). One of the motivational factors for this project was the aspiration to examine how some news outlets may have a tendency to frame certain violent events differently depending on the background of the perpetrator,