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University of Huddersfield Repository Ahmad, Saleh A Critical Stylistic Analysis into the Representation of Muslims on YouTube after the Manchester Arena Bombings Original Citation Ahmad, Saleh (2020) A Critical Stylistic Analysis into the Representation of Muslims on YouTube after the Manchester Arena Bombings. Masters thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/35470/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. 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For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ A Critical Stylistic Analysis into the Representation of Muslims on YouTube after the Manchester Arena Bombings Saleh Ahmad A thesis submitted for the Degree of MA by Research (Music, Humanities and Media) The University of Huddersfield January 2020 1 Copyright statement: The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns any copyright in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Huddersfield the right to use such copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching purposes. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts, may be made only in accordance with the regulations of the University Library. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. The ownership of any patents, designs, trademarks and all other intellectual property rights except for the Copyright (the “Intellectual Property Rights”) and any reproductions of copyright works, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property Rights and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property Rights and/or Reproductions. 2 Abstract In the West, when it comes to the representation of Muslims, it has been traditional media outlets that have had the power to dictate what representations of Muslims are broadcast to the general public. Researchers have consistently shown that the media’s representations have primarily been negative, and this has cultivated negative ideologies within the general public towards Muslims (Falah, 2005; Jacobson et al., 2012; Said, 1981; Schneider, 2011). However, since the 2010s, social media has started to draw the attention of the public away from traditional media." These rapidly growing platforms provide the user with a greater diversity of choice and a greater diversity of perspectives. It was this user autonomy that gave these platforms the potential to give Muslims a fairer representation. Using this idea as a starting point, I designed a research project that would look at how Muslims were being represented on social media and what kind of ideologies were being disseminated to the audiences. Using the Critical Stylistics framework, I analysed the representation of Muslims after a major incident, by both influential content creators and their audiences. My research was predicated on answering three key questions: 1. Was there a range of ideologies being represented on social media? My research found the answer to be in the affirmative. 2. Did social media’s representation of Muslims differ from that of traditional media? The answer was primarily, yes, but this had its positives as well as its negatives. 3. How influential were those who had the power to represent in filtering their ideologies down to an audience? My research found some associations between the content creator’s ideologies and the audiences’ ideologies, the main one being that the attitude of the audience tends to be more extreme than the content creator they watch. My research was conducted in an area where there is a dearth of research. It has uncovered more questions than it has answered, and these questions require further research so we can develop further our understanding of these critical issues. 3 Acknowledgements I am grateful to my mother and father for their unconditional love, encouragement and supporting me in whatever I do. My wife for her patience and unwavering support when things were looking bleak. My little sister for being my proofreader. My Family for always being there for me and being a source of great happiness. Finally, my supervisor, Professor Lesley Jeffries, for always giving me great advice and supporting me whenever possible. 4 Table of Contents Copyright Statement ............................................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 4 List of Tables and Appendices ................................................................................................................. 8 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 9 1.1 The Starting Point ............................................................................................................................. 9 1.2 Introduction of the Key Concepts ................................................................................................... 10 1.2.1 Islam in the Media ....................................................................................................................... 10 1.2.2 The Manchester Arena Bombing ................................................................................................. 11 1.2.2.1 Reasons for choosing this incident ............................................................................. 12 1.2.2.2 A Timeline of the Events .............................................................................................. 12 1.2.3 Using Social Media ....................................................................................................................... 13 1.2.3.1 Defining Social Media .................................................................................................. 14 1.2.3.2 Social Media vs Traditional Media ............................................................................... 14 1.2.3.3 YouTube and YouTubers .............................................................................................. 15 1.2.4 Critical Stylistics and Textual Meaning ........................................................................................ 16 1.2.4.1 The Concept of Text .................................................................................................... 16 1.2.4.2 The Concept of Ideology .............................................................................................. 16 1.2.4.3 Critical Stylistic Analysis ............................................................................................... 17 1.3 Aims and Research Questions ......................................................................................................... 18 2. Literature Review ............................................................................................................................ 19 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 19 2.2 Theoretical Approach ...................................................................................................................... 20 2.2.1 Framing Theory ............................................................................................................................ 20 2.2.2 Orientalist Theory ....................................................................................................................... 22 2.2.3 Agenda-setting Theory ................................................................................................................ 23 2.3 Linguistic Approach ......................................................................................................................... 24 2.3.1 Critical Discourse Analysis Approach ........................................................................................... 24 2.3.1.1 Criticisms of CDA .......................................................................................................... 26 2.3.2 Critical Stylistics Approach ........................................................................................................... 27 5 2.3.3 Social Media Approach ...............................................................................................................