The Discursive Representation of Islam and Muslims In British Broadsheet Newspapers Volume 1 John Edward Richardson PhD Thesis Department of Sociological Studies May 2001 To my Parents, for everything Abstract This thesis analyses the discursive representation of Islam and Muslims in British broadsheet newspapers. Here, discourse is defined as 'language in use', and therefore discourse analysis is the analysis of 'what people do with language'. By foregrounding the practical functions of language in such a way, this thesis' analysis of broadsheet newspapers illustrates that news discourse can function as action and not merely interaction. That is, broadsheet journalism is viewed not merely as reporting and re-presenting social relationships, but as a social practice instrumental in producing, reproducing and/or resisting (unequal) social relationships between Muslim and non-Muslim. The thesis employs two methods of data collection and analysis. First, quantitative content analysis was used in order to provide an initial macro exploration of journalistic content across the sampled broadsheet newspaper reports. Second, Critical Discourse Analysis was used in order to explore meaning - and the social implications of such meaning - within these same journalistic texts. The results were considerably enriched by the combination of these research methods. The results show that broadsheet newspaper reporting is predominantly characterised by racist representations of Islam and Muslims. This dominant position is based on a two-fold process of 'division and rejection' typical in racist discourse which relies upon a negative other-presentation and a simultaneous positive self-presentation. 'Our' positivity is only explicitly stated when defending against accusations of intolerance and/or discrimination, but is implied throughout via an associative relationship between 'the West' and 'civility'. In contrast, 'Their' negativity is frequently asserted, with journalists drawing upon four archetypal prejudicial strategies which emphasise 'the Muslim threat': a military threat; the threat of extremism and terrorism; despotism and the threat to democracy; and the social threat of gender inequality. The specific articulation of these four prejudicial discourses varies between different reporting topics and across different national reporting contexts, which, I argue, illustrates the importance of adopting a context­ sensitive position when analysing journalistic discourse. The Discursive Representation of Islam and Muslims in British Broadsheet Newspapers List of Tables List of Graphs List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction 1 1.1 The thesis in outline 3 Chapter 2: Theory and Practice of the Discursive Representation of Islam and Muslims 10 2.1 Introduction 11 2.2 Social Practice 16 2.2.1 Oriental ism 16 2.2.2 'Islamophobia: a challenge for us all' 23 2.2.3 British Muslims and (racist) social exclusion 27 2.3 Discursive Practice 30 2.3.1 The Sociology of Journalism 30 2.3.2 Racism and 'Othering' in the News 41 2.4 (Critical) Textual Analysis of Newspaper Reporting 48 2.5 Summary 66 Chapter 3: Methodology 70 3.1 Introduction 70 3.2 The Sample 71 3.2.1 Why broadsheet newspapers? 71 3.2.2 Sample size and identification 73 3.2.3 Unit of analysis 76 3.2.4 Qualifying criteria 77 3.3 The Methods 78 3.3.1 Content Analysis 79 3.3.1.1 Methods of Content Analysis, or what to count? 85 3.3.2 Critical Discourse Analysis 90 3.3.2.1 Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis 93 Chapter 4: Reporting British Muslims: difference, discord, and threat in the domestic reporting of Islam 98 4.1 Introduction 98 4.1 Quantitative results 100 4.3 Qualitative results 116 4.4 Islam and the West 116 4.4.1 Articles based on a proxy split between British and Other 117 4.4.2 Articles based on an explicit Islam/West bifurcation 121 4.4.3 Islam/West division: a summary 126 4.5 The ideological square in reporting 127 4.5.1 'Fanatical' Muslim violence in the public sphere 127 4.5.2 Discrimination stories 130 4.5.3 Reporting Islamophobia 133 4.5.3.1 Polly Toynbee and the 'defence of Islamophobia' 137 4.6 Muslim terrorism in domestic reporting 140 4.6.1 Reporting the Luxor atrocity 141 4.6.1.1 Security 143 4.6.2 Muslim terrorism in domestic reporting: a summary 150 4.7 Muslim schooling and Muslim pupils 151 4.7.1 Articles printed before the funding of Muslim schools 151 4.7.2 Articles reporting the funding of Muslim schools 157 4.8 Positive stories 163 4.8.1 Islam vs. the West: a fallacy? 163 4.8.2 'Normalising' Muslim worship 167 4.9 Reporting of British Islam and Muslims: a summary 170 Chapter 5: Conviction, Truth, Blame and a Shifting Agenda: the reporting of Algeria 174 5.1 Introduction 174 5.2 Quantitative Results and Discussion 175 5.3 Qualitative Results and Discussion 189 5.3.1 Introduction 189 5.3.2 October 1997: Benthala, Sidi Rais, Elections and 191 Extremists 5.3.3 November - December 1997: Shifting Blame 199 5.3.4 January 1998: Reporting Algeria during Ramadan 205 5.4 Summary 217 Volume 2 Chapter 6: The Iraq Debacle: The reporting of Iraq during the UNSCOM stand-off 222 6.1 Introduction 222 6.2 Quantitative Results and discussion 223 6.3 Qualitative results and discussion 242 6.3.1 Introduction 242 6.3.2 Use of International law as an argumentative resource 244 6.3.3 Negative depiction of Iraqi leaders 248 6.3.4 The 'ideological square' in reporting Iraq 252 6.3.5 The sophistication and/or superiority of 'Our' weaponry 259 6.3.6 The threat of 'Their' weaponry 264 6.3.7 President Saddam Hussein's 'removal' from power 268 6.3.8 Articles contesting the dominant discursive strategy 275 6.3.9 The importance of UNSCOM to 'unconnected' Iraq 281 articles Chapter 7: Division and Rejection of Muslims: the 'ideological square' in international reporting 291 7.1 Introduction 291 7.2 Quantitative Results 292 7.3 Division & Rejection 302 7.4 'Their negativity' 307 7.4.1 External military threat 310 7.4.2 Extremism and terrorism: threat to life 313 7.4.2.1 Palestinian Authority controlled Bethlehem, at 317 Christmas 7.4.3 Despotism: internal threat to democracy 321 7.4.4 Sexism: internal social threat 325 7.5 Civilising influence of 'the West' 330 7.5.1 'Pluralism' in Iran 333 7.6 Normalisation of Israeli aggression 339 7.6.1 Attempted assassination of Khaled Meshal 342 Conclusion 349 Appendices 352 References 382 List of Tables: Volume 1 2.1 The Runnymede Trust's 'closed' and 'open' views of Islam 25 3.1 Class composition of British broadsheet newspapers 72 4.1 Crosstabulation of 'Setting' to 'Newspaper' 100 4.2 Domestic articles 101 4.3 International articles 102 4.4 Primary parent topics of domestic articles 103 4.5 'Culture!Custom' primary topics for domestic reports 104 4.6 'Policing! Law and Order' primary topics for domestic reports 105 4.7 'Crime' primary topics for domestic reports 105 4.S 'Education' primary topics for domestic reports 105 4.9 'International Relations! Politics' primary topics for domestic 106 reports 4.10 'Race & Community Relations' primary topics for domestic 106 reports 4.11 British Muslim actors in the domestic sample 10S 4.12 'Is Actor 1 quoted?' by variable 'Is Actor 1 Muslim?' 110 4.13 'Is Actor 2 quoted?' by variable 'Is Actor 2 Muslim?' 110 4.14 Lexical representation of Islam in domestic articles (1) 112 4.15 Lexical representation of Islam in domestic articles (2) 114 4.16 Newspaper reporting of 'Islamophobia' (The Runnymede Trust) 134 4.17 Responses to the Toynbee column, printed in the Independent 138 4.18 Dichotomised representation of social actors and agendas 147 4.19 The comparative use of a quotation from Yusuf Islam 161 5.1 Format and number of Algerian articles, by newspaper 175 5.2 'Hard' and 'Soft' Algerian articles, by newspaper 175 5.3 Mean column size (cm) of news formats, by newspaper 176 5.4 Mean column size (cm) of 'hard' and 'soft' formats, by newspaper 178 5.5 By-lined source in Algerian articles 180 5.6 Summarised by-line for Algerian and 'Other' articles 181 5.7 Summarised by-line for Algerian articles, by newspaper 182 5.8 Primary country in Algerian articles 183 5.9 Secondary country in Algerian articles 183 5.10 Primary topic in Algerian articles 185 5.11 Primary parent topic in Algerian articles 186 5.12 Secondary parent topic in Algerian articles 187 5.13 Representation of Islam and Muslims, by 'Islamic agency' 188 Volume 2 6.1 Size and number of Iraqi articles, by newspaper 223 6.2 Format of Iraq articles, by newspaper 226 6.3 'Hard' and 'Soft' Iraq articles, by newspaper 227 6.4 By-lined source in Iraq articles 228 6.5 Primary country in Iraq articles 229 6.6 Secondary country in Iraq articles 231 6.7 Tertiary country in Iraq articles 232 6.8 Primary topic in Iraq articles 233 6.9 Primary parent topic in Iraq articles 234 6.10 Secondary topic in Iraq articles 235 6.11 Secondary parent topic in Iraq articles 236 6.12 Position and Nationality of Iraq articles' primary actors 237 6.13 Position and Nationality of Iraq articles' quoted primary actors 239 6.14 Representation of Iraq and Iraqi actors, by newspaper (1) 240 6.15 Representation of Iraq and Iraqi actors, by newspaper (2) 241 7.1 Primary country in the selected international articles 292 7.2 'Hard' and 'Soft' international articles, by newspaper 293 7.3 Summarised by-line in the selected international articles, by 294 newspaper 7.4 Crosstabulation of 'Muslim' and 'Quoted' Primary Actors 295 7.5 Crosstabulation of 'Muslim' and 'Quoted' Secondary Actors 295 7.6 The evaluation of Muslim social action in the selected international 296 articles 7.7 The argumentative