A critical discourse analysis of Muslims and Islam in The Guardian Weekly and The USA Today

Abstract

Islamophobia is a term given to refer to hatred and fear towards Islam. It is stated by a few researchers that this ideology is widely spread through written media devices, and one of the causes is disproportionate coverage on issues pertaining to Islam. Negative issues concerning Muslims and Islam are overly stressed. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is believed to be the most effective tool to measure language use in the media, specifically the linguistic strategy employed by text producers in reporting news. Research studying Islamophobia in the written media using this tool is scarce. This study therefore aims to investigate linguistic properties in the written media specifically in The Guardian Weekly and The USA Today in reporting issues concerning Muslims and Islam for the first three months of 2010. The data were collected from the Lexis-Nexis Academic news collection. Then, the data were analysed using Fairclough’s CDA. Vocabulary use, clause relations and presences and absences in the texts were studied. Later, the ideology that might have been proposed was examined. It is found that the most frequently reported issue concerning Muslims and Islam that was published is terrorism and the vocabulary of terrorism is highly used in the data collected. It also appears that Muslims and Islam are often illustrated as the cause of conflict. Last but not least, some Islamic terms and concepts that are found in the data collected are inadequately explained and this may lead to confusion and consequently, misunderstanding and prejudice towards Islam.