Islam in the British Broadsheets : the impact of orientalism on representations of Islam in the British press / Elzain Elgamri.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Elgamri, Elzain.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rushdie, Salman.

British newspapers--Religious aspects--Islam.

British newspapers.

Islam in mass media.

Rushdie, Salman--In mass media.

Iraq War, 2003-2011--Mass media and the war.

Iraq War, 2003-2011.

September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001, in mass media.

September 11 Terrorist Attacks (2001) in mass media.

Islam.

Physical Description:

xxv, 244 ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Reading : Ithaca Press, 2008.

Summary:

From the late Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie, to the extremism of the Taliban and the mass murder of the September 11th attacks, an image of Islam as a violent and anti-Western faith has featured dominantly in the global mass media.

In this book, Elzain Elgamri sets out to prove that this negative image, informed by the violence of radical Muslim groups, is a mere media construct that involves blanket generalizations and a conflation between mainstream Islam and radical Islam, whereas in actual fact Muslims are extremely diverse in their religious and political outlooks, and, consequently there is no single monolithic Islam and, therefore, no single monolithic Muslim community.

Deconstructing what has actually been reported in the British quality press, and taking into account the historically conditioned Orientalist discourses, in light of the polarized relationship between Islam and the West, he argues that what has actually been journalistically covered is an incomplete fragment of a much more complex situation. While acknowledging that there have indeed been terrible acts committed in the name of Islam, and that they did involve bloody violence that claimed the lives of innocent civilians and caused much intimidation, he argues that these events have been represented by the media as an archetype of Islam.

Investigating the ways in which meanings and images are produced, reproduced, constructed and represented, Islam in the British Broadsheets highlights the politics and conditions surrounding the representation of Islam and Muslim societies in broadsheet journalism.

Contents:

Part 1

1 Islam and the Christian West: historical background 3

2 Islam and Islamic fundamentalism in Western discourses 39

Part 2

3 Analysing discourse: theoretical and methodological issues 65

4 The Rushdie affair 101

5 The rise of the Taliban movement to power 155

6 The Luxor massacre of foreign tourists 171

7 The September 11th attacks 181

Part 3

8 Findings and conclusion 213.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780863723322

0863723322

OCLC:

192079334