1. The construction of Islam in the Press 1998-2005 A corpus-based (keywords and collocates) analysis

2. Objectives  How do news stories construct Islam?  Have there been any (recent) changes over time?  Are there differences between reporting on Islam (as a religion) and Muslims (as a people)?  Are there any differences/similarities between tabloids and broadsheets  Are there any differences/similarities between American and British newspapers?  How can corpus-based methods be used alongside CDA or moral panic theory?

3. Why a corpus study?  Allows for much larger collection of data to be analysed  Help to reduce researcher bias  Help to uncover patterns such as collocates and discourse prosodies

4. Data  87 million words of British news Broadsheets: The Business, The Guardian, The Independent & Independent on Sunday, The Observer, The Times & Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph & Sunday Telegraph Tabloids: The Daily Express & Sunday Express, The Daily Mail & Mail on Sunday, Daily Mirror & Sunday Mirror, The People, Daily Star & Sunday Star, The Sun 40 million words of American news: Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle

5. Search term  Alah OR Allah OR ayatolah OR burka! OR burqa! OR chador! OR fatwa! OR hejab! OR imam! OR islam! OR Koran OR Mecca OR Medina OR Mohammedan! OR Moslem! OR Muslim! OR mosque OR mufti! OR mujaheddin! OR mujahedin! OR mullah! OR muslim! OR Prophet Mohammed OR Q'uran OR rupoush OR rupush OR sharia OR shari'a OR shia! OR shi-ite! OR Shi'ite! OR sunni! OR the Prophet OR wahabi OR yashmak! AND NOT Islamabad AND NOT shiatsu AND NOT sunnily

6. Freqencies of articles over time

7. Analysis  WordSmith 4 used:  1. Keywords analysis of UK broadsheets vs. UK tabloids  2. Collocational and concordance analysis of Islam, Islamic, Muslim, Muslims  3. Keyword analysis of pre and post 9/11 articles in UK and US news

8. Broadsheet vs. Tabloid Keywords Broadsheets (65 million words) Tabloids (22 million words) The Business Independent Guardian Observer Times Telegraph The Sun Mirror Star People Express Mail

9. WordSmith settings  2 Frequency lists compared together  p value was set at 0.0000000001  2180 keywords found

10. Findings: Style and spelling  Tabloids Pronouns: I, my, me, myself, we, he, she Emphatic adjectives: stunning, fantastic, terrible, wonderful  Broadsheets Conjunctions/determiners: the, that, which however, thus, than Formal terms of address: Mr, Ms (See for example Biber et al 1998: 148)

11. Moslem – key in the tabloids  7,282 tabloid uses  4,834 in the Daily Mail  2,208 Daily Express

12. Bin Laden  powerful (mastermind, terrorist godfather, millionaire, Al Qaeda leader)  warrior leader (chief, warlord)  outcast (dissident, exile, fugitive)  insane (maniac, twisted)  evil (gloating menace, evil, terrorist, murderous)  fanatical (extremist, fanatic, fanatical)

13. Tabloid villains  Direct references to terrorist attacks: terror, terrorists, Taliban, Osama, Bin, Laden, bomb, bombs, bomber, bombers, plane, suicide, killers, attack, crash, hijack, September, twin and towers  Emotive/evaluation reaction: atrocity, atrocities, tragedy, carnage, horror, terrible and evil

14. Other tabloid categories  Home and celebrity news: Blair, Diana, football, sexy, lover  Brainwashing: lure, rant, rants, spew, rouser, brainwashed “Children are being brainwashed into becoming Islamic extremists at 300 "Taliban schools" in Britain, it was reported last night. Youngsters are being indoctrinated with radical Islamic ideals by militant groups across the country, said leading British Muslim Dr Zaki Badawi.” The Sun, December 28, 2001

15. “Scroungerphobia” (Golding 1994)  “HATE-FILLED cleric Omar Bakri is back in the news with yet more chilling race-hate rants against non-Muslims. Yet the jobless father-of-six is still drawing benefits and swanning around in a £28,000 car provided by us.” The Sun, June 22, 2005  “TAXPAYERS face a bill of up to GBP 2 million to kick hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza out of Britain, it emerged yesterday. It was also revealed that the fundamentalist Muslim preacher will be allowed to remain in the country for at least another six months.” The Express October 17, 2003

16. Political correctness (gone mad) The removal of Christian symbols from a hospital chapel and plans to ban the Bible at three other hospitals have sparked outrage. Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "It really is political correctness going crazy. No one wants to be a killjoy and stop people celebrating their heritage. That is common sense." The Express, June 7, 2005

17. Types of belief  In the tabloids, Muslims are fanatics and extremists  In the broadsheets, Muslims are radicals, fundamentalists, separatists but also moderates and progressives

18. Broadsheet keywords  More focus on Islam  The media: book, novel, television, film, poetry  Other religions: Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Judaism  World events: Iran, Iraq, Iraqi, Arab, Israeli, Israel, Palestinian, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria  War and conflict: military, conflict, army, resistance, violence, occupied, ceasefire, genocide, peace, invasion

19. Muslim(s) vs. Islam(ic)  Tabloids – more focus on Muslims (the people); Muslims as terrorists; evil preachers, Muslims as British and desiring peace, women as victims (honor killings, arranged marriage, hijab), men as potential terrorists or victims of racism  Broadsheets – more focus on Islam (as a religion) - stories on terrorism restricted to the word Islamic.

20. Conclusions  Muslims as victims or villains  Moral panics, PC, scroungerphobia  Few distinctions made or explanations given  More neutral global ‘reporting’ stance in the broadsheets  Focus on small number of villains in the tabloids

21. Other areas to focus on  Additional data – BBC news, Al Jazeera  Close examination of stories – e.g. Abu Hamza or types of Muslims (young women)  Comparison between right/left political stances  Examination of agency, metaphor, presupposition etc.

22. Issues to address  What is bias? What is fair?  Does lexical priming work in the same way for everyone?  Need to consider readership and audience response  Is news the only way that people are informed?  Bias of the researcher?