Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes
The Representation of Islam in the British Press

Is the British press prejudiced against Muslims? This thorough analysis of over 140 million words of newspaper articles explores that question.

Paul Baker (Author), Costas Gabrielatos (Author), Tony McEnery (Author)

9781107008823, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 February 2013

294 pages, 40 b/w illus. 52 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.56 kg

'What sets this discourse analysis apart from its predecessors is its completeness: the authors' sample is not a selection of newspapers, accommodating the political stance of the outlet (left-leaning, right-leaning), the format (tabloid, broadsheet), or a narrow period; neither, having aggregated all the articles that mention the topic, do they thin the sample by random or purposive selection. Their corpus includes all the major daily newspapers and all the articles published therein that refer to Islam and Muslims between 1998 and 2009. Although the authors allow that some articles may have slipped through their net, the corpus they compiled contains 200,037 articles.' Michael B. Munnik, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Is the British press prejudiced against Muslims? In what ways can prejudice be explicit or subtle? This book uses a detailed analysis of over 140 million words of newspaper articles on Muslims and Islam, combining corpus linguistics and discourse analysis methods to produce an objective picture of media attitudes. The authors analyse representations around frequently cited topics such as Muslim women who wear the veil and 'hate preachers'. The analysis is self-reflexive and multidisciplinary, incorporating research on journalistic practices, readership patterns and attitude surveys to answer questions which include: what do journalists mean when they use phrases like 'devout Muslim' and how did the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks affect press reporting? This is a stimulating and unique book for those working in fields of discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, while clear explanations of linguistic terminology make it valuable to those in the fields of politics, media studies, journalism and Islamic studies.

1. Introduction
2. Sketching Muslims: the big picture
3. Muslim or Moslem: differences between newspapers
4. The 9/11 effect: change over time
5. Welcome to Muslim world: collectivisation and differentiation
6. What's a devout Muslim? Ways of believing
7. From hate preachers to scroungers: who benefits?
8. Burqas and brainwashing: Muslims and gender
9. Does history rhyme? Earlier news representations of Muslims
10. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Sign languages, Braille & other linguistic communication [CFZ], Translation & interpretation [CFP], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG]