Constructing the image of Islam in contemporary Russian print media: the language strategies and politics of misrepresentation
This article examines Russian print media coverage from 2010 to 2016, specifically newspaper articles, addressing topics related to Islam. It seeks to identify the main linguistic strategies employed to construct a negative image of Islam within a broader discursive strategy of differentiation betwe...
| Published in: | Religion, state & society |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge
[2020]
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| In: |
Religion, state & society
Year: 2020, Volume: 48, Issue: 1, Pages: 22-37 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Russia
/ Islam
/ Print media
/ Islam
/ History 2010-2016
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| RelBib Classification: | BJ Islam KBK Europe (East) |
| Further subjects: | B
Islam in Russia
B Critical Discourse Analysis B corpus linguistics |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | This article examines Russian print media coverage from 2010 to 2016, specifically newspaper articles, addressing topics related to Islam. It seeks to identify the main linguistic strategies employed to construct a negative image of Islam within a broader discursive strategy of differentiation between ‘radical’ and ‘traditional’ Islam. The research is based on critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, and draws on a corpus containing 18,308 articles from six national newspapers: Nezavisimaia Gazeta, Kommersant, Komsomolskaia Pravda, Moskovskii Komsomolets, Rossiiskaia Gazeta, and Novaia Gazeta. Through an analysis of the lexical compatibility patterns of the lexeme ‘Islam’ (e.g. ‘Islam + verb’, ‘Muslim/Islamic + noun’), the article identifies the four most obvious discursive strategies aimed at creating a negative image of Islam: 1) defining ‘correct’ Islam; 2) homogenising Muslims via ‘big numbers’; 3) criminalising neutral connotations (e.g. ‘Muslim celebration’); 4) misunderstanding specific Islamic terms. |
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| ISSN: | 1465-3974 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion, state & society
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2019.1705087 |