Corona-Jihad Memes: The Shifting Iconology of Islamophobia from Hindu Nationalists

This article analyses the visual rhetoric of anti-Muslim imagery in the memetic internet cultures generated by Indian users, as well as the transnational iconology of terror that the Muslim male body is made to embody. The core problem the article addresses is located at the intersection of three cr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Sen, Moumita (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2022
In: Journal of religion, media and digital culture
Year: 2022, Volume: 11, Issue: 3, Pages: 362-388
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B India / Internetphänomen / Islamophobia / COVID-19 (Disease) / Pandemic / Jihad / Frame (Journalism)
RelBib Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
AE Psychology of religion
AX Inter-religious relations
BJ Islam
BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism
KBM Asia
NCC Social ethics
ZG Media studies; Digital media; Communication studies
Further subjects:B corona-jihad
B Hindu Nationalism
B Covid-19
B Indian visual culture
B Islamophobia
B Memes
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Summary:This article analyses the visual rhetoric of anti-Muslim imagery in the memetic internet cultures generated by Indian users, as well as the transnational iconology of terror that the Muslim male body is made to embody. The core problem the article addresses is located at the intersection of three crucial contemporary challenges: the global pandemic, rising global anti-Muslim ideology, and the role of socially mediated popular political imagery. Here, I look at corona-jihad memes – a subset of anti-Muslim popular imagery made viral through social media. These images illustrated the fake news spread globally, connecting Indian Muslims with the pandemic. Here, I show the strategies of representation used by Hindu nationalist users to create an iconology – or a mode of recognition – for the Muslim male as the threatening and dehumanised other, through a process of mimicry, counter-influence, translation, and flow in a rich intermedial world of transnational imagery.
ISSN:2165-9214
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of religion, media and digital culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/21659214-bja10061