From Islamic Terrorist to Muslim Martyr?

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From Islamic Terrorist to Muslim Martyr?

Comparing the framing of Muslims and Islam post 9/11 and during the Egyptian

Revolution in the New York Times and the Daily News

A Thesis presented to

The Faculty of Arts

University of Groningen

In partial fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

Master of Arts

Student: Josephine Heinze Student Number: 2070391 Submission date: 12.03.2012

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Abstract

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List of Figures

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ince Sept. 11, 2001, conflict has pitted the West against the Arab world, as war in Iraq and Lebanon, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Bush administration's policies forged grander narratives of ''them against us.'' Last week, as more protests erupted in Yemen, Jordan and Egypt and as the United States remained largely on the sidelines, the struggle in the Middle East became firmly about ''us.'' - Anthony Shadid 30.01 2011; Long-term reporter for the New York Times died 16.February 2012 while reporting on the protests in Syria

1 Introduction

Since the beginning of 2011, a wave of protests has come over the Arab World. Many Muslim countries in this region turned into the scene of bloody rebellions of Muslim men and women against their regimes, against political corruption and brutality, paired with the fight for more democracy. Western media covered developments of the upheaval and the fight for political liberation in detail. The “western world” seemed to be on the side of the protestors, the Muslims. Especially with the Egyptian Revolution (also referred to as Egyptian Protests, Days of Rage, the Papyrus Revolution and the Lotus Revolution) which started on 25.01.2011 and led to the resignation of Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak on 12.02.2011, a wave of sympathy and support for the Egyptian protestors by western governments and people appeared. In the American media, Muslims demonstrating in the streets of for example Cairo seemed to be portrayed rather as people like “us”, who want democracy and are even willing to die in their fight against the political oppressors. This “us” paradigm was even supported by western politicians like President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others who showed their solidarity with the protestors in their fight against “them” (here: president Hosni Mubarak). These Muslims seemed to be portrayed slightly positively instead of negatively. But almost 10 years ago, the way of portraying Muslims and Islam was very different.

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and fear, between “good and evil, us and them, civilization and barbarism” (Kellner, 2004, S. 28). “They” or “the evil” allegedly imposed a permanent, invisible threat on western countries, because, as in case of 9/11, the terrorists lived and studied in the US or other western countries for years without being noticed. Also the media contributed to this stigmatization of Muslims; in fact, Northern mass media tended to declare simple signs of Muslim belief, for example wearing the hijab, as signs of “Islamic fundamentalism” (Karim, 2002, p. 107). Thus, it turned into a universal fear the terrorists could have been any Muslim citizen ‘among us’. But not only were the people, fundamental Islamists, seen as a threat, also the Islam with the Quran itself was considered the reason for anti-democratic thoughts; because of the different interpretations of the holy book and the specific interpretations of the jihad as a war against all non-believers. As Kumar (2010, p. 255) argues, by then an anti- Islamic and anti-Muslims sentiment was established in our society: ever since 9/11 “Orientalist logic, expressed in the form of Islamophobia, has once again become naturalized, akin to ‘commonsense’”.

As a consequence of 9/11, the terrorist bombings in Madrid and London, and the “war against terrorism”, Muslims and Islam were mostly framed in a very distinct way which reappeared in the American media throughout the following decade.

This contrast – from Muslims as “them”, as terrorists or aggressors and as savages to Muslims like “us”, as striving for democracy, but as victims of their governments gave the inspiration for this analysis.

Consequently, this paper is going to analyze the framing of Muslims and Islam after the outbreak of the Egyptian Revolution on January 25th, 2011 and also the next 17 days, in comparison with the way those were framed during the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 and the following 17 days, making it a period for analysis on 18 days each. This research will show how and if the framing of Muslims and Islam changed from 2001 to 2011 in the New York Times compared with the Daily News New York. The methodology used in here will be quantitative and qualitative content analysis of selected New York Times and Daily News articles. The New York Times represents a high-quality newspaper, the Daily News represents a tabloid newspaper.

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2 Literature Review

This section is created to understand the Muslim and Islam framing in American media today. In order to comprehend the specific way they are framed it is necessary to look at some elementary entities. One is the historical and political aspects of the Arab-American relations reaching from colonial times until today, another one is the way Muslims and Islam were framed throughout the different decades. This will help to explain the social contexts of the specific portrayals used by the distinct media. Furthermore, In order to understand why people, groups or countries are referred to in other ways in the different media, this chapter looks at basic media theories including framing. At the end of this chapter the political and historical background is connected with these basic media concepts by focusing on how specifically Muslims were framed throughout the last century. These steps then lead to the construction of hypotheses that assist to analyze how Muslims and Islam are framed nowadays, especially after 9/11 and during the Egyptian Revolution.

2.1 The history of Arab-American relations

The history of Arab-American relations is very complex and an entire explanation of this topic in detail is extending the framework of this thesis by far. However, an overview of the most important cornerstones and backgrounds shall be given; historically as well as culturally and socially, aspects of their relationship will be presented in order to get a greater understanding of the historical references used when speaking about Muslims and Islam throughout the American media during the last century.

Before starting, it should be said that the term “Arab” in the Arab world is often criticized and rejected by those who do not self-identify as Arabs living in the region, like Kurds or Berbers. Those groups criticize that the term implies that the entire region would be Arab in its identity (Dawisha, 2003, p. 99).

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culture, and common aspirations.” (Jreisat, 2006, p. 411). According to Jreisat, the Arab World consists of 22 countries with an estimated population of over 300 million people in 2005 (cf. ibid.). The country richest in population is Egypt with 80 million inhabitants. Ever since the Ottoman-Turkish rule, the majority of these countries have not been independent1; they have been under the rule of other colonial powers. When the Ottoman Empire, which controlled most of the Arab world by 1570, finally collapsed as a result of WWI, most of these countries came under the control of European colonial Empires: Italy, Great Britain and France. Even many years after the end of WWII, some Arab countries have still been struggling against colonial domination (cf. ibid.), especially the French-governed countries Algeria (independence 1962), Tunisia and Morocco (independence 1956) or Syria and Lebanon (independence 1946) (ibid.).

While, in general, the Arab world had been of limited interest for European colonial powers, the discovery of large petroleum deposits in the 1930s changed the situation drastically. Before WWII the involvement of the US in the region was, in contrast with the involvement of European colonial powers, minimal; because of this minimal involvement the US was, different from the other countries, “popular and respected throughout the Middle East”. “Americans were seen as good people, untainted by the selfishness and duplicity associated with the Europeans” (Fawcett, 2005, p. 284 f.). Before and during WWII, there have been far reaching and peaceful corporations between the Middle East and the US, most of which dealt with the distribution of and the control over natural resources, namely oil. The regions exchanged favors in form of a guarantee for US oil companies to control petrol prices on the one hand with financial and military support as well as the protection of rulers and regimes in the Middle East on the other hand. By the end of WWII, the US government referred to the Middle East as “the most strategically important area of the world” and “…one of the greatest material prizes in world history” (Chomsky, 2005, p. 8). However, these friendly relations with the countries’ rulers was observed critically by the counties’ own inhabitants; according to Jreisat (2006, p. 419) the fact that Arab countries were accepting US support to get ahead of inter-Arab competition, did not only lead to suspicion and hostility among the Arab regimes themselves and thus a dependence on foreign powers to sustain the rulers in office,

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but also led to an alienation of the leaders from their own people. It was then that the region faced an uprising in Arab nationalism, since the people were searching for an own identity beyond colonial powers and absolutist rulers. Oppositional groups were formed which demanded the countries’ independence from these powers, as well as benefits for the working class and the poor, which resembled the majority of the regions. These nationalist groups gained popularity throughout the Arab world and eventually led to an internal turmoil within the Arab world (cf. Fawcett, 2005, p. 283).

This nationalistic political trend towards independence clashed with the American interests in the region. The US wanted to be close to the Arab world, since, according to Fawcett, the region had a geographic key function in American foreign politics “about the Soviet Union, access to oil and the project for a Jewish state in Palestine” (Fawcett, 2005, p. 284). These conflicting interests between the US and the Arab world are often seen as causes for the development of the ‘great divide’ in the relationship between these two powers, which then also served as the reasoning for multiple US military interventions there (cf. ibid. p. 285).

These interventions in the Middle East changed the relationship between the Arab world and the US even further, since they led to anything but the desired independence of Arab countries. As Khouri argues, due to “the burdensome, humiliating fact that the Arab region is the only part of the world where foreign armies today still regularly invade, occupy, and try to remake societies” (Khouri, 2005b, S. op. ed page) Americans suffered from a loss of popularity in the Arab world.

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argument for this support is that “the American people, including their leaders, strongly identify with Israel”. In fact, it seems as if this identification with and sympathy for Israel/ has gone so far that the American people might be biased in their view not only onto Israelis, but also on the rest of the Arab world might have led to an antipathy for the rest of the region as Davidson (Davidson, 2001, S. 3) explains:

Because the Zionists, and now Israel, have always been so automatically and unthinkingly regarded as modern and “like us” in the United States, and therefore as superior, the Israeli point of view has almost always gained a sympathetic hearing at all levels of political discourse in the United States, while the Palestinian point of view, as automatically the inferior perspective, has seldom been heard.

This sympathy for Israel and thus antipathy for Palestine as westerners see it, was adapted by the media and therefore in return has an impact on the audiences. In summary, the long dependence from colonial powers, the American support of absolute rulers, the involvement of American oil companies and military in the countries and the special relation between the US and Israel lead to, as the Economist claims, the circumstance that “suspicion of America runs deep in the Arab world” (Unknown, 2004).

However, it must be stressed again that the US has multiple close allies in form of Muslim countries in the Arab world as well. Maybe besides their relationship with Israel, the second most important ally of the US in the Arab world is Egypt. Right after Israel, Egypt is the second country receiving more US military and economic assistance than any other member of the Arab world (cf. Akbarzadeh, 2011, p. 73). The US has always been a close ally with Egypt, presumably also because of their Middle East strategy, in which Egypt plays a major part to keep stablity with Israel: Egypt has a large influence on Palestine and other Muslim countries of the region and has been a key participant in bringing peace between Israel and Palestine for the last 30 years (cf. Akbarzadeh, 2011, p. 73). Egypt sustains a so-called cold peace with Israel. Due to the supportive solidarity Egypt has shown to the US and vice versa, Egypt also has a key function in the US foreign policy concerning the Near Middle East. This special relation with Egypt as being Muslim, but in peace with Israel is supposedly also adapted by the media and their audiences. Therefore, an analysis of framing of Muslims in Egypt is highly interesting.

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reflects these frames back and also influences the audiences. It is interesting in how far Muslims and Islam during the Egyptian Revolution were framed in the context of the good relations of Egypt, Israel and the US, or in the context of the conservative, fundamental religious background of the Egyptians.

Taking these complex relations of the Arab world and the US as a foundation, the second step on the way to understand how the American media frames Muslims and Islam is to describe basic media theories themselves. The next part is supposed to show how the media shapes our way of seeing people or groups in general.

2. 2 Framing

When speaking about how the media portray events and people, one must come across the term framing. It is often asked how something or someone is framed. To put it in simple words, framing is a process taking place when people or situations are portrayed or presented out of a specific perspective. Those specific angles are initiated by news organizations, political leaders or public relations officers (cf. Johnson-Cartee, 2005, p. 24).In the words of Tankard, Hendrickson, Silberman, Bliss and Ghanem “a frame is a central organizing idea for news content that supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion, and elaboration” (p. 11).

The frames media use to present certain issues to their audience are based on “what is believed to be true” (Johnson-Cartee, 2005, p. 186), because they are mostly rooted in a society’s cultural narratives, mythologies or rituals; “what constitutes their knowledge of the world” (ibid.). However, this means that those myths are not objectively true, since these cultural narratives differ from society to society. Therefore, media frames themselves cannot be objectively true facts.

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the framing offered by the media, but this is mostly due to the repeated occurrence of a frame: “The Press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly in telling its reader what to think about“(Cohen, 1963, p. 13). The media follow a specific agenda and thus speak about certain topics more often than about others. Each medium can have a different agenda depending on different factors, like political orientation or financial dependency on big companies or parties. According to Cohen (cf. ibid.), the media, but also politicians set the agenda of which issues are discussed and thus determine what the general public thinks or discusses. In case of 9/11, Ahmed (2007) argues that it was actually the framing by the government and consequently their agenda which influenced the media’s agenda: “The extensive framing affected news media sources such that they joined in compliance with the agendas set by the Bush administration,” (p. 19) which spoke of war against freedom, inhumane Muslims and an omnipresent, but invisible threat of terrorism. Therefore it becomes obvious that it frames can be installed by either side – media or society – and be adapted by the respective other.

In summary, the agenda of the media can have an influence on the individual agendas of people, because people’s personal opinion about certain issues is often coined by their exposure to these media frames. Frequently used media frames can, after some time, become a part of our social reality, become common sense and make it into our social narratives. The media reflects these social realities back to a society and therefore functions as an important tool to sustain or change them. Thus, “Framing can be a significant tool in measuring the bias and power of media in society,” (Ahmed, 2007, p. 9). In the US media, the skepticism towards Muslims came for foreign political reasons and has turned into a social narrative since many decades.

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2. 3 Ideology of Us versus Them

An ideology is the preferred shared self-image of a group. Each group member is raised with this ideology of his or her group in the form of identity or values. Ideologies are fundamental, “axiomatic beliefs underlying the social representations shared by a group, featuring fundamental norms and values” (van Dijk, 2009, p. 193). Ideologies can be understood as self-images of groups, which on the one hand “legitimate power abuse (domination), but also *…+ bolster resistance, as is the case for the socialist, feminist or pacifist movements” (ibid.). The ideologies are present and “innate” to a person, because they are stored as mental models, which are saved in the long term memory as part of the personal experience. Characteristic for ideologies of a society is that there is an inner group, Us, and an outer group, Them. Us means all the people sharing the same ideological system. Them speaks about all other people, who do not belong to this specific group. “In order for us to be Us we need to create Them” (Pintak, 2006, p. 7).Us thereby usually is connotated positively, whereas Them is usually framed negatively. Many times, it is the news media that shapes this “way of life” of a community and determines who is included (Us) and who is excluded (Them) from a society (cf. Allan, 1999, p. 158). This in- and exclusion can be found within every society, since “Othering is the basis of the nation-state and it is also the root of much of the world’s violence” (Pintak, 2006, p. 6).

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Interstingly, Hall claims that overt racism is often found in the popular and tabloid press, which, due to their circulation number, then leads to racism not only being “accaptable”, but after a while becoming “true”, or common sense (cf. ibid.). The Inferential racism is, however, in most cases almost invisbile and thus also more insidious.

Whether overt or inferential racism, xenophobic tendencies in news media become most visible in times of war. In times of political conflict, the media traditionally allign with their own people or soldiers and strongly identifies with “their troops” as Us whereas the mutual enemy is describes as Them. As an analysis of Guardian Weekly articles of the Persian Gulf War 1990-1991 shows, the terms used to report on the war demonstrated a much more radicalized ‘Us versus Them’ dichotomy than during peace times. Whereas the newspaper referred to fatal incidences from ‘our’ side as to eliminate, neutralize or decapitate, the enemy was simply described to kill; whereas ‘our boys’ were described as loyal, resolute or brave, the Iraqui soldiers were portrayed as blindly obedient, ruthless or fanatical (cf. Allan, 1999, p. 178f.).

Coming back to the topic of this paper, it is now to find out if the Us versus Them terminology was used by selected American media after 9/11 as well as during the Egyptian Revolution in 2011. The aim is to discover whether specific frames were used to a different extend during the two time periods and whether the way Muslims and Islam were framed changed in 2001 as compared with 2011. There is reason to believe so, since for the last 50 years, the US made use of the Us versus Them vocabulary when it comes to the Arab world and Muslims, whereas during the decades before that, the way Muslims and Islam were framed was less negative; reasons for that are of a specific historical and political nature and will be explained in the next part of this paper.

Whereas the beginning of this chapter tried to explain the Arab-American relations in a political way, the next part will focus more on the socio-cultural aspects of the Arab world.

2. 4 Muslims and Islam framing before and today

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Muslims, there is only a consistently narrow framework of representations. Historical factors combined with xenophobic tendencies and anxieties about minorities have resulted in the images of Islam present today (cf. ibid. p. 100).

However, scholars are in two minds about what these historical factors precisely are that led to nowadays’ representations of the Islam: an Orientalist discourse claims that the Islam has been engaged in a “unilinear confrontational relationship with the West throughout history” (Poole, 2002, p. 32). It is argued that the “Otherness” of the Islam is historically based on religious scrutiny from the Christian West (cf. ibid. p. 33) and then intensified throughout the following centuries.

The often referred to ‘clash of the religions’ back then led to theories of Otherness, framing the Other as “morally and ontologically corrupt” (Turner, 1989 as in Poole, 2002, ibid.), in order to limit the growth of Islam. It was in the time of the Enlightenment that the Islam started to be seen as incomprehensible and extreme (Kappert, 1995 as in Poole, 2002, ibid.); the modern and enlightened Europe compared itself with the anti-enlightened Middle East and thus let ideas of superiority circulate (cf. ibid.).

Kumar (2010, p. 258) adds another edge to this historical discourse by saying that reasons for seeing Muslims and the Islam as something inferior, different or barbaric are rooted in times of colonialism. Colonists applied their Western values to the evaluation of other cultures, looking at how uncivilized they are compared to the European emperors. This view “placed European Caucasians at the top of the racial hierarchy and colonized peoples close to the bottom” (ibid.).

This idea of superiority, but also of otherness increased with the advent of yet another philosophical approach to the Middle East, the postmodernism. Since it rejects absolutes and embraces plurality, the postmodernist approach “allows for only one version of human history, the gradual incorporation of all nations by a Western notion of development and modernity” (JanMohamed, R., & Lloyd, 2006) while criticizing i.e. their Muslim counterparts.

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negative image of the religious fanatic (cf. ibid.). This event became significant in framing the Islam the way it is still known today and it has also increased media coverage of Islam dramatically (cf. Said, 1981 as in Poole, 2002, p. 42).According to Ibrahim (2010), this frame shift was politically necessary for the US, regarding the following collapse of the former major enemy, the Soviet Union: (Ibrahim, 2010, p. 112):

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, Islam became the global threat that replaced communism as the enemy of the West. The collapse of the Soviet Union left

an American foreign policy vacuum, which was filled by terrorism as the ‘Islamic Threat’ emerged as the propaganda theme of the 1990s.

Muslims remained misunderstood in the west, especially the US. American media played the major role in the creation of distorted views towards Muslims, “since their reporting on Islam often fueled hysterical fear and violence, and focused on crisis coverage.” (ibid.). Coverage of Islam then mostly centered around crises, conflict and war and the clear majority of stories did not distinct between the different branches of Islam (cf. ibid.). However, there were some rare exceptions to this coverage: in 1990 – 1 Islam was presented carefully and there was sympathy from American media because of distress of Muslims in Somalia and Bosnia (cf. ibid.)

According to the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia (runnymede Trust, 1997 as in Poole, 2002, p. 43), Muslims and Islam are predominantly placed into one of the following 8 discourses:

- Muslim cultures are seen to be unchanging and monolithic - Muslim cultures are wholly different from other cultures

- Islam is inferior, different, barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist - Islam is threatening

- Islam’s’ adherents use their faith for political advantage - Muslims’ criticism of the West are rejected out of hand

- Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices - Islamophobia is assumed to be unproblematic

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framing of Muslim and Islam during the post 9/11 period by the New York Times as analyzed in the study of Ahmed (2007).

2. 5 Muslim and Islam framing in the New York Times Post 9/11

Framing of Muslims and Islam in the post 9/11 era illustrates that the ideology as portrayed by the American media biased and distorted the views towards the Muslim World. Though the terrorist attacks were portrayed as an outbreak of hatred from the Muslim world against the American “imperialists”, in reality most Muslims were not in favor of the terrorism: after 9/11 “never in modern times had there been such sympathy for the United States in the Islamic World” (Pintak, 2006, p. X). This momentum could have been used as a starting point to improve Arab-American relations. In fact, according to Pintak (2006), this sympathy was a unique chance for the US to build a new relationship with the Muslim world, but America missed it: “instead, the nation began marching down a path that would systematically alienate sympathetic Muslims *…+” (ibid.).

As mentioned before (p.3), this way of seeing and framing Muslims and Islam was initiated by the Bush administration and then got adopted by the American media.

As Ahmed (2007) found out the predominant frames used in the New York Times coverage in the post 9/11 era were to present Islam by using violent frames, putting Islam mostly in the context of extremists, militants, war and jihad or hard-liners. The second most dominant frame was an educational one about Islam. Muslim-related stories referred to dual identities of Muslim Americans and their religious background, while promoting tolerance towards Muslims (Ahmed, 2007, p. 44). At the same time, the keyword Muslim was predominantly embedded in the context of patriotism and understanding with reference to Arab-Americans, women and clerics. One third of the articles analyzed by Ahmed contained peaceful messages about Muslims and promoted the fair treatment of American Muslims.

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and at the start of the Egyptian Revolution in 2011 as the New York Times. This paper attempts to answer these and other questions about the way Mulims and Islam were or are presented in two specific newspapers. In order to do so, it is important to find out specifically how each of the keywords were framed in the distinct contexts. The following hypothese are supposed to lead the way for a representative analysis.

RQ1: In which contexts were Muslims and Islam mentioned predominantly in 9/11 and the following 17 days articles of the New York Times?

H1: Muslim and Islam were presumably portrayed in a violent surrounding, in many times in the context of terrorism and threat.

RQ2: In which contexts were Muslims and Islam mentioned predominantly in the in 9/11 and the following 17 days articles of the Daily News?

H2: Muslim and Islam were presumably portrayed in a violent surrounding, in most cases in the context of terrorism, jihad and threat.

RQ3: How were Muslims and Islam framed in New York Times articles from the beginning of the Egyptian Revolution in 2011 and during the subsequent 17 days?

H3: Muslims are presumably framed as liberal, more western-bound intellectuals. Islam might be framed as on the verge to liberalization und reformation of former values, but also in less violent or aggressive terms.

RQ4: How were Muslims and Islam framed in Daily News articles from the beginning of the Egyptian Revolution in 2011 and during the subsequent 17 days?

H4: Muslims are presumably framed as liberal, unfortunate and oppressed people. Islam might be framed as still not combinable with democracy and thus be a reason for violence against protesters.

RQ5: How were descriptive texts in relation to the keywords Muslim and Islam framed in the New York Times’ articles during the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, as compared to the coverage after the attacks on 9/11/2001?

H5: The coverage might have changed from terrorist to martyr, from aggression to rebellion and liberalization, from “otherness” to relatedness.

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H6: The coverage might have changed from terrorist to unfortunate person, who is inferior to western people. It might have also changed from aggression to rebellion and liberalization, from dangerous “otherness” to related “feeling-sorry-for”.

RQ7: In how far is the coverage of Muslims and Islam during the distinct periods different in the two newspapers?

H7: Presumably, the Daily News coverage is less objective and more sensational throughout both time periods. The framing of Muslims and Islam might be more negative in the Daily News than in the New York Times. Meanwhile, the framing in the NYT might have changed towards a less negative image of Muslims and Islam in 2011. Presumably, the framing used by the DN might have not or only slightly changed from 2001 to 2011.

3 Methodology

The research method used was inspired by Ahmed’s (Ahmed, 2007) research. Like in her study, a mix of quantitative and qualitative content analysis of New York Times articles, but also Daily News articles will be applied. A content analysis is useful for this research, because it helps to reveal the frames used by the specific newspapers in the respective times. The content analysis shows not only what the newspapers wrote about, but also how they wrote about it. The quantitative content analysis at the beginning helps to limit the sample to an appropriate amount. The resulting sample will then be analyzed qualitatively in order to reveal the used frames.

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While Ahmed used the MonoConc Pro 2.2 software, this research will be supported by the similar freeware program AntConc 3.2.2w. These programs are concordance softwares which allow distinguishing formal patterns in text files. The so-called concordance can be described as text-searching, while it is a basic program that allows users to search large numbers of text and scan it for words or phrases. Antconc 3.2.2w is applied to reveal the contexts in which Islam and Muslim occurred after 9/11 and during the Egyptian Revolution.

The 5 predominantly used words in the “Islam” and “Muslim” sections will be determined with the help of the AntConc 3.2.2w software. Besides showing how many times a word appeared in the respective time periods, the so-called frequency percentage will be determined as well. This shows, with which percentage the words actually appear, whereas the number usually is smaller than 1%. Though such a percentage seems to be insignificant it is crucial, because it shows that even words appearing very non-frequent are transmitting the frames. The analysis excludes any kind of conjunctions, prepositions, articles or pronouns. For example, Ahmed found in her research that the most frequently appearing keywords were Against, attacks, Afghanistan, Taliban and military for the term Islam. For the keyword Muslim the most often used words were similar: Attacks, Against, war, Afghanistan and Taliban.

After this initial quantitative content analysis, a qualitative content analysis will be applied also following the example of Ahmed’s study. Each of the respective 5 most dominant words will be analyzed individually regarding the sentences surrounding them. This helps to determine which general frames are used predominantly when speaking about Muslims and Islam (whether crises, war, peace etc). Then the keywords “Islam” and “Muslim” themselves will be analyzed in their surrounding sentences and are supposed to show how Muslims and Islam were actually framed.

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relatedness frames express not only a sympathy, but an individual, social or cultural connection and identification with somebody, the otherness frame described an inidivual, social or cultural rejection and indicates of a big divide between people, cultures or countries.

These frames are themselves coming very close to the US vs THEM frames (cf. Kellner, 2004, p. 28), because they are meant to unmask how and if certain groups are portrayed as being “like US” or “like THEM”. However, the distinction of US vs THEM, seemed less appropriate for this analysis, since the people mentioned here were not exclusively belonging to one group or the other, but often had mixed indentities i.e. Arab-Americans, American Muslims or Arab Christians. Therefore the relatedness or otherness frame fit better.

A further frame is violence in general, which was counted every single time a keyword was mentioned in the context of weapons, violence, war or any other military background. An extension of this violence frame was the terrorism frame, which became visible every time a keyword was mentioned in the context of terrorism, fundamentalism, and also violence by religiously motivated organizations against people of other beliefs or political backgrounds.

Table I Coding book for frame analysis

People-related frames

Frames used 1) bad 1) protagonists are framed as dangerous 1) Protagonist/s are violent, dange-

inhumane, preventing positive develop- -rous,inhumane, a threat, outdated, ment, against the “good” people. Closely suppressive, unqualified leader, tied to the “them” frame. When author prevents good things; article speaks speaks out against the bad sout against/makes fun of person/s

2) good 2) sympathy for protagonists who 2) people fight oppression, regime

do good things for people or groups/ Want their basic human rights, society; fight against bad things or people ; have good intentions. Article victims of the bad. Closely tied to the “us” sympathetic with or supportive frame; when author is in favor of the good people, feels sorry for them

3) martyr 3) person is willing to suffer persecution 3) people are portrayed as having

and death for refusing to renounce a died in fight against regime, in de- a belief or cause -fense of freedom, democracy etc General frames

Frames used 4) violence 4) situation is violent, use of weapons etc 4) situation/people shown as

vio-lent, bloody,Includes military, war forces, weapons, clashes

5) otherness 5) people, situations are framed as 5) behaviors, thoughts, people are

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thoughts, lives . Are portrayed as

“barbaric”, not understandable in

western cultures, authors offers

ttle or no understanding for them

6) relatedness 6) people, situations are framed as 6) behaviors, thoughts fitting with

combinable with spec. values, thoughts a spec. norm, people thoughts, and lives are according to western norm; values, events, people are portrayed

ed as close to “us”, modern,open- minded. Related to western culture ture, life, history. Motives are explained as matching western values

author shows understanding; is on the side of the protagonist; extension of the “good” frame

7) educational 7) impartiality towards subject, 7) neutral definition of person,

Background information about subject. Historical, cultural, political People, situation etc, background about subject, person

etc, situation. Relations not connected with main topic of article 8) threat 8) transition to democracy 8) fear of developments that will

threaten peace, democracy, lead to Islamism/extremism and skeptical outlook on future freedom, not to democracy; peace

and freedom are at risk

9) chance 9) developments presented as 9) transition to democracy will positive, an opportunity to gain bring real democracy, secularism Peace, democracy, freedom peace will be maintained or broa-

dened, freedom will be extended, optimism towards future

10) terrorism 10) violence by terrorists, threat 10) extension of violence frame;

threat to democracy, to western world, dangerous, bestial, use of weapons, jihad, Taliban, AL Qaida

The educational frame refers to rather neutral historical, political, ideological or social background information, as well as other information which does not fit into the other categories (i.e. Mr. XY is chief of the Muslim organization Z).

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The advantages of the method chosen for this project are that, due to the quantitative analysis at the beginning, the sample is narrowed down to the keywords which are most often used in the respective newspapers. These reoccurring keywords also indicate what is mostly talked about in the articles and thus help to unmask which frames are used most often. This way of analyzing keywords in their contexts is an efficient and reliable way of frame analysis. Another advantage of this method is that due to primary quantitative analysis, the subsequent qualitative analysis is less subjective, since it is based on numbers and “facts”, namely the most often occurring words and references.

3.1 Keywords

The sample unit deals with the time period after 9/11 and during the Egyptian Revolution. The news coverage after the 9/11 attacks and the Egyptian Revolution actually lasted for more than only 18 days which could be analyzed to get a broader understanding of the specific framing, but it would also exceed this thesis by far. However, the days and weeks after the events which are to be analyzed showed intense newspaper coverage of “Muslims” and “Islam”. As a consequence, the 18 days of analysis will be enough to deliver a representative overview of “Muslim” and “Islam” framing. Thus, the keywords “Islam” and “Muslim” are used individually in LexisNexis for the period between 11.09.2001 – 29.09.2011 as well as 25.01.2011 – 12.02.2011. The sample taken excludes public ads, classified ads, quotations of the day, names or places containing the word Islam or Muslim (Islamabad or President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan). The words Islam, Islamic, Islamophobia or Muslims are included in the sample, because they are linguistically closely related to the keywords themselves.

3.2 Sample

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different audiences and might thus use different frames. Other than quality newspapers, tabloids are “not created as an elitist intellectual activity but as part of a populist, market-driven engagement with the pre-existing myths and language of a popular nation” (Conboy, 2006, p. 47). Furthermore, tabloids are said to be more biased than quality newspapers (cf. ibid. p. 48). To which extend that is applicable should become visible in a direct comparison. The New York Times and the Daily News are representative samples for this comparison; the New York Times is one of the oldest and most renowned newspapers in the United States. It is read by millions of people daily and thus is considered as one of the most influential newspapers on public opinion. According to Paletz the New York Times also has a great influence on other media and even sets their agenda. Paletz says the so-called Elite Media “have disproportionate influence on other media organizations, particularly the New York Times” (Johnson-Cartee, 2005, p. 107), which “serves as a guide, even guru, for the rest of the press” (Paletz, 2002, p. 72). Frames of the New York Times (NYT) are regularly adapted by other media outlets (ibid.). Because of its agenda setting function and its influence on people and other media, the NYT serves as a representative sample for research on framing.

Daily News (DN) is the oldest tabloid newspapers in the US. (Saltonstall, 2009) Its circulation among the States makes it one of the most read newspapers in the United States (Agrella, 2010). The DN became a major newspaper in the 1920s and many other dailies copied its features (Reel, 2010, p. 142 f.). In fact, the DN became a famous institution which “earned its place in culture”, since it was also the model for Superman Clark Kent’s employer The Daily Planet (ibid.). The mere fact that the DN belongs to the tabloids, which themselves are “deemed to have the greatest impact across society, especially in terms of their influence on the governmental sphere” (Allan, 1999, p. 112), allows it to be considered a dignified matter of comparison with the NYT. These two newspapers were chosen because their targeted audiences are different and thus their style or agenda is supposed to be different, too.

The sample from those two newspapers had to, besides mentioning the keywords “Muslim” or “Islam”, deal with political or social topics taking place in the Arab world during the Egyptian Revolution or deal with the US, its allies or Afghanistan after 9/112. Furthermore,

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random sampling needed to be applied for specific sets of articles: the keyword “Islam” initially came to 99 results in the NYT on LexisNexis for the time during the Egyptian Revolution. The keyword “Muslim” delivered 117 results initially for the same newspaper and the same time period. Because of this large amount of results, the sample unit was cut down in order not to exceed the unit by more than 50 articles.

However, i.e. in case of the DN in the Egyptian Revolution period, no systematic random sampling is applied, since the keyword “Islam” came to a total of 15, and the keyword “Muslim” to a total of 16 articles already after applying the sample requirements described earlier.

4. 1 Results Post 9/11

Due to the extensive amount of articles coming up in the LexisNexis search, the list of results had to be cut down with the help of random sampling. Consequently, only articles from every 4th day were taken into consideration, in order to narrow down the number of articles to approximately 50 each.

4.1.1. Muslim data NYT

This keyword initially led to a total of 357 hits, but after applying the before mentioned paradigms, a total of 83 articles remained. Then, random sampling was applied leaving a total of 50 articles. The corpus for this set of data consisted of 51.467 words, whereas the word corpus refers to the total number of words used in the articles that were analyzed. The frequency percentage is calculated by dividing the times a word appeared in the corpus by the total word count of the corpus (here: 51.467) and multiplying the result with 100.

Table IICorpus frequency list for NYT Muslim data post 9/11

Word Count Corpus frequency

People 156 0,30%

American 145 0,28%

(Osama bin) Laden 121 0.23%

Afghanistan 104 0,20%

Pakistan 99 0,19%

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RQ1: In which contexts were Muslims and Islam mentioned predominantly in 9/11 and the following 17 days articles of the NYT?

The keyword “people” was mentioned 156 times and was in 49% referred to with the educational frame. Mostly, people were portrayed in a neutral and educative way. However, often this seemed to be used by the authors in order not to take sides in the battle of “us” vs “them”:

On Wednesday night, more than 100 people, including many teenagers, held a march near a mosque in Bridgeview, Ill., near Chicago. Some waved American flags and shouted, "U.S.A.!"

(Goodstein & Niebuhr, 2001, p. 14)

In fact, it was often mentioned that Muslims in the post 9/11 era were stigmatized and seen as dangerous or violent in the public. In the articles these negative and stigmatizing frames were often contested by constantly referring to Muslims, Americans and any groups of other cultural heritages simply as “people”.

The same article as cited before talks about incidences in which random people of Middle Eastern heritage were arrested, because their appearance made them suspects. However, the author -seemingly on purpose- only talks about “people” being arrested:

(…) on Wednesday, about 10 people were removed, held by the police and questioned for an hour and 40 minutes while the train idled in the station, the police and passengers

said.” (ibid.)

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Table IIIPercentage of frame appearance NYT Muslim Post 9/11

However, the third predominant frame appearing in 21% of the articles was the otherness frame. It referred to the terrorists, but also to conservative Muslims or the Islam, which is difficult or impossible to combine with western values. However, otherness was mostly used to show that the terrorists of 9/11 were “the other”, that they are not the norm, but also that the Muslim American see the Americans as differently from them.

“Americans” were portrayed in the context of violence in 31% of the articles. Reasons were the references to the terrorist attacks on New York City, as well as talks about the preparations by the US government to declare war against terrorism. It was talked a lot about the military actions which were supposed to be taken, as well as the difficulties the American army would have to face there. Secondly, the relatedness frame was mentioned in 29% of the articles, referring to all Americans being united in their sadness and sorrow after the attacks. Furthermore, in 20% of the articles the relatedness frame was applied, which was used to show that Americans and Middle Eastern people can live together peacefully and share an American identity. Furthermore, articles also often referred to Muslims expressing their sympathy for the Americans.

“Bin Laden” was mostly described with the educational frame. Almost one third (29%) referred to him in a neutrally descriptive way. He was portrayed in a rather neutral manner, without many emotions. It was mostly talked about his background, his ideas or his family. The

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second most used frame in connection to Bin Laden was the otherness frame with a percentage of 22%. Bin Laden and his view upon religion and western societies were referred to as not combinable with western values. It was stated that Bin Laden should not be looked at as the average Muslim, because his idea of Islam would be dramatically different from the opinion of the majority of Muslims. The third most predominant frame was the bad frame, which occurred in 18% of the articles. These passages portrayed him as a cruel person, who is dangerous and recruiting Muslims in his fight against the western societies. Understandably, the third most predominant frame was the otherness frame,

“Afghanistan” was mostly portrayed in a neutral light, talking about the problem the country faces, its history and its people. Therefore, 24% of the articles used the educational frame. The second most dominant frame was the violence frame used in 21% of the texts. Here, Afghanistan was often mentioned in the background of past and future wars or of militants living there, like the Taliban. The third most dominant frame was the terrorism frame used in 17% of the articles. It referred to the many terrorists that are living in this country.

“Pakistan” was, next to being described in a neutral manner in 26% of the cases, portrayed as bad in 17% of the articles, because there are terrorists in this country as well as in Afghanistan. Thus, Pakistan imposes a bigger threat towards the US than Afghanistan. This is probably why the third most dominant frame is the threat frame with a frequency of 16%. The articles showing the threat frame look at possible negative developments in the relationship with the US, when America goes on war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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to each other as the other by claiming that the people being responsible for the 9/11 attacks were not real Muslims.

Overall, the majority of articles from this set of data (29%) embedded Muslims in the educational frame, regarding religious, historical, political or individual backgrounds. 17% of the articles referred to the violence frame, talking about violence by or towards Muslims. 14% of the articles used the relatedness frames and showed connections between westerners and people of an other heritage. Close by, an average of 13% tended to use the otherness frame to refer to Muslims in general or specifically. However, another 10% percent referred to Muslims in the context of the bad frame.

Thus, H1 is proven partly correct; Muslims are portrayed in a rather neutral context, besides that references to violence occurred frequently, but also the relatedness frame. The terrorism frame occurred rarely.

4.1.2 Islam data NYT

The keyword “Islam” primarily led to a count of 313 articles. Due to this large amount of results, articles from every fourth day were chosen, leading to a total of 70 articles. Since this number of articles was still too big, random sampling was applied, leaving a total of 50 articles. The predominantly used words were “Afghanistan”, “American”, “(bin) Laden”, “Taliban”, “Pakistan”. Interestingly, at least as often used as the word Afghanistan were the words they (160) and their (153), as well as we (150). Though it would have been interesting to analyze the contexts these words were mentioned in, the terms were neglected for analysis, because they are pronouns and thus had to be dismissed from further research. The corpus for this set of data had a count of 44,502 words.

Table IVCorpus frequency list for NYT Islam data post 9/11

Word Count Frequency percentage

American 145 0,32%

(Osama bin) Laden 144 0,32%

Taliban 119 0,26%

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The count is the number of times the word appeared in the corpus. Total percentage is the percentage the word appeared in the corpus.

RQ1: In which contexts were Muslims and Islam mentioned predominantly in 9/11 and the following 17 days articles of the NYT?

Generally speaking, most articles seemingly tried to be as objective as possible when referring to “Afghanistan”, “(Osama bin) Laden”, “Taliban” or “Pakistan” and gave a lot of background information or explanations for current political situations in the Muslim world. However, besides this aspect there were little similarities between the keywords. “Afghanistan” (Appendix G) was, next to the educational frame (26%) predominantly mentioned in a violent context (23%), often speaking of terrorism (18%). Meanwhile, the country itself and its people were described as different, as the other (11%), as a hostile far away country with values and a lifestyle not comparable with the one of westerners:

The view from a helicopter over rebel-held territory in northern Afghanistan suggests the challenges that face any force trying to control this country. The tens of thousands of square

miles of rugged mountains form an intricate and seemingly endless maze of thousands of valleys, ravines and caves, some of which are inhabited. In this cavernous mountain valley,

scores of rusting tank carcasses mark where invading Soviet armored columns were decimated in the 1980's. (26.09 XI)

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Table VPercentage of frame appearance NYT Islam Post 9/11

In most articles, a critical eye was put upon America; in 30% of the cases, “American” (Appendix H) was mentioned with the violence frame which mostly referred mostly future or past military interventions and war in Afghanistan and the war against terrorism. The second most dominant frame was, the educational frame occurring in 20% of the articles. The third most dominant frame was the otherness frame (11%). Here, the authors uttered critical voices towards the US government’s plans of combating Afghanistan: there were many voices claiming that a war in Afghanistan would lead to hostile relations with other Muslim countries or trigger even more terrorist attacks against westerners. Furthermore, it was claimed that the American government underestimates the difficulty of fighting in this geographically very distinct country. Also with 11% the relatedness frame appeared in which many articles spoke about the aspect of American identity; they claimed that Muslim Americans should not be seen or treated as the other, but that all Americans now should unite in these difficult times and not discriminate people of other religions, especially not Muslims.

The next keyword, “(bin) Laden” (Appendix I) was mostly referred to with the educational frame (30%). Here, “bin Laden” often seemed to be portrayed as anything but human, like a phantom or a ghost. Most texts portrayed him only vaguely without going into detail about the person or his strategies. It was mostly claimed that there is little known about him and his whereabouts. Besides that, in 23% of the articles “bin Laden” was mentioned in the

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context of otherness, referring to him being different from the other peaceful Muslims. He was framed as the “mastermind” of terrorism, whose view on the western world is incomprehensibly hostile and who does not even get backing from close allies like Pakistan anymore: (17.09 IX)

An influential Pakistani who attended some of the Sunday briefings said General Musharraf had already assured President Bush in a telephone call on Saturday that Pakistan would allow the use of its airspace and airfields, if needed, as well as full access to Pakistani intelligence on

Mr. bin Laden.

The “Taliban” (Appendix J) were, besides being referred to by the educational frame in 32% of the articles, mostly framed as bad (24% of the articles).They were framed as a evil, anti-western and fundamentalist militia, who suppress its own people in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the keyword “Taliban” was often (23%) put in relation with violence; preferably speaking about terrorist training camps, past wars, weaponry and the militia in the country.

“Pakistan” (Appendix K) was mostly shown through the educational frame: 26% of the articles talked about the history, policy or people in Pakistan. Secondly, the bad frame (17%) was used most often. It was applied, because Pakistan is one of the few countries that support the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Due to the lack of support for the US in their search for Bin Laden or the corruption in the country, the bad frame was applied in the articles. Next was the threat frame occurring in 16% of the texts. It referred to the idea that if the Muslim Pakistan helps the US in a war against terrorism, this will trigger even more aggression from other Muslim countries, or also from the Taliban who find refuge in Pakistan. However, it was also often discussed that it would be a threat to peace if the US does not form an alliance with Pakistan, since the country allegedly possesses lots of information of Mr. bin Laden.

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violence frame mostly referred to the upcoming and past wars on Afghanistan, military alliances with other Muslim countries, but also to fundamental Islamists.

4.1.3 Muslim data DN

The keyword “Muslim” initially led to 158 hits, but after checking the content for the appearance of the keyword itself, only 94 articles were valid for analysis. Out of those, 50 articles were chosen randomly. Most occurring words were “Bin (Laden)”, “People”, “Bush”, “Afghanistan” and “Attacks” (Table VI). The corpus had a count of 38,815 words.

Table VICorpus frequency list for DN Muslim data post 9/11

(Osama )bin (Laden) 187 0,48%

People 112 0,28%

Bush 93 0,23%

Attacks 77 0,19%

RQ2: In which contexts were Muslims and Islam mentioned predominantly in the in 9/11 and the following 17 days articles of the DN?

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mastermind behind the conspiracy against the western world – an invisible conspiracy that has its branches everywhere:

Taking direction from Bin Laden and his lieutenants are thousands of faceless, secretive converts from across the Islamic world sworn to a jihad against the United States and

the West - and they are among us.(Thomas Zambito and Greg Smith)

Thus, even if Mr. Bin Laden was not present, his presence in the western world was still there, according to the author of this article.

Table VII Percentage of frame appearance DN Muslim Post 9/11

The keyword “people” (Appendix N) was in 33,3% of the articles used with the educational frame, applied to describe people before, during or after the attacks, i.e. people running, people cheering, people praying etc. Besides that, “people” was in 28,1% related to the otherness frame, mostly talking about the terrorists of 9/11 as “the other” people:

The Al Qaeda people don't represent Islam, as far as America is concerned. They represent evil. They're evil people. And that's not the Muslim faith that I know and

understand. (21.09 IX)

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The next keyword, “Bush” (Appendix O) was in 57,7% of the articles mentioned with the educational frame, because there were not many incidences in which former President Bush was described or criticized, but he was mostly just quoted, without further interpretation. However, occasionally Mr. ush was also supported by the authors: (18.09 IV):

The lesson of that collision proves vividly that President Bush is right: Doing away with Islam's latest hero is both necessary and urgent.

Besides that, Bush 24% of the articles mentioned Mr. Bush in a violent context, like in the NYT articles, because of going on war against Afghanistan and on terrorism. 7,7% of the texts showed the good frame.

The keyword “Afghanistan” (Appendix P) was mentioned mostly in reference to violence (37,1%), speaking about past and future wars, mostly also in relation with the US as well as about Taliban fighters in the country. The second most dominant frame was the educational frame: 30,6% of the articles were only talking about Afghanistan’s’ history and its culture. Occasionally, articles spoke of Americans being of Afghan heritage.

The last keyword “attacks” (Appendix Q) was interestingly mostly described in a neutral reference with 50% of the articles using the educational frame. Mostly it was attacks on the US, Pentagon or World Trade Center mentioned there without giving any further explanation or presenting personal opinion except for i.e. hijacked attacks. Secondly, “attacks” were in 22,2% of the cases mentioned with reference to the terrorism frame, because it was mostly talked about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and other sites in the US. However, possible future attacks from the US on Afghanistan were not referred to as attacks.

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occasionally (20%) referred to as related to the westerners, as peaceful and also as suffering from the 9/11 attacks.

4.1.4 Islam data DN

After an initial result of 120 articles appeared, 95 only qualified for further analysis. After random sampling, a total of 50 articles fit for analysis. The sample articles had a count of 6.294 different words, delivering the corpus. Most often occurring keywords were “(Bin) Laden”, “people”, “Islamic”, “Bush” and “New (York)”. The corpus had a count of 35,197 words.

Table VIIICorpus frequency list for DN Islam data post 9/11

(Osama bin) Laden 144 0,21%

People 92 0,14%

Islamic 88 0,14%

Bush 86 0,13%

New (York) 79 0,12%

The results with the initial keyword “Islam” were very similar to those of the keyword “Muslim”. Also many articles occurred under both primary keywords. Therefore, the keyword “Bush” here was not analyzed a second time.

RQ2: In which contexts were Muslims and Islam mentioned predominantly during the post 9/11 era and the following 17 days in articles of the DN?

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or the upcoming war in Afghanistan, or even videotapes or else of him calling on other Muslims to kill Americans.

Table IXPercentage of frame appearance NYT Muslim Post 9/11

The second most dominant keyword was “People” (Appendix T), which led to results similar to those already seen in the “Muslim” section; besides the educational frame (44,4%), the otherness frame was the most dominant one (33,3%) for the same reasons as before: articles claimed that the majority of Muslim people would not identify with Bin Laden and thus have another opinion on religion and westerners. The otherness frame here referred to Muslims presenting themselves as the other. However, sometimes it was claimed articles, that Muslims in general are the other:

"Moderate" Arab states have no place in such a coalition, and it is unfair to ask them to join. The ugly truth is that a majority of their people identify with America's enemies. (21.09 IX)

The third most occurring frames were the relatedness and the good frame, both with a count of 17,5%.

The keyword “Islamic” (Appendix U) mostly referred to violence (36,5%), because it was mentioned in combination with words like fundamentalists, extremism or terrorism, but it also referred to the upcoming war on an Islamic country (Afghanistan) or other countries like Pakistan. The next most dominant frame here was the educational frame with a percentage of

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Bin Laden People Islamic Bush New York Islam

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31,8%, referring to other Islamic people or countries, their position in the world and position towards religion. The third most dominant frame was the terrorism frame (20%), which, like the violence frame, spoke of Islamic extremists or fundamentalists attacking the US. Another frame was the bad frame, which did not occur that often (3,5%), but the times it appeared were very drastic. In these cases, Islamic was presented as inferior, dangerous or hostile per se:

This country is not in need of think-tank fantasies or fake alliances or international permission when it has been attacked and its citizens are in danger. It should declare its aim - total victory over the Islamic Axis states, starting with the most immediately dangerous - and move ahead (20.09 III)

The keyword “New (York)” (Appendix V) was mostly (33,7%) used with the educational frame referring to the word new in other contexts, as in new bells or new security and was thus unnecessary for further analysis. Besides, the keyword appeared in 33,7% of the articles in connection with violence and in 16% with terrorism.

The keyword “Islam” (Appendix W) itself appeared 27 times. In 40% of the articles, Islam was described with the good frame, referring to it as peaceful and non-violent. The terrorists of 9/11 were said to be the ones not standing for Islam. Logically, the second most often (34,8%) appearing frame was in fact the otherness frame. Here, the Islamists and terrorists were referred to as the other, who do not stand for the majority of Muslims, but are the exception of that peaceful religion. Besides that, in several occasions related to the otherness frame, “Islam” appeared indirectly as being dangerous and the other who per se want to fight the western world (16.09 V):

The supreme leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban has urged Muslims there and around the world to face the threat of U.S. attack firmly and prepare for jihad, or holy war. "You should know that

this is not only the issue of Osama, it is opposition to Islam," Mullah Mohammed Omar said in a radio address.

Other texts spoke about specifically brutal and barbarian branches of Islam, which neither respect women nor children or westerners and that these groups are willing to kill them (18.09 VI). Thus, “Islam” was mostly framed as peaceful, with the terrorists demonstrating an opposition to the main believers of that religion.

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violence frame came second and the otherness frame third, whereas it most often meant that the fundamentalist Islamists are the other and not Muslims in general.

4.2 Results Egyptian Revolution

4.2.1 Muslim data NYT

50 articles that contained the keyword “Muslim” (Appendix A.1) were analyzed and the keyword “Muslim” itself appeared 109 times. Besides that keyword, the most reoccurring words were “Mubarak”, “Egypt”, “people”, “government” and “protesters” (Table V). The number of words for this corpus is 54.938. As Table V below shows, the word “Mubarak” appeared 398 times with a percentage of 0,72%. The term “Egypt” appeared 339 times (0.61%), “people” were mentioned 225 times (0.41%), “government” 220 times (0,40%) and “protesters” 199 times (0.21%).

Table XCorpus frequency list for the Muslim data

Mubarak 398 0.72%

Egypt 339 0.61%

People 225 0.41%

Government 220 0.40%

Protesters 199 0.21%

Because of the fact that each term is mentioned about at least 200 times, not every time these terms are mentioned they are analyzed. Analysis refers to randomly sampled appearances of each term.

RQ3: How were Muslims or Islam framed in NYT articles from the beginning of the Egyptian Revolution and during the subsequent 17 days?

From Islamic Terrorist to Muslim Martyr?