Hajj 2013: The Western Media Discourses

Abstract

Hajj is the fifth pillar of Islam and is the largest religious gathering on the globe. Every year, over two million Muslims make their way to Mecca to perform Hajj. The current study attempted to explore the themes that were dominant in the print media discourses of United Kingdom and United States about holy event Hajj. The study also tried to find out that how the Western print media constructed the identity of Muslims holy event. The qualitative discourse analysis has been used as a research design for this study. The two UK English dailies i.e. Daily Mail and The Guardian, and one online news publication IBTimes while two US English dailies i.e. Los Angeles Times and USA Today, and one online publication Huff Post have been selected for this purpose. A total of 20 news items from the year 2013 have been selected for the analysis. The results indicated that there was no significant difference in the assortment of themes by print media of UK and US. The Western media used the discourses of sectarianism and terrorism, and also highlighted the issues of Muslim sects. The results also revealed that the Western newspapers presented the importance of Hajj, but they also associated the gathering of Muslims with fears and threats.