Image of Muslim Women and Media Discursivity: A Case Study of the Washington Post’s Discourses

Abstract

Print media representation about Islam and Muslims has never been ideology free especially post 9/11. A war of words has ever been there between non-Muslim west and Muslims. The dichotomy of Otherisation divides the world into two poles i.e. good vs. evil. Similarly, the present research critically decodes discourse of articles published in an American newspaper i.e. ‘The Washington Post’ about representation of Muslim women. The data has been collected from the newspapers’ articles which appeared from June 2019 to December 2019. The study employs Fairclough’s (1993) model of Critical Discourse Analysis. The analytical categories of the mentioned model include representation, metaphor, lexicalization, back/fore grounding, in/out group and number game. The data has been analysed at the levels of word, sentence and discourse. The analysis of the data reveals that Muslim women are represented stereotypically through the discourse of the articles of the mentioned newspaper as oppressed, narrow minded, hijabbed, and deviation from norm. Moreover, according to western perception and representation of this American newspaper they are contriving to harm civilized West by introducing new system of caliphate to disturb the activities of civilized world. The study concludes that print media discourses act as distorting prism to represent a desired version of reality about Islam and Muslim women to shape the mindset of the target audience accordingly.