Ground Zero Mosque Research Articles

Ground Zero mosque in the context of America’s post-9/11 religious pluralism: CDA of mainstream news media’s coverage of the discursive event

This article analyzes the Ground Zero Mosque discursive event and the discourses surrounding the American Muslim Community and explores the role of the media in the production and reproduction processes of anti-Muslim frames. To understand Islamophobia in the United States in the context of religious pluralism, this article adopts Critical Discourse Analysis, under which two theories unfold: sourcing theory and framing theory. The sourcing analysis targeted the media voices monitoring the discourses and contributing to the discursive construction and interpretation of mosque proposal into an agenda-led image. The second theory is framing, which consists of including a perceived reality—in the news—, making it more salient, and presenting it to the audience. The data analyzed were collected from CNN and Fox News via Lexis Nexis online academic database. A total of 225 media transcripts—(n=138) Fox News and (n=87) CNN—constituted the text and were coded and analyzed using Atlas.ti data mining software program. The critical analysis has resulted in a number of 180 voices—e.g. journalists, politicians, academics, officials, etc. — contribution of the discursive construction of the non-violence event, ofwhich 150 were anti-Muslim activists, journalists, politicians, reportedly formerMuslim Brotherhood member, etc. The study has also resulted in two mainframes: frame of illegitimacy and frame of terrorism, transforming the nonviolenceevent into a celebrated violent one, thereby providing a vivid image ofAmerica’s project of religious pluralism and its capacity to accommodate thereligions existing within the American confines.Artikel ini menganalisis peristiwa acara diskursif Masjid Ground Zero danwacana seputar Komunitas Muslim Amerika dan mengeksplorasi peran mediadalam proses produksi dan reproduksi bingkai anti-Muslim. Untuk memahamiIslamophobia di Amerika Serikat dalam konteks pluralisme agama, artikelini mengadopsi Analisis Wacana Kritis, di mana dua teori terungkap: teorisumber dan teori framing. Analisis sumber menargetkan suara-suara mediayang memonopoli wacana dan berkontribusi pada konstruksi diskursif daninterpretasi proposal masjid ke dalam pencitraan yang dipimpin oleh suatuagenda. Teori kedua adalah framing, yang terdiri dari memasukkan realitas yangdirasakan — dalam berita—, membuatnya lebih menonjol, dan menyajikannyakepada pemirsa. Data yang dianalisis dikumpulkan dari CNN dan Fox Newsmelalui database akademik online Lexis Nexis. Sebanyak 225 transkrip media—(n = 138) Fox News dan (n = 87) CNN — merupakan teks dan dikodekandan dianalisis menggunakan program perangkat lunak data mining Atlas.ti.Analisis kritis telah menghasilkan sejumlah 180 suara — misalnya wartawan,politisi, akademisi, pejabat, dll. - berkontribusi terhadap konstruksi diskursifdari peristiwa non-kekerasan, yang 150 di antaranya adalah aktivis anti-Muslim,jurnalis, politisi, mantan anggota Ikhwanul Muslimin, dll. Studi ini juga telahmenghasilkan dua kerangka utama: bingkai illegitimacy dan bingkai terorisme,yang mengubah peristiwa non-kekerasan menjadi peristiwa yang sangat kejam.Inilah gambaran yang jelas tentang proyek pluralisme agama Amerika dankapasitasnya untuk mengakomodasi agama-agama yang ada dalam batas-batasAmerika.

Making Moderate Islam: Sufism, Service, and the “Ground Zero Mosque” Controversy

Making Moderate Islam: Sufism, Service, and the “Ground Zero Mosque” Controversy

Sacred space: Muslim and Arab belonging at Ground Zero

Abstract The area surrounding New York’s World Trade Center was politicized immediately after the 9/11 attacks and named ‘Ground Zero’. This article discusses how orientalist tropes as well as narratives of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and ‘sacred space’ came to be embedded there. It uses two examples to examine how such spatialized politics have impacted Arab and Muslims New Yorkers: the Park51 community centre (popularized through media as ‘The Ground Zero Mosque’), and the lesserknown Little Syria district. It sheds light on Ground Zero’s significance for Arab and Muslim belonging in the United States – specifically, how Arab and Muslim claims to space around the World Trade Center subvert Islamophobic rhetoric that casts them as outsiders and enemies, and position them instead as fully American.

Shoulder to Shoulder with American Muslims: What the Interreligious Community Is Doing to Combat Anti-Muslim Bigotry in America

While anti-Muslim bigotry has been on the rise in the United States in the last decade, it reached a particular peak in American public discourse in 2010, with the debates over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” the hype around the Murfreesboro mosque in Tennessee, and the threat to burn the Qur’an from Pastor Terry Jones in Florida. At that time, a number of U.S. religious denominational leaders rallied around the American Muslim community to stand in solidarity publicly against this rhetoric, and the Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign was born. Shoulder to Shoulder now includes thirty-two member denominations and organizations and works on national and local levels to address anti-Muslim bigotry in its many manifestations in American society.

Good Muslims, Bad Muslims, and the Nation: The “Ground Zero Mosque” and the Problem With Tolerance

The local controversy over Cordoba House or the “Ground Zero Mosque” peaked at a May 2010 Lower Manhattan Community Board meeting that was open to the public. Examining the tolerance rhetorics evoked both for and against Cordoba, this paper argues that both tolerance rhetorics function differently to re-center the white non-Muslim subject and to structure inclusion and belonging within the nation. Extending the literature of tolerance, which tends to focus on the discourse of normative subjects, I analyze the tolerance rhetorics of two Muslim-American rhetors whose testimonies reveal the tensions, contradictions, and complicities involved in claims of national belonging.

Orientalism for a New Millennium: Cable News and the Specter of the “Ground Zero Mosque”

This study uses discourse analysis to examine the arc of cable news media coverage of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”, a proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan that sparked widespread controversy. This article analyzes both the nature and duration of mainstream cable news coverage of the controversy and the major arguments put forth by those both supporting and opposing the center in the politically charged post-September 11 media environment. Google Trends data were employed to examine the duration of the controversy both in terms of broader media coverage and search volume for the term “Ground Zero Mosque” online. This study found several consistent trends in terms of the sources present in cable coverage opposing the center, as well as a very narrow set of talking points that underline the presence of what other researchers have identified as an Islamophobic network of individuals and organizations present in American mass media discourse.

Anti-Muslim prejudice in the virtual space: A case study of blog network structure and message features of the ‘Ground Zero mosque controversy’

The purpose of this study is to understand how an extremist blog advanced its perspective in the public sphere and further generated public support for prejudicial opinions against Muslims in the US. The authors utilize the case study method, hyperlink network analysis and centering resonance analysis to uncover details of the linkage and message features of the blog. The findings show that this blog developed a highly polarized network that engaged like-minded others, prominent public figures and mainstream media. Additionally, content of the blog employed cultural stereotypes that resonated deeply with public sentiments. Further, the network position and content features of the blog were not static attributions, but constantly evolved as the issue developed. Theoretical and political implications are discussed.

The “Ground Zero mosque”: sacred space and the boundaries of American identity

For much of 2010, plans to develop a multipurpose Islamic center near the site of the 9/11 attacks in Lower Manhattan occasioned an intense nationwide debate. In this study of the “Ground Zero mosque” controversy, we focus on questions of identity and the sacred in the contemporary USA. We argue that the response to the “Ground Zero mosque” illuminates three important phenomena. First, it reveals the dynamics of cultural guardianship among those who opposed Park51, an effort to “preserve” a national identity tightly linked with Christianity (and antithetical to Islam). Second, as illustrated by the rights-based response by defenders of the project, we suggest that the language of liberalism may be insufficient to address a more expansive and complex understanding of the relationship between religion and political identity. And third, the controversy highlights the challenges that remain in the post-9/11 USA for American Muslims, many of whom understood the proposed center as their own, rather conventional, attempt to join the American mainstream.

Which American way? System justification and ideological polarization concerning the “Ground Zero Mosque”

The proposal to build an Islamic mosque and community center near the site of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center produced widespread opposition. Although resistance among U.S. citizens was common, there was an ideological divergence, with liberals generally supporting the mosque and conservatives generally opposing it. We tested a theoretical model in which system justification mediated the effect of political ideology on level of support for the development of the “Ground Zero Mosque.” Specifically, we conducted a survey of Americans near the site of the proposed mosque, and observed that, as hypothesized, greater conservatism was associated with stronger system justification, which was in turn associated with a lack of behavioral support for the mosque. These findings suggest that ideological differences in opposition to the “Ground Zero Mosque” are linked to system-justifying tendencies to preserve the American “way of life.”

Book Review: Al Jazeera English: Global News in a Changing World, edited by Philip Seib

Al Jazeera English: Global News in a Changing World. Philip Seib, ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 204 pp. $95 hbk. $25 pbk.For this look at Al Jazeera English (AJE), Philip Seib, professor of journalism and public diplomacy at the University of Southern California, has drawn together authors remarkable for their knowledge and insights, who are also notable for their distinctly different academic backgrounds, positions, and the passions they bring to their work.Anyone familiar with the topic will recognize these scholars' names-such as el- Nawawy or Gilboa-but that is not to say all of them are gray eminences. The collection presents work by scholars who know what they are writing about, whatever rank they are, and wherever they are to be found. The result is a book that is well worth reading and one, in which the authors themselves brought into a room might have a spirited debate.Shawn Powers, of Georgia State, provides an interesting and well-done review of the history of the channel's creation and development, which opens the book. In the second chapter, Hussein Amin, of the American University in Cairo, considers the shape and reach of AJE's global footprint. In the next chapter, Tine Ustad Figenschou, from the University of Oslo, considers the nature of the channel's news content, pro- viding a rare and detailed analysis of whether the channel was living up to its commit- ment to cover news from the Global South and to extend its reach to sources beyond the normal elite familiar to Western global news consumers.Will Youmans, of George Washington, reviews the challenge AJE executives have faced getting the channel on the cable lineups available to mainstream American audi- ences. Amelia Arsenault, of Georgia State, and Michael Kugelman, of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, explore AJE's experience covering and reaching into Africa and South Asia, respectively. Both find that the channel's efforts have been challenged by conditions on the ground, including among them issues with demand, distribution, and audience access.El-Nawawy, at Queens University of Charlotte, provides a qualitative analysis of AJE's coverage of the Ground Zero mosque controversy-coverage that he finds was notably balanced and conciliatory in a climate where most mainstream media cover- age of the story was neither. The book ends with Seib's effort to pull from all the chapters that came before to make sense of the whole.The most significant chapters in the book, however, are the opposing viewpoints offered of AJE's coverage of events in Gaza in 2008-2009. The Palestinian viewpoint is provided by Rima Najjar Merriman, of Al Quds University, and the Israeli view- point is provided by Eytan Gilboa, of Bar-Ilan University in Israel. …

Analyzing Political Rhetoric in Conservative and Liberal Weblogs Related to the Construction of the “Ground Zero Mosque”

ABSTRACT We use different text-processing algorithms to gain insight into the political rhetoric used in conservative and liberal weblogs. We specifically focus on the online debate regarding the issue of the “Ground Zero Mosque,” which has been one of the most controversial political issues in U.S. politics in the last several years. Overall, our results show that there are significant differences in the use of various linguistic features related to sentiments of collective identity, moral concerns, and emotional dynamics between liberals and conservatives, thus highlighting the differences between the ideological and moral frameworks of these two groups.

A Rhetoric of Traumatic Nationalism in the Ground Zero Mosque Controversy

In the summer of 2010, a national controversy erupted suddenly as a majority of Americans protested the building of an Islamic community center near Ground Zero. In this essay, I suggest the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” controversy makes visible the emergence of a rhetoric of traumatic nationalism that articulates suffering to citizenship and reproduces national crisis through a motif of consecration whose upshot is a conservative, bipartisan moralism. An anti-political discourse of victimization masquerading as a memory discourse of righteous sacrifice, traumatic nationalism serves as an alibi that excuses the United States from answering responsibly for the war on terror and prevents critical examination of the state of the union.

Mediating Racism

The far right in the United States has ratcheted up anti-Muslim racism in the twenty-first century. However, they are not alone in creating and circulating the discourses of Islamophobia. In this paper, I set out to situate the far right, who I call the ‘new McCarthyites’, within the broader context in which they operate. I argue that they are part of a larger matrix of Islamophobia which includes the liberal establishment. I start with a concrete case study of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ controversy, in order to demonstrate how various discourses of Islamophobia co-exist and fuel one another. I contend that even while the new McCarthyites were responsible for the hysteria generated, their arguments were enabled by liberals/realists. I then unpack the various agents who make up a coalition of the new McCarthyites and outline how they propagate their troglodyte racism. Finally, I offer a matrix that illustrates where Islamophobic ideologies are produced and how they are circulated in the mainstream. Such a structural analysis necessarily decenters the mainstream media since the media are one set of institutions, among others, that serve both as conduit and creator of anti-Muslim racism.

Moving the Mountain

Few are as qualified as Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to articulate a vision forAmerican Muslims. He has been involved with several major institutionbuildingprojects to address the concerns of American Muslims; his wife,Daisy Khan, has also participated in some of these projects. Since 1983, hehas served as imam of New York City’s al-Farah Mosque and thus is ratherfamiliar with the achievements, struggles, and diversity of the American-Muslim experience. His involvement with one of this community’s mostformative post-9/11 undertakings, the Cordoba House Project (also knownas Park 51 and the Ground Zero Mosque), attracted national and internationalattention.Several other American Muslims have written about the community. Forexample, James Yee’s For God and Country (2005), Sumbul Ali-Karamali’sThe Muslims Next Door (2008), and Asma Nomani’s Standing Alone in Mecca(2006) have experienced modest mainstream success. Mucahit Bilici’s FindingMecca in America (2012) is a notable, although a more academic, work.Imam Rauf’s book belongs to the first genre. Aimed at a general audience, itprovides a good understanding of such issues as jihad and gender relations inIslam, the Shari‘ah, and American-Muslim identity formation.Book Reviews 127The author’s key idea is that American Muslims are on their way to creatinga unique identity, one that is true to the spirit of Islam and also fits intoAmerican cultural norms. If fully realized, this identity would have threemajor potential benefits: making the United States more tolerant and just,healing the wounds between it and the broader Muslim world, and inspiringMuslims everywhere to reclaim Islam from the extremists. According toRauf, this identity can only be fully realized if Muslims have a good understandingof Islam, uphold American laws, and engage in the country’s ongoingmulti-faith projects ...

“Why There?” Islamophobia, Environmental Conflict, and Justice at Ground Zero

Conflicts over environmental spaces that are sites of trauma or have been designated as sacred involve questions about who has a legitimate stake in determining the use of the site, and where the hallowedness attached to that space ends. We examine these questions in a study of the 2009–2010 controversy about the Park51 [sic] Islamic Community Center, sometimes called the “Ground Zero Mosque,” to examine how issues of distributive, procedural, and inclusionary justice play out in a conflict over valuable land close to Ground Zero. This conflict, though in a specifically fraught locale, speaks to resistance to mosque construction in the USA and Europe. Using newspaper articles on the public debate as data (N = 65), and performing a thematic analysis, we identified four key themes: (1) views of Islam, (2) conflict, (3) American identity and ideals, and (4) proximity and place. Utilizing Chi square analyses to examine the effect of propinquity on support for Park51, we found that people living within New York City were more likely to support Park51 than those outside of the city. Our conclusion discusses constructs that link values, space, and social relations—hallowed ground, place attachment, social distance—and discuss their relationship to justice. We argue that while several kinds of justice are relevant, at its heart, this conflict concerns inclusionary questions about who can speak, who belongs, and who should be excluded.

Support at Any Distance? The Role of Location and Prejudice in Public Opposition to the “Ground Zero Mosque”

AbstractIn 2010, a debate erupted about plans to construct a mosque (as part of a larger multicultural center) approximately two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City. The main justification given by those who opposed the mosque was that building it so close to Ground Zero would appear to be insensitive. Public opinion appeared to support this notion, as large majorities of Americans registered their opposition to the mosque in surveys conducted at the time. In this article, I examine whether distance was, in fact, an important factor influencing citizens' opposition to the mosque. Using a survey experiment, I asked for opinions on the building of a mosque while randomizing how far the mosque was located from Ground Zero. Results from the experiment indicate that opposition to the mosque was unaffected by how far the mosque would be located from Ground Zero, but strongly influenced by factors such as partisanship, ideology, and tolerance for out groups.

Al Jazeera English: global news in a changing world

The Origins of Al Jazeera English S.Powers The Nature of the Channel's Global Audience H.Amin Content: The Messages of AJE's News T.U.Figenschou AJE After the Arab Spring: The Politics of Distribution in the United States W.Youmans Covering and Reaching Africa A.Arsenault Covering and Reaching South Asia M.Kugelman Covering Gaza 2008-2009: A Palestinian View R.N.Merriman Covering Gaza 2008-2009: An Israeli View E.Gilboa AJE's Conciliatory Role: Covering the 'Ground Zero Mosque' Controversy M.El-Nawawy Conclusion: AJE in the World P.Seib

Has Society Become Tolerant of Further Infringement on First Amendment Rights?

The First Amendment was written as a general prohibition on infringement of certain rights. This paper focused mostly on freedom of speech that has religious undertones. Part I of this paper introduces the First Amendment, including some historic interpretation and understanding of why the First Amendment is important to our society. Part II of this paper focuses on what the author deems three important events that are shaping society's current view of the First Amendment. Part II discusses the current events of the Ground Zero Mosque, the Westboro Baptist Church protesting and subsequent actions, and the comments from Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy regarding same-sex marriage. The author analyzes these three events to discuss concerns over society becoming tolerant of infringement on the First Amendment. Part III of this paper discusses some considerations for society. The need to protect the 'marketplace of ideas' because that is what the First Amendent was designed to protect. FInally, the paper touches on how social media and new trends in speech should also protect the idea of open public discourse. Overall, reading this paper will give you an understanding of how even though we may disagree with some speech, protecting the open debate outweighs censoring speech.

Not All Ideologies are Created Equal: Epistemic, Existential, and Relational Needs Predict System-Justifying Attitudes

Whereas most social psychological perspectives assume that needs to manage uncertainty, existential anxiety, and social cohesion should motivate any form of ideological zeal, System Justification Theory predicts that these needs are positively associated with the endorsement of system-justifying beliefs, opinions, and values but negatively associated with the endorsement of system-challenging ideological outcomes. For the first time we test a full theoretical model in which system justification mediates the effects of individual differences in epistemic, existential, and relational needs on attitudes toward public policy issues and social movements. Specifically, we conducted a national survey of 182 Americans and found that, as hypothesized, lower need for cognition, greater death anxiety, and a stronger desire to share reality each contributed significantly and independently to economic system justification, which, in turn, contributed to support for the Tea Party (a movement aimed at restoring America's “traditional values”) and opposition to Occupy Wall Street (a movement seeking to reduce social and economic inequality and minimize corporate influence on government). Economic system justification also mediated the effects of these needs on the endorsement of status quo positions with respect to health care, immigration, global climate change, and the “Ground Zero mosque.” These findings suggest that epistemic, existential, and relational needs lead disproportionately to support for system-justifying, rather than system-challenging, policies and movements.

Evidence for a role of death thought in American attitudes toward symbols of Islam

Four studies were conducted to examine how concerns about mortality contribute to Americans' negative attitudes and behavior toward symbols of Islam. Study 1 found that a subtle reminder of death decreased support for the Ground Zero mosque, and increased the distance from Ground Zero that people felt was appropriate for a mosque to be built. Study 2 found that asking people to think about a mosque being built in their neighborhood increased the accessibility of implicit death thoughts. Study 3 replicated the results of Study 2 and showed that thinking of a church or synagogue did not produce the same effect as thinking of a mosque. Study 4 found that heightened death thought accessibility in response to a mortality salience induction was eliminated when the participants read a newspaper account of the desecration of the Quran.