Islamophobia in China: news coverage, stereotypes, and Chinese Muslims’ perceptions of themselves and Islam

ABSTRACT

An analysis spanning 10 years of news reports about Muslims and Islam in Chinese state news media (N = 15,427) demonstrates that Chinese news reports project an overall negative view of Muslims. An implicit association test performed in the non-Muslim Chinese population (N = 1479) reveals negative stereotypes of Muslims. In addition, a survey of Chinese Muslims (N = 384) shows that they perceive negative coverage of Muslims and Islam in Chinese media, and that real-life discrimination might be a consequence of such negative stereotyping. This study reveals that (1) there is an overall negative framing of news coverage of Muslims and Islam; (2) non-Muslim Chinese hold a negative stereotype of Muslims and Islam; (3) Chinese Muslims are cognizant of a negative media portrayal of Islam and of themselves; and (4) some Muslim Chinese experience discrimination in their daily lives. The present study contributes to the literature on global Islamophobia, a phenomenon that is understudied in China.

KEYWORDS:

• Islamophobia
• news media
• framing
• Chinese Muslim
• Xinjiang
• Uyghur

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Luwei Rose Luqiu is a PhD candidate at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University, researches censorship, propaganda and social movements in authoritarian regimes. She has been a journalist for 20 years.

Fan Yang is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University at Albany-SUNY. Her research focuses on data analysis of new media and strategic communications, and the effects of new communication technologies on decision-making.