Laurens de Rooij, professor of Islamic studies at the University of Chester, presents in this book the results of his postdoctoral research on media coverage of Islam and Muslims in the mainstream British media. Supported by a good number of qualitative and statistical reports, the study is aimed at an audience especially interested in the process of construction and projection of media environments, and more specifically, researchers on Islam and Muslims in Western contexts. The project was carried out with the support of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town and of Theology and Religion at the University of Chester. By publishing this research, Manchester University Press confirms its interest in keeping up to date in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The reader will find in this study an academic analysis of the discourse developed by the British media on Muslims and Islam. A framework from which Professor Rooij tries to explain how non-Muslims receive this information, how they stimulate the construction of their personal narratives and the way that these narratives condition their daily actions. In general, he agrees that Islam and Muslims appear linked to contexts of violence, terrorism, irrationality and lack of integration in Western societies. A growing group, whose demands for recognition have been publicly supported by ‘Islamophobia’ as the cause that would explain these associations with violence. From this media context, the author contrasts the ins and outs of this informative paradigm with the data offered by the sources.
The book follows this structure: documentary index (figures, tables), acknowledgments, introduction, four main chapters, final conclusions, general bibliography and thematic index. If the introduction specifies the conceptual approach from which the author starts, the first chapter puts it into practice by applying it in a specific way in the discursive system of the British media, the selection and construction of news. The second chapter addresses the interesting field of symbolic representations of Islam and Muslims through the analysis and codification of the sources. Especially, through the frameworks that dominated the media when talking about this issue: conflict, human interest, economic consequences, morality and responsibility. The third chapter is focused on the dialectic of the media and the praxis of the audience. The author highlights the importance of the phenomenological approach when analysing the information offered by the study participants. The analysis shows that the audience interacts with the media by negotiating the meanings of the information offered to them. In this way, each individual weaves a complex perceptual network depending on the level of relevance that they have for their life horizon. The examination of the current representations about Islam and Muslims are the subject of the fourth chapter. Fed by stereotypes, ignorance and fear, media strategies project complex situations, that are systematically decontextualized: these range from the presence of minorities in Great Britain to the discursive variety and strategic interests in the Muslim Arab world. If the final conclusions collect in a very competent way the approach that has guided this research, we must also highlight that this edition includes a thematic index, which the reader will appreciate as a very useful instrument.
Supported by a varied, abundant and reference bibliography, the research has used complementary sources, formats and methods of analysis. Seeking the highest degree of representation and dissemination in the British market, news gathering was concentrated in the newspapers The Guardian, The Independent and the Daily Mail, as well as their sister publications: Sunday, The Observer, The Sunday Independent and Mail on Sunday (ch. 2, p. 74, Figure 1). In parallel, the sample was extended to television news on BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. The studied time was concentrated in four periods of one week from 22 April 2013 to 7 July 2013. For television news programs, one more week was included, September 16–23. As shown in the figures and tables included throughout the second chapter, the contents were carefully selected, prioritizing press releases and information on editorial guidelines, which could incur bias and speculation. To deepen the process of receiving and interpreting these media reports, a sample of 106 participants of the same age, sex, studies, marital status, employment, level of news consumption and different religious affiliation was selected, which were distributed in 8 discussion groups located in Luton, Blackburn, Leicester, Bradford, Birmingham, Durham, Newcastle and others. Extensively detailed information in the figures and tables are included in the third chapter. From the collection of the samples to the analysis of the results, the methodology responds correctly to study's challenges. In correspondence with the main object, the statistical analysis is organized according to a phenomenological approach. The way people act is related to their construction of meanings. Similarly, the concept of Islam and Muslims will be based on the type and quality of information that each individual possesses. In this process, the media contribute to the construction and projection of a specific narrative.
To deepen the process of building images through the media, Professor Rooij has addressed the operation of this complex market. Highly commodified, branched and dynamic, the media have the ability to build a discursive system. For his part, the receiver establishes an opinion negotiation that links him with certain information and media. It is a mediated identification process that varies from one individual to another, from one context to another. In other words, the media require this participation of the receiving agent to amplify the media discourses and turn the discourses into their own narratives. Therefore, resources and efforts of this research are directed at understanding the profound reasons for this process. That is, understanding why non-Muslims construct a perception of Islam and Muslims that is identified with a one-sided, decontextualized, stereotyped and monolithic media narrative about Islam and Muslims in Western settings, a narrative that constantly affects terrorism, violence or lack of integration with Western values and society.
The connection between the media market, information consumers, and Islam/Muslims leads us to two important conclusions. The first is how the discourse on Islamophobia has become a permanent state of opinion. Difficult to refute through reasoned criticism, Islamophobia is the most effective media narrative about Islam and Muslims, whose aim is to offer a hegemonic version that occupies the public sphere in an omnipresent way. Its effectiveness lies in the fact of skilfully combining more or less certain elements and projecting them into the collective imagination. The fact that the media have amplified this controversial discourse has favoured the implementation of public policies to make their demand for recognition effective. As a discriminated-against minority, Muslims’ presence in the British media is directly related to their ability to involve public authorities in these trials. Undoubtedly, the way to increase this pressure has been by highlighting any controversial aspect of Islam: from its political-religious character to the complex regional balances in which the Muslim world is involved.
The second conclusion would refer to the consequences that the discourse of Islamophobia has on the elaboration of individual narratives about Islam and Muslims. How it affects one’s knowledge and daily experiences. In this sense, the answer will be determined by the direct experiences that each individual has had with Islam or with Muslims. The variety of vital contexts in which this knowledge occurs is undoubtedly the element that influences the reception of media material. How each individual builds his own narrative will depend on his ability to manage emotional responses and conscious discourses.
Finally, the news-truth-reality correlation as a desirable trend seems to be overlooked by the news market, which is consumed at an accelerated rate and directed at culturally fragmented individuals. And it is this last aspect that gives us food for personal reflection: to modify the perception of Islam and Muslims, it is not only necessary to modify the content of the media messages. In addition, it is important that each individual, regardless of the belief that he professes (religious or not), is aware of the role that these representations play in his life and what tools he has to modify them.
As a researcher on Islam and Muslims in contemporary Spain, I have found in this work by Professor Laurens de Rooij an interesting analysis about the construction of collective and individual identities in media terms. In this regard, he could make two improvements for the future. The first would have to do with the role of social networks in the development of both processes. Incorporating it would open up a certainly interesting study horizon. The second refers to Islamophobia. This work is brave by showing it as an ideological discourse constructed ‘ad hoc’, a gag that repeatedly silences spaces for debate and reflection in the public sphere. Something with which we deeply agree. However, the text blurs the responsibility of Islam and Muslims in the instrumentalization of it for their demands for ‘national’ construction. This demand should be understood as a bid for the ability to influence the public agendas of Islam and Muslims, rather than in territorial terms.
Institute of Theology Lumen Gentium Granada - ISCCRR (UESD), Granada, Spain
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