Thursday, June 27, 2013
5.60 (PC Hoofthuis)
This study examines the lines of cleavage that emerge among the debates on Islamic practices (for example mainly the observance of religious holidays, traditional dress, prayer practices) and Muslim migrants in print media in Europe. The paper aims to identify and explain patterns of framing that emerge in a ten year period around Islamic practices in five different countries. The paper will draw on the data collected on Islamic practices and the content of the reporting by different sources of information particularly around Ramadan and Feast of Sacrifice. It will examine the characteristics of the debate throughout the 2000s in the media in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, the UK and France to point to the complexity of the dialogue within newspapers, within the same country between different newspapers of different political leanings and within a given ideological leaning across five countries. The paper aims to identify under what conditions (for example, critical junctures, institutional context, political actors, nature of diversity) the representation of Muslim migrants are negative, positive, inclusive or exclusionary, and how the different patterns play out in the different institutional contexts. By drawing on the data coded for five countries, the paper will conclude with a discussion on whether, and if so, in what ways and under what conditions, practices of Muslim migrants are linked to representation of Turks or issues of Turkey-EU relations in the print media.
