Sunday, March 16, 2014
Empire (Omni Shoreham)
International terrorism, changing immigration flows and the success of populist right-wing parties has increased public attention for issues concerning immigration and intercultural relations in Western Europe. In the current debate on Islam and Muslims, a recurring claim is that the main interested party, i.e. the Muslim organizations, has almost no saying in the public media discourse.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the discursive networks of actors in the current public media debate on Islam and Muslims in five Western European countries. Adopting a comparative perspective, we want to assess how national citizenship models impact Muslim organizations’ importance and their interaction with institutions and civil society in the public media discourse. We suggest that in a country with a multiculturalist citizenship model, Muslim organizations conduct an even-handed dialogue with state actors, while assimilative citizenship models are not favorable to discussion.
Apart from contributing to a better understanding of the importance of national citizenship regimes in shaping the discourse on Muslims and Islam, this paper pursues a second methodological goal. By combining quantitative media content analysis and social network analysis, we want to show how social network analysis tools can broaden the interpretative perspective on data obtained through quantitative content analysis. The original database stems from the EURISLAM project (Finding a Place for Islam in Europe: Cultural Interactions between Muslim Immigrants and Receiving Societies, eurislam.com). Public media debates on Muslims and Islam were coded from newspapers in six countries for the period from 1999 to 2008.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the discursive networks of actors in the current public media debate on Islam and Muslims in five Western European countries. Adopting a comparative perspective, we want to assess how national citizenship models impact Muslim organizations’ importance and their interaction with institutions and civil society in the public media discourse. We suggest that in a country with a multiculturalist citizenship model, Muslim organizations conduct an even-handed dialogue with state actors, while assimilative citizenship models are not favorable to discussion.
Apart from contributing to a better understanding of the importance of national citizenship regimes in shaping the discourse on Muslims and Islam, this paper pursues a second methodological goal. By combining quantitative media content analysis and social network analysis, we want to show how social network analysis tools can broaden the interpretative perspective on data obtained through quantitative content analysis. The original database stems from the EURISLAM project (Finding a Place for Islam in Europe: Cultural Interactions between Muslim Immigrants and Receiving Societies, eurislam.com). Public media debates on Muslims and Islam were coded from newspapers in six countries for the period from 1999 to 2008.
