Dr. Saad Boulahnane's doctoral thesis investigated Islamophobia in American mainstream news media (CNN and FOX NEWS as case studies)
Title: Islamophobia In American Mainstream News Media: An Investigation of Key Discursive Strategies
Islamophibia has been conceptualized from various perspectives and as several
forms of social construction. This dissertation investigates the discursive strategies applied to
the manufacturing of today’s Islamophobia and the new frames enriching the anti-Muslim
repertoire feeding public opinion and the existing agenda-led organizations. In doing so, three
case studies of major Muslim news events—i.e., Ground Zero Mosque, Chapel Hill Shooting,
and Orlando Shooting—have been critically analyzed. A total of 413 Fox News and CNN
transcripts were retrieved from LexisNexis Academic Database and coded using Atlas.ti—a
qualitative data- mining program. The methodology consists of content analysis, which
provides and analyzes data both numerically and qualitatively, and Critical Discourse
Analysis, which serves as an umbrella approach encompassing three critical methods:
sourcing analysis, ideological square analysis, and framing analysis. The dissertation has
resulted in certain key discursive strategies manifesting in, 1) the sourcing of authoritative
agenda-led voices, 2) setting an ideological split between American Muslims as a threatening
out-group ‘Them’ against the regular American in- group ‘Us’, and 3) the production of
‘othering’ frames articulated in various anti-Muslim discourses: the estranging discourses of
immigration, homophobia, and other fringe discourses superposed into the three texts. The
findings will contribute to the existing literature on the discursive mechanisms contributing to
the re-production and forms of Islamophobia. The implications can be placed within the
context of religious pluralism and the treatment of minorities, which is a backdrop against
which the American pluralism project is measured.
Keywords: American Mainstream media, discursive strategies, Islamophobia, framing, CDA,
ideological square, sourcing, religious pluralism