Religion and Media 2015 Abstracts
The Role of Social Media in Setting the Muslims and Islam Agenda: A three-country study • SAIFUDDIN AHMED, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS; Joerg Matthes, U of Vienna; Jaeho Cho, University of California, Davis • This study examines the role of social and traditional media in an agenda setting process involving issues related to Muslims and Islam. A time-series analysis of 4317 news articles and 3.19 million Facebook posts across France, Germany and the Netherlands reveal that the agenda-setting mechanism is not “one-way” but reciprocal in nature. The results of a reverse-pattern involving social media influencing traditional media agenda can direct future research. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Framing moral evaluations: newspaper coverage of Islamic spaces in the U.S. • Brian J. Bowe, Western Washington University • In recent years, attempts by Muslims in the U.S. to build worship spaces have been met with opposition during the local regulatory approval process. This article examines the discourse in the debate through a framing cluster analysis of news articles and editorials (n=349) from five U.S. newspapers between 2010-13. This research makes a theoretical contribution by being the first to use Moral Foundations Theory operationalize the moral evaluation dimension of framing. A cluster analysis of all the framing components revealed five frames: Local Regulation, Political Debate, Muslim Neighbors, Islamic Threat, and Legal Authority. A binary logistic regression found that moral evaluations were associated with mosque support, but not mosque opposition.
God and sport: Orientalism in Sports Illustrated coverage of religion • Patrick Ferrucci, University of Colorado-Boulder; Greg Perreault, University of Missouri • This study utilizes textual analysis to analyze how the popular and influential sports magazine Sports Illustrated covered religion over the period from Jan. 1, 1994, to Sept. 1, 2014. The data showed that the magazine wrote about religion in three primary ways: as an exotic characteristic that makes an athlete somehow odd, as incongruous since sports themselves display similar characteristics to religion, and as a front to hide some insidious real motive. These results are analyzed through the lens of Edward Said’s theory of orientalism, which argues that the press tends to cover dominant groups as “normal” and “others” the remaining groups, which has been shown, historically, to have damaging impact. This study concludes with a discussion concerning how SI’s coverage of religion could impact society.
Religious ‘hate spin’ and the limitations of the law in India • Cherian George, Hong Kong Baptist University • Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won India’s 2014 election on a Hindu-majoritarian agenda, challenging the secular republic’s accommodation of Muslim and other minorities. One key strategy was the use of “hate spin” – conceptualised here as the politically motivated giving and taking of religious offence. Modi’s campaign used inflammatory speech with impunity, despite India’s laws against religious incitement. It also rallied the Hindu ground against manufactured offence, effectively censoring books despite free speech laws.
“It’s Not a Real Thing When We Do It”: Mainstream Newspaper Use of the Term “Islamophobia” • Rick Moore, Boise State University • Is “Islamophobia” a real thing? A viral video segment from a recent television program raised this question. This study looks to answer it by analyzing how the media might play a role in determining our perception of the reality of phenomena that have only recently been named. Through a LexisNexis search of mainstream newspapers’ use of Islamophobia, the study shows that for journalists, at least, there are clear indications Islamophobia is real and worth discussing.
Sexual battlegrounds: How abstinent Christian men select and navigate media content • Monique Robinson, The University of Kansas; Timothy Luisi, University of Kansas • Men look toward media as illustrative in constructing sexual relationships. As 97% of men in the United States engage in sexual relationships prior to marriage, those who choose to wait represent a heuristic segment of the population. This study analyzes abstinent Christian males and how their identity interplays with their media selection and navigation processes through sexual narratives and scripts that counter their views on premarital sex.
The boundaries of political tolerance: Evaluations of Mormon political candidates • Remy Maisel; Mike Schmierbach, Pennsylvania State University • During the 2012 American presidential election, there was rampant media speculation about the potential impact of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism upon his chances of being elected. This experiment presented respondents with news articles about a fictional candidate with conditions for candidate affiliation of either Mormon or unspecified, and stories that either contained values language or excluded it. Results showed weak negative effects due to the presence of a Mormon label, and minimal influence of value framing.
Is It Really a Religious Conflict?: News Framing of the Ahmadiyah Conflict in Indonesian Mediascape • Yearry Setianto, Ohio University • Building on the assumption that the media construct their own frames in reporting religious conflict, this study investigates how online newspapers framed the Ahmadiyah conflict in Cikeusik, Banten Province, Indonesia in February 2011. Based on framing analysis of 359 news articles taken from two major online newspapers in Indonesia, Kompas.com and Republika Online, this research used an interpretive qualitative approach in identifying the frames. The research findings suggest that Kompas.com indirectly named the incident as an attack and violations of human rights but avoided to mention the case as a religious conflict. In contrast, Republika Online, which is influenced by Islamic values tended to name the event as a clash based on religious issues and accused the Ahmadis as the provocateurs. Both media named the actors as anonymous but blamed the government’s failure in protecting religious rights. The use of interpretive qualitative approach also has been sufficient to identify hidden frames within the language structures in news texts. This study helps to understand how the religious conflict tended to be framed differently by online media, mainly due to their religious affiliation, especially in the context of reporting religious conflicts in a Muslim majority country like in Indonesia.
Evangelical Christian Crisis Responses to Same-Sex Sex Scandals • Cylor Spaulding, Towson University • This research examines the crisis responses of six evangelical leaders (Paul Crouch, Ted Haggard, Lonnie Latham, and Eddie Long) involved in same-sex sex scandals by comparing their responses against those recommended by the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) (Coombs, 2007). Through an examination of the leaders strategies, reaction statements, and news articles written about the crisis, this qualitative research found that the evangelical pastors generally adhered to the recommended strategies of the SCCT, thus reinforcing the applicability of the SCCT even in a religious context. This paper also recommends the inclusion of an additional SCCT category for situations where a crisis inflicts spiritual or emotional harm.
A Cross-National Media Framing Comparison of U.S. and Arabic News: The Case of Charlie Hebdo • Ethan Stokes, University of Alabama • On January 7, 2015, two Islamic terrorists raided the Charlie Hebdo central office in Paris and killed 12 employees of the French satirical magazine. The events that ensued resembled a modern action/thriller motion picture, and global news media coverage provided an avenue for audiences to follow the proceedings. Navigated by framing theory, this study employed a quantitative content analysis of 985 news stories collected precisely over one month following the January 7th attack to determine if cross-national differences in news coverage were present. The news stories came from the two most popular Arabic news media outlets and the three most popular U.S. newspapers. The Arabic stories were collected using the Media Monitoring System at Texas A&M University, and the U.S. stories were collected using the Pro-Quest Newspapers database. The findings reveal that the U.S. frames focused more heavily on the victims, defending free speech, and supporting the continuance of the satire, while the Arabic frames more often focused on specific terrorist groups, portraying the satire as offensive to Muslims, and calling for a discontinuance of the satire. These differences and similarities in news framing of the Hebdo attack are discussed at length.
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