Department of Journalism and Mass Communication

MA MULTIMEDIA JOURNALISM

The attack on Charlie Hebdo and the representation of Islam

A comparison of the international press coverage
(France, USA and Pakistan)

INDRAJA GUGLE
W151778142

August 2015

Copyright (2015) University of Westminster, Indraja Gugle

 Abstract
This dissertation analyses the coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, looking at the press of
France, USA and Pakistan. The primary aim of the study was to understand how Islam and
Muslims were represented in the aftermath of the attacks. The second element was to see how
Muslim immigrants are being treated by the press. The third aspect looks into the bias of Islamic
countries in covering terror. The last area of research is the intense debate on freedom of
expression in the context of Islam.

Quantitative and qualitative content analyses were used to study newspaper articles from each
country to gather information about the tendencies in reportage about Muslims and the freedom
of expression. The language used to describe Islam and Muslims was also examined, and so were
the sources used in the stories.

Results show that there is a change in the way Islamic terrorism is being reported. The content is
not all Islamophobic; instead efforts are being made to get to the bottom of terrorism instead of
attaching blame to one religion. About freedom of expression, the dissertation finds that while it
has been approached as a democratic right to be defended, all three countries have shown a
tendency to reject the right to offend that it may imply. However, the findings about both aspects
vary from country to country, thus making it interesting to study the international coverage of a
terrorist event.
 Acknowledgements
I would like to sincerely thank my mentor, Dr. Mercedes Bunz, for her expert guidance, patience
and faith that helped me to complete the dissertation.

Very big thanks to the British library, a treasure trove of knowledge which provides an inspiring
and nurturing environment for researchers.

I thank my colleagues for lending an attentive ear when I needed it the most, and for constructive
criticism regarding my work.

I take this opportunity to thank my family and friends for supporting me and boosting my morale
during this challenging period.
 Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1
Literature Review ......................................................................................................................................... 3
2.1 State of Media..................................................................................................................................... 3
2.11 Media, government and the freedom of expression .................................................................... 3
2.12 Religion and Media: French and American Perspectives .............................................................. 6
2.13 Pakistani Media: melting pot of government and religion ........................................................... 7
2.2 Representation of Islam and immigration in Western media ............................................................ 9
2.21 Islam in Western media ................................................................................................................ 9
2.22 Immigration in Western media ................................................................................................... 11
Research Questions .................................................................................................................................... 14
Methodology .............................................................................................................................................. 15
4.1 Sampling ............................................................................................................................................ 16
4.2 Coding Frames................................................................................................................................... 17
Analysis ....................................................................................................................................................... 19
5.1 Representation of Islam and Muslims .............................................................................................. 20
5.11 Role of Islam and Muslims .......................................................................................................... 20
5.12 Language used to describe Islam and Muslims .......................................................................... 26
5.13 Sources used in the press coverage ............................................................................................ 28
5.2 The Muslim Diaspora in the context of immigration ........................................................................ 30
Discussion ................................................................................................................................................... 36
6.1 French Muslims: a people alienated ................................................................................................. 36
6.2 Conflicting trends in reportage on Islam .......................................................................................... 37
6.3 “Free-speech fraudsters” and identity politics ................................................................................. 39
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 41
List of References ....................................................................................................................................... 43
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................................ 53
Appendix A .............................................................................................................................................. 53
Appendix B .............................................................................................................................................. 55
 List of Tables and Figures
1. Figure 1 – Role of Islam and Muslims ..............................................................20
2. Figure 2 – Language used to describe Islam and Muslims ...............................26
3. Table 1 – Language used to describe Islam and Muslims ...............................27
4. Figure 3 – Sources used in the press coverage ................................................28
5. Figure 4 – The Muslim Diaspora in the context of immigration ......................30
6. Table 2 – Threat Frame ...................................................................................31
7. Table 3 – Hero Frame ..................................................................................... 31
8. Table 4 – Victim Frame ...................................................................................31
9. Figure 5 – Freedom of expression ...................................................................33
Perhaps some of them haven’t a clue about the problematic ideologies the Charlie Hebdo
massacre has kick-started.

- Protesting Charlie in Peshawar

The Nation, 19 January 2015
 1
Introduction
The implication that terrorism is linked to Islam is amply manifest in the media. The first week
of 2015 would prove to be yet another example. The French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo was
attacked on 7 January by two Islamic gunmen who killed 12 people including journalists, staff
and a Muslim police officer Ahmed Merabet. This attack was allegedly staged by al Qaeda to
teach Charlie Hebdo a lesson for drawing blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed
(Schmitt et al, 2015).

On 17 June 2015, a young white man opened fire inside the Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church in America, killing nine people, in the hope of igniting a race war. The killer,
Dylan Roof, was termed as mentally ill, but not a terrorist.

Both incidents had all the colours of intolerance and extremism behind them. There is a
difference in the treatment given by media which is what makes the representation of Muslims in
terrorism narratives interesting to study.

Past research (Sait, 2015; Saeed et al, 2007) on this subject argues that Muslims have been
misrepresented in the media by being directly linked with fundamentalism, terrorism and
intolerance. Eminent scholar Edward Said (1997:16) opines that Western media covers Islam
only on two counts – oil and potential terrorism. While this study does not counter that take since
it researches a terrorist attack, it aims to analyse the state of media perspectives about the
depiction of Muslims in 2015.

To get a real worldwide view on the matter, the dissertation chooses to study the press of three
countries – France, USA and Pakistan, over a period of fifteen days after the attack when there
was extensive coverage. Since identifying national tendencies is often a debate in journalism, the
study chooses to analyse two newspapers of different political leanings from each of the three
countries to represent a country’s stance. This does not completely solve the problem but it
balances the research material. Regarding the countries, the newspapers come from: a) France,
because it is the country of attack, b) USA, since it is not part of the EU and has a history with
Islamic terrorism, most notably 9/11, and finally c) Pakistan, to get an Islamic nation’s
viewpoint. By doing so, the study bridges the gap between Western and Islamic press, bringing
them on the same platform for analysis.

The representation of Muslims will be looked into from the immigration aspect as well, since the
Charlie Hebdo attack coverage kept up the ongoing debate on immigration. The dissertation

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examines if Muslim immigrants were perceived as a threat, victims of government policies or
law-abiding citizens in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

A secondary question that needs to be studied in order to understand the role of Islam is to look
into the religious aspect and the freedom of expression. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks, protests
of a different kind were taking place in Pakistan and other Islamic countries – protests against the
newspaper Charlie Hebdo on the grounds of blasphemy. Meanwhile, in the Western world, the
slogan #JeSuisCharlie went viral on the internet and the movement came to the streets too.
Thousands of people gathered at Place de la République in Paris to condemn the attacks and
uphold free speech, showing solidarity with the journalists killed.

Thus it also becomes interesting to see if and how freedom of expression was defended in
relation to the parodying of religion in different countries. Similarly, another question becomes
important - whether a Muslim nation covers Islamic terrorism without bias.

The Charlie Hebdo attacks were chosen for analysis because they provide a platform to study the
attitude towards terrorism and Islam today. Especially after the 9/11 attacks, Muslims have been
subjugated to suspicion and racism in the Western world, which, as some say, helps to feed the
rise of Islamic terror outfits like the Islamic State who recruit worldwide. The conflict between
the West and Islam needs to be understood by looking in some detail into the problem in order to
achieve peaceful co-habitation of both. This can be achieved only through understanding the
current social scenario pertaining to Muslims and the Western world.

A secondary issue of this dissertation relates to one very important democratic right. One is
entitled to free speech in a democracy, but how much is too much? Researchers (Richards, 1999;
Fergenson, 1995) have analysed identity politics with legal frameworks and political problems.
Many ask if a volatile modern world like ours can support such freedoms, while necessitating a
new level of tolerance.

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 2
Literature Review
For the purpose of international comparison, it is important to look at the state of media in each
country as regards government relations, religion and the framework for freedom of expression
and freedom of the press. The literature review will also elaborate upon the studies of
representation of Islam and immigration in the media. All these aspects will help understand the
coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in respect of Islam and also free speech.

2.1 State of Media

This section is divided into three parts – the first part sheds light on aspects of media in the three
countries and their relation with the state while the second deals with media and religion.
Pakistan’s media is discussed separately in the third section because its media model and
political-religious scenario is very different from that of France or the USA.

2.11 Media, government and the freedom of expression

In almost all parts of the world, it is impossible to see the media as being independent of politics
and the state. While the media is responsible to hold the state accountable, positive coverage can
often be sought by politicians who have the power to override the truth, as pointed out by Salwen
(1998) and Oswald (1994) or as is demonstrated in the case of media censorship in China.

For the purpose of this dissertation, Kuhn’s (2011) work proves to be instrumental in
understanding aspects of media ownership, policy-making and political pluralism in the French
press. Noam (2009) helps put such aspects about the American press in perspective.
Additionally, he sheds light on the unique framework for freedom of speech in each country.

In France, there has been devolution of power from national to regional newspapers as citizens’
interests strongly lie in local communities and culture (Kuhn, 2011:36). Political changes have
paved way for an expansion of media policy-makers, most notably the inclusion of the EU
(Kuhn, 2011:83).

The French newspaper market has seen the rise of conglomerates as business companies have
expanded their activities into media (Kuhn, 2011:65). The phenomenon of media consolidation
has seen a surge in the USA as well. (Noam, 2009: 139-143). Latest trends show that a few
national dailies like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are gaining currency over
local newspapers (Noam, 2009:144).

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Though consolidation is economically viable, it is not necessarily so in the socio-political
dimension, as suggested by Kuhn. This model suffers from possible abuse of power, narrow
range of views, diversity of content and the shrinking of editorial pluralism (Kuhn, 2011:68).

The idea of media independence and freedom of expression is different in every country and
therefore will be discussed for all three countries (France and America in this section and
Pakistan in the next) starting with France. Political pluralism is not mandatory in the French
press; newspapers can have strong political stands and enjoy greater editorial freedom, but they
tend not to be too partisan out of concern of losing a segment of readership (Kuhn, 2011:73-76).
Elite opinion-formers like Libération and Le Figaro are not owned by nor have any close links
with a political party (Kuhn, 2011:74).

According to Eko (2013:42), freedom of speech in France underwent a long process which
started during the French Revolution and was one of the cornerstones of the declaration that was
passed, but for nearly a century after there were regulations imposed on the press. Monarchical
governments gave rise to satirical journalism and caricature as a form of defence of which
emerged renowned caricaturists Honoré Daumier and Paul Gavarni (Eko, 2013:43).

The law of July 29, 1881 liberalizes free speech but with governmental control over the content.
Additionally, France also abides by the European Convention on Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms of 1950 as it is a part of the EU. Though French law is intolerable of
discrimination against ethnic minorities through speech, visual or other means, French courts
have paid no heed to requests of bans on hate speech (especially cartoons) which Islamic groups
find disrespectful of their religion because the European Court of Human Rights does not
recognize the Sharia law to be compatible with democracy (Eko, 2013:45).

Eko (2013:31) also sheds light on the unique American freedom of expression. Unlike France,
the American Constitution “is not a Bill of social or economic rights” and instead places freedom
of expression above human rights of dignity, equality and civility, distinguishing their
Constitution from the rest of the world.

The First Amendment gives outstanding importance to freedom of expression. However,

defamation, obscenity and incitement of war are not promoted in the First Amendment (Eko,
2013:36).

Obama’s administration condemned the defamation of religion arising out of the Mohammed
cartoons in 2005, thus acting in accordance with Article 19 and 20 of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights which allow freedom of speech subject to the exception of hurting
people’s reputation and prohibit any action inciting religious hatred – articles which the United
States had originally objected to (Eko, 2013:60).

After 9/11, reporting restrictions came in the form of the USA Patriot Act which allows the
government to deny any Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for concerns over national

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security (AHIMA, 2010). While CIA regularly uses journalists to gather information abroad,
eminent scholar Said (1997:51) speaks of a government-regulated framework which facilitates
this pursuit, thus limiting press independence that America so upholds.

While discussing freedom of expression, researchers, just like the general public, have wide-
ranging views about the idea. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
allows a person to “hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” (United Nations).

However, Cohen (2012:21) states that one would be friendless within a day if one were to
practice absolute freedom of speech. In the pursuit of being respected, “we want others to lie to
us so that we can lie to ourselves,” (Cohen, 2012:22). His stand is in stark contrast to Hume
(2015) who suggests that free speech is not truly free without getting rid of the ‘but’. “Free-
speech fraudsters” only accept free speech in principle and are quick to mark out the limits while
“reverse-Voltaires” deny others the right to offend in the first place (Hume, 2015:161, 54, 55).

In the conflict between identity politics and free speech, Richards (1999: 212) puts forth that
blasphemy and group libel laws are found to be constitutional since they strike a balance
between the right to free speech and the right against unjust discrimination, which in turn
justifies state censorship for religious reasons. This, however, limits the right to conscience and
speech and legitimates instead a “politics of rigid and impermeable group identities” which
strengthens the structural injustice of religious intolerance by eliminating rational dialogue
(Richards, 1999:213).

One of the pivotal points on free speech and Islam in the West came with the Satanic Verses
controversy in 1988. Mondal purports that not all Muslims took offence at the work unlike what
Muslim leaders claimed, however, the sentiment of hurt was not solely political or created by
Islamist movements (Mondal, 2014:13-31). In his book, he juxtaposes liberalism with
responsibility, adding that the right to offend fails to take into account the consequences
(Mondal, 2014).

Fergenson (1995), on the other hand, validates the argument that defamatory material leads to
discriminatory action against certain groups, but also puts forth a political conundrum – who is
empowered to decide for a society what literature gets banned? (Fergenson, 1995:71-83).

This question can be partly answered by renowned academic Tariq Modood (2006). He reflects
on the Danish cartoon controversy of 2005 as an incident where though the cartoons mocking
Islam were legal, they were unacceptable. However, he rejects a ban on the cartoons while
stressing upon responsibility and adding that public debate and censure can become the tools to
“provide standards and restraints” in matters which the law cannot regulate easily (Modood,
2006:4).

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Thus, free speech and identity politics are seen to be in a conflict. The next section will shed
light on religion in the news.

2.12 Religion and Media: French and American Perspectives

Researchers (Rousseau, 2014; Berger, 1967) have frequently pointed out that religion shapes
culture, personality, society and political institutions. Religion is considered crucial in what man
perceives as right or wrong, his involvement in science and social and religious change. This
aspect of faith binds people of a society together. Hence, it also plays an important role in the
media, more so in some parts of the world than others.

In the context of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, religion has been the genesis. Hence, it is
important to study how religion is depicted in the press around the world. This section will look
at how religion is portrayed in the American and French media. As pointed out before, a different
has been designed for Pakistani media because of its distinctness in relation to the government,
freedom of expression and religion.

While there have been various studies on religion in the American media, the same cannot be
said of France. This underlines the separation of religion from public life in the French society as
compared to America.

Since the 17th century colonisation by the British, religion has long been a part of American
journalism and a salient contributor to American’s worldview (Winston, 2012:6). America has
seen numerous religious movements. Historian McCloud’s notes that over 1950s to 1990s the
media portrayed blacks and lower-white class whites as “un-American” and “outsiders” due to
their emphasis on communalism and spirituality (Winston, 2012:17).

Winston purports that religion coverage improved after 1980s with the expansion of church news
“as a subset of politics than as a spiritual experience” (Winston, 2012:12). Religious news could
be found on news aggregator sites and online magazines and forums, thus chronicling the
demand of spiritual and religion seekers (Winston, 2012:12). Another study by Pew Research
Centre in 2014 affirms this fact by finding that one in five Americans shared their faith on social
networking sites in an average week (Pew Research Centre, 2014)

Through studies like this, one can assume a considerably high religiosity in the American
society. However, another study suggests that religion only shared 0.7% of mainstream media
coverage in 2011, a decrease from 2% in 2010 (Pew Research Centre, 2012). Majority of the
religion coverage focussed on Islam, but this shall be discussed further in the chapter titled
‘Representation of Islam and immigration in the Western media’.

In France, religion plays a different role in the society and media altogether. Laïcité or French
secularity provides for a unique separation of religion and government, upholding principles of
“nonreligious rationality and morality” (Beckford, 2004:32). In his study, Beckford (2004: 27-

6
39) finds that France is strongly opposed to some minority religious groups called ‘cults’ and
new religious movements (NRMs), a thought reflected by public opinion, and France takes
extraordinary preventive measures to ensure the upkeep of its laïcité, freethinking and
rationality.

Bridging Beckford’s work and that of Fath’s, we find that this attitude has been encompassed by
the media as well. Stating that Christianity has virtually disappeared from the cultural
mainstream between 1995 and 2005, Fath (2007:54) asserts that the French media signalled at
overemphasis of the religious aspect while reporting on the leadership of George W. Bush,
picking up on examples like Le Nouvel Observateur’s take on evangelicals as “the sect (cult) that
wants to conquer the world.”

To conclude this sub-section on religion and media, Kuru’s study proves pivotal in drawing a
comparison between American and French secularism and religiosity. While France is assertive
about secularism and low in societal religiosity, Kuru points out that the United States is passive
about secularism and shows a high tendency of societal religiosity (Kuru, 2009:244).

The next sub-section deals with Pakistan and its media environment.

2.13 Pakistani Media: melting pot of government and religion

Pakistan came into existence as a result of religion – the demand for a separate state for the
Muslims of British India which was on the brink of independence. Hence, it lays out religion to
be its raison d’être with politics and media evolving out of the same mould (Akhtar, 2000:xviii).
Ever since, Pakistan has used Islam to suppress diverse linguistic and cultural identities of its
population “to create a cohesive national identity distinct from that of India” and state media
control forms an important aspect of this “nationalist project” (Yusuf, 2015:168,169).

The relationship between the media and the state in Pakistan is quite complex, one that is based
on mutual understanding (Akhtar, 2000:78-95). While English, Urdu and Sindhi print media
were leading independent journalism in 1991, (Hoodbhoy, 2011:63), radio and television became
increasingly privatized only after the media reforms of 2002 (Yusuf, 2015:160) under the
military leader Pervez Musharraf’s reign (Markey, 2013:62).

A survey found that majority of journalists and academics were in agreement over Pakistani
press, especially the Urdu press, targeting religious sentiments of the people and establishing the
ulema (Islamic scholar trained in Islamic law) as the true spokesman of Islam (Akhtar, 2000:64-
65) The elite are the culprit, exuding pressure on the ulema and the press for their fear of an
industrial freethinking society, thus raising the question of the freedom of the press (Akhtar,
2000: 67).

Religion plays an important role in the affairs of the state and subsequently brings censorship on
the media. A religious political party Jamaat-e-Islami was given control of the Ministry of

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Information and Education by military leader General Zia-ul-Haq (1977-1988), and there are
similar ongoing efforts to “Islamize Pakistani cyberspace” which leans on controversial
blasphemy laws which can impose the death penalty (Yusuf, 2015:169).

Researchers point out that reporting restrictions still take the form of fear of legal action and
informal harassment, resulting in self-censorship by the press. When attacks are carried out
against journalists and their families, it is difficult to turn to the police as they are involved with
the governments and their power play against rival parties (Hoodbhoy, 2011:61-67). Corruption
is rampant in Pakistan and journalists are often presented with gifts to write favourably about
politicians (Hoddbhoy, 2011:67-73).

The emergence of social media has given the Pakistani public a democratic platform largely free
of military scrutiny, unlike their mainstream media counterparts whose role is undermined due to
their reluctance to condemn the military or intelligence agencies, allegedly for security reasons
(Yusuf, 2015:161-162).

That Saleem Taseer was killed by his bodyguard Qadri for having argued Pakistan’s blasphemy
laws and supported a Christian woman gave result to a widespread Facebook and Twitter
reaction – Facebook groups supporting Qadri and expressing ill will towards Taseer were no
different from websites of violent extremist organisations (Yusuf, 2015:172-173) and the author
raises the question of where new media in Pakistan is headed - towards radical discourse or
democratic consolidation.

By declaring democracy un-Islamic, the TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) in 2013 attacked rival
parties resulting in 130 deaths before Election Day and warned the public against voting;
however, Pakistan’s 2013 elections saw the largest voter turnout in four decades and the media
played “an invigorating role” towards an election atmosphere missing from the streets (Jalal,
2014:372-382). Only those parties not on the “Taliban’s hit list” could engage directly with the
electorate (Jalal, 2014:374).

Thus, we see that democracy in Pakistan is an ongoing struggle and freedom of expression gets
implicated from time to time.

Summary

From the above sub-sections, it can be agreed that the main similarities between France and the
USA is media ownership increasingly getting more consolidated. Religion reporting occupies an
important part in both Pakistani and American press.

However, the differences with respect to the factors discussed above are the distinct frameworks
for freedom of speech in the three countries. While Pakistan remains at the lower end of the
scale, USA is joined by France at the higher end. Ideas about free speech are greatly argued the
world over and many researchers have pointed out limitations to this right.

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2.2 Representation of Islam and immigration in Western media

Centuries of invasions, colonisation and the World Wars resulted in displacement of people for
economic, social and political reasons. It also led to the migration of cultures and religions.
Today, the total population of Europe constitutes 33.5 million non-EU immigrants (Eurostat,
2015). France is the country with the largest number of Muslims in Europe (Pew Research
Centre, 2015).

As different cultures have come to assume an important part of the European society, they have
been increasingly portrayed in the media too, however subject to stereotypes. This chapter aims
to shed light on the attitude of Western media towards Islam and immigration.

2.21 Islam in Western media

Islam has a broad interpretative quality (Said, 1997:66) but its representation in worldwide media
has been relatively narrow, limited to the point of confrontation with the West. In his book
Covering Islam, Said (1981:16) puts forth a very polemic, yet presumably realistic view of the
western press which covers Islam only on two counts – oil and potential terrorism. He is
particularly disdainful of the American press which has further recreated the divide between the
Orient and Occident and indoctrinated its reporters to protect the interests of a superpower
America (Said, 1981:51).

In Orientalism, another powerful work, Said (1978) outlines Western discrimination against the
Orient through the idea of ‘otherness’ which establishes the supremacy of a modern and
enlightened West over an undesirable and undeveloped Orient in order to attain power.

Demonization of Islam is also seen due to insufficient plurality of sources (Alatas, 2005:50).
Alatas (2005:48) rebukes that the plight of Muslims does not get reported and they suffer from
being projected as aggressors and not victims. Muslims speaking against institutions like stoning
to death will rarely be seen in media (Alatas, 2005:47).

The satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was famed for its derisive take on religion through
caricatures. Gottschalk and Greenberg (2011:65-77) explain that though amusing and
occasionally inflammatory, the succinct forms of caricatures often make way for
misinterpretation, while caricatures of Muslims have frequently followed stereotypes and thus
strengthened them.

Karim (2006:119) identifies dominant stereotypes in the representation of Muslims in the media.
Among those are: Islamic fundamentalism and the Middle East as a breeding place of violence
and congenital terrorism in contrast to a civilized West. Research like this gives an indication of
elements similar to ways in which Islamophobia will be coined.

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Far from being a public reaction, Curtis IV (2013:99) maintains that Islamophobia was
manufactured in America and spread through the media especially in the 1960s when the
government, threatened by Muslim political movements, interfered in American society to
promulgate hatred by suppressing religious freedom of Muslims, a behaviour which heightened
and took varied forms post 9/11 such as special police training and surveillance.

The creation of Islamophobia can be greatly attributed to the language used to describe Muslims.
Hence, it is important to point out the increasing usage of certain words like ‘Islamist’ and
‘Islamic State’. The word ‘Islamist’ has gained currency in the media after the Iranian revolution
in 1979 (Spector, 2015:200). Acclaimed scholar Olivier Roy (1995:43) holds that Islamists are
opposed to Western democracy.

Demant (2006:177,178) builds on the ideology of Islamism and also calls it a social movement
which rejects western modernity and its principal values of secularism and individualism; its
“ideal polity” is an Islamic state that transcends borders and establishes Islamic supremacy by
governing the whole world. Meanwhile, ‘Islamic’ simply denotes “the Muslim religion, and
the people and countries who believe in it” (Cambridge Dictionary).

Though Islam is interpreted in various manners by its followers, Islamists stand apart because of
the political factor (Demant, 2006:179). Islamism breeds where modernity has given rise to
economic inequality, lack of opportunity and a sense of alienation and disillusionment, however
its “social programme is too specific to appeal to more than a minority of Muslims” (Demant,
2006:195). Baran and Tuouhy’s (2011:11-12) work echoes the sentiment of alienation in French
suburbs, touching upon spiritual alienation felt by second- and third-generation Muslims which
makes them easy targets of Islamism preachers.

An article in Huffington Post calls for reconsideration of the term ‘Islamism’, stating that its
usage in the media has acquired “quasi-criminal connotations” (Briggs, 2012). However, certain
Muslims may want to boycott this term for different reasons. The Council on American Islamic
Relations (CAIR), linked with terrorism, called once more in early 2015 to ban “Islamist” from
the media (Svirsky, 2015). Their meeting in 1993 was wire-tapped by the FBI where the
members discussed that in order to have more influence in the government, they must call the
media to stop using the term ‘Islamist’ as it had turned negative (Mauro, 2013).

The other important word that this dissertation needs to take into account is ‘Islamic State’.
Referred to as ISIS or ISIL, the terrorist group is now denoted as ‘Islamic State’ by the media
since the group changed it officially in June 2014. Islamic State (IS) members are jihadists
(strugglers) who believe in an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and consider the rest of the
world as unbelievers who want to destroy Islam, thus justifying attacks against Muslims and
non-Muslims (BBC, 2015). This group has been in the headlines since last year, not only because
of its operations in the Middle East but its online presence and recruitment in the West.

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Recently, in June 2015, David Cameron along with 120 MPs impressed upon the BBC to stop
legitimising the term Islamic State and use the words “so called” and “ISIL” with a view to sap
the powers of the “poisonous death cult” from seducing young Britons to join IS and fight in Iraq
and Syria (Dathan, 2015). BBC presenter Mark Mardell criticises this move which shift the focus
from answering the big question on Islamic State – their desire to rule (Mardell, 2015). UK and
Scottish parliamentarian Alex Salmond is of the thought that “in a propaganda war language is
crucial” and calls for the denotation of Islamic State by its Arabic name “Daesh” to separate
terrorists from a religion they claim to represent (Martinson, 2015). Thus, there is a growing
debate on the use of the terms which will be studied in later chapters.

To study the role of Islam in Western media, another important incident that needs to be taken
into account is the headscarf ban in France in 2004. Meant to promote secularism according to
the government, the ban has been studied in relation to immigrants posing a threat to the national
identity in France (Bohon and Conley, 2015:33, 41).

The ban became a huge public debate in the media and instantly distinguished Muslim men into
categories: Islamists, violent adolescents and secularists (Bowen, 2007:245). It also gave an
impression that only unveiled women and secularist men were in keeping with the nation’s
views, as they were given that kind of screen space (Bowen, 2007:245). French media opened
dialogues on the problems of safety in poor Islamic suburbs and Islamism which proved to be
destructive (Bowen, 2007:244)

Deltombe’s (2005) work concurs with Bowen and goes deeper into explaining how the French
media, especially the electronic media, created sensationalism by stigmatising Muslims and
holding polemic conversations about banlieues (suburbs), immigration and crimes which led to
Islamophobia.

2.22 Immigration in Western media

Immigration is a hot topic in most of the Western democracies and the media is largely
responsible for what information and opinions people have about it. The press coverage of the
Charlie Hebdo attack opened up this heated discussion again and hence it becomes important to
study how France and the United States report immigration and the similarities and differences in
their reporting.

France and USA rank highest in receiving migrants worldwide and though they have unique
immigration histories, research shows that the economic advantages and problems for the host
country and struggles for immigrants have been similar in both countries (Benson, 2013:3).
While France’s assilimilationist “republican” tradition is in juxtaposition with America’s
“multiculturalism”, their immigrant populations have been found to have integrated well in the
society (Benson, 2013:237).

11
Assimilationist approach is one where minorities are expected to adapt to the majority culture on
the cognitive, social and identity-related aspects (Geissler and Weber-Menges, 2009:28), whilst a
multicultural approach gives equal importance to various cultures that inhabit a society and at
once prohibits the emergence of parallel societies that threaten its national identity (Ghosh,
2013:134).

If we look at immigration histories, Muslims are found to form a substantial proportion of

immigration to the West. Demant (2006:64,65) finds that Muslim immigration to Europe took
place in three waves - the first wave comprised Muslims who settled in their colonising countries
for fear of retaliation after independence, the second and wider wave comprised guest workers,
and the latest ones were poorer and darker-complexioned, with cultural differences significant
enough to cause problems for the host countries and themselves. In the course of assimilation of
Muslim immigrants, Demant finds that they were rejected on more counts than integrated,
outlined by notions like Islamophobia and Anti-Muslimism (Demant, 2006:69).

A recent research concedes with Benson’s study when it describes France’s classical
assimilationist practice where immigrants are expected to adapt a secular “French” identity
which overrides their own cultural and ethnic identities (Bohon and Conley, 2015:31, 32). This
work raises the question of integration of immigrants in the French society by drawing attention
to the 2005 riots, a result of economic discrimination and fear of marginalization amongst
immigrants, while also accusing the French media and politicians of depicting immigrants as
destructive (Bohon and Conley, 2015:32).

A negative public attitude towards immigration was quantified at above 40% in France in 2007
(Ghosh, 2013:133,134) which may have worsened since due to an economically uncertain
period, taking a hit on “confidence-building” between immigrants and the host society, the
author concludes.

Naturally, the difficult situation of migrants in France is a topic in journalism. Though the
National Front’s anti-immigration sentiment is increasingly being shared across French voters
(Pew Research Centre, 2014), journalists in France have treated the French far-right
“disparagingly” and “dismissively” (Benson, 2013:122).

While immigration in France is a substantial phenomenon, it is quite different in the USA where
researchers and the media have repeatedly agreed that “America is a country made of
immigrants.” Like historian Oscar Handlin said - to discuss immigration to America involves “no
less a task than to set down the whole history of the United States” (2002:1). Early American
immigration policies showed significant regard towards immigrants for economic reasons like
cheap labour, which indeed led America on a certain developmental path (Tichenor,2002:20, 6)
but periods of economic decline often force a negative outlook about immigrants (Tichenor,
2002:20).

12
Bonfadelli (2009:50) explains the ‘Cultivation theory’ stating that stereotypical images of
minority groups are cultivated on television which may lead to “fear” amongst minority groups;
however adding that debates on national identities are not new to America and even without the
influence of the media, minority groups find it difficult to integrate in the society alongside
dominant majority groups.

The Centre for Immigration Studies (CIS) raises the issue of crime brought in by uneducated
Mexican populations but do not facilitate the integration of migrant populations by denying their
children access to education, and instead adopting the “strategy of attrition” which cuts access to
jobs and welfare (Schuck and Smith, 1985). Modern day migration is increasingly becoming
inhumane in America due to harsh immigration policies, a fact documented well by detention
camps (Minami and Korematsu, 2015) that frequently feature in American media.

When it comes to public opinion about immigration, a survey conducted by the Public Religion
Research Institute (2015) found that 76% Americans were in favour of Obama’s 2013
immigration reforms that would allow citizenship to illegal immigrants in the US with 53%
agreeing that immigrants were a benefit to the society. However, a majority of white non-
Hispanic Americans (53%) were against Obama’s execution action on immigration.

Benson’s comprehensive research on immigration in the American and French media comes up
with interesting results. Commercialization of the American society has affected newsrooms in
that humanitarian frame (immigrants as victims of government policies) have taken over the jobs
frame (immigrants taking jobs of non-immigrants) in news coverage (Benson, 2013:99).

About French media, he concludes that racism discourse has reduced while hate crime and “real-
world” discrimination discourse has increased or remained steady (Benson, 2013:122). Similarly
to American media, albeit for different reasons, French media champions the humanitarian frame
in immigration coverage (Benson, 2013:122)

Summary

The attitude of media and public towards immigration gives an idea about the treatment of
Muslim immigrants in the West. From the above sections, it can be concluded that Islamophobia
is created through Western media and permeates the topic of immigration, giving rise to
incidents like the marginalisation of Muslim immigrants in French suburbs.

13
 3
Research Questions
 The main research question that this dissertation aims to answer is:

With the insurgency of Islamic terrorism across the world, how was Islam represented in
the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks?

 It also puts forth the hypothesis:

Do Islamic countries have a bias in reporting terror?

 Additionally, it aims to answer the following questions:

1: How was the Muslim Diaspora in Europe represented in the context of immigration?

2: How was freedom of expression in relation to the parodying of religion debated in different
countries?

14
 4
Methodology
The dissertation uses content analysis to compare the international press coverage of Charlie
Hebdo. Researchers at the Islamic Human Rights Commission (2007) use content analysis to
study the language and discourse on Islam and Muslims across TV, newspapers and mainstream
cinema films. Simmons and Lowry (1990) use content analysis to study the shifting public image
of international terrorism during the period 1980 to 1988 (Riffe et al, 2005:2).

Content analysis is found to be most suitable for this dissertation, and by applying it, this
dissertation follows other successful studies. This dissertation uses both, quantitative and
qualitative content analyses to obtain a manifest and latent meaning of the subject matter and to
get as complete a picture as possible.

After considering several definitions of quantitative content analysis by researchers like Holsti
(1969), Berelson (1952) and Kerlinger (1973), Riffe et al (2005:25) put forth a comprehensive
definition of their own – “Quantitative content analysis is the systematic and replicable
examination of symbols of communication, which have been assigned numeric values according
to valid measurement rules and the analysis of relationships involving those values using
statistical methods, to describe the communication, draw inferences about its meaning, or infer
from the communication its context, both of production and consumption.”

Quantitative content analysis is important to the dissertation because quantitative data provides
an effective basis for comparison of the press of three countries. For this dissertation, however,
not only quantitative, but qualitative content analysis also needs to be considered

The dissertation has found that researchers have diverse views on what entails qualitative content
analysis. It was decided to adapt the definition given by Weber (1990) - “Qualitative content
analysis goes beyond merely counting words to examining language intensely for the purpose of
classifying large amounts of text into an efficient number of categories that represent similar
meanings.” Philip Mayring (2014:6) criticized the distinction between quantitative and
qualitative content analysis, holding that the latter is in fact a mixed methods approach inclusive
of quantitative and qualitative steps of analysis.

Schreier (2012:17) concurs with Mayring to a certain degree by saying that quantitative and
qualitative content analyses are not too distinct, they both follow certain steps and analyse
content. However, she agrees with researchers like Berelson (1952) and Kracauer (1952) and
Lisch and Kriz (1978) when she states that the main difference between the two is their focus -

15
quantitative content analysis focuses on the manifest, literal meaning while qualitative content
analysis studies the latent, contextual meaning (Shreier, 2012:15-17).

Mayring’s qualitative content analysis is used by Kloss (2010) to study the integration of
expatriates in Denmark. Busher (2006) makes use of quantitative as well as qualitative content
analyses to deconstruct the framing of Hillary Clinton in the New York Times during the New
York Senate Election in 2000. Mayring and Schreir’s considerations have helped this dissertation
by allowing a numerical value to be attached to the qualitative data analysed for a deeper
understanding of the material.

This dissertation aims to study not only the manifest meaning which will be analysed by the
frequency of occurrence of the codes, but also the contextual, latent meaning which gives
importance to the very presence of certain words.

4.1 Sampling

The dissertation aims to compare the international press coverage of Charlie Hebdo using media
prevailing from unique political, social and economic zones for a gamut of worldwide press. To
this end, three countries were chosen – France, USA and Pakistan. France has been chosen for it
is the origin of the attack in question. Pakistan was chosen for a perspective from an Islamic
country. This dissertation attempts to bridge the gap between an Islamic country’s press and the
Western press by bringing them to the same platform for analysis. The third country chosen is
USA for its specific geographical location and its role as a “superpower”. It forms neither a part
of Europe nor is it an Islamic country. It also has a history of encounters with Islamic terrorism
which becomes an important aspect of study because it is one of the most powerful components
not only as regards politics but also the Western press.

Newspapers from each of these countries have been chosen as the medium of study because
newspapers are believed to be the pioneers in setting the public agenda and forming public
opinion. The greatest potential to impact audiences is found in newspapers with the largest
circulation, according to Kahn and Goldenberg (1991). Efforts have been made to include
diverse voices through selecting publications from different political leanings.

For France, Le Figaro and Libération, both national dailies, have been chosen with the former
being a right-wing newspaper and the latter left-wing. Though regional dailies have more
readership and mass appeal, they have not been chosen to avoid bias to a certain region. Le
Figaro is an influential newspaper and the second largest in France after Le Parisien, a tabloid,
and before Le Monde. It has a readership of 314, 312 (OJD) and is owned by Serge Dassault,
who owns the Dassault Group that manufactures military aircrafts (Wikipedia).

Founded by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and journalist Serge July during the1968 protest
movements, Libération is an independent and liberal newspaper with a reputation for being an
important political and societal actor with an eye for innovation (Wikipedia). It has a circulation

16
of 93,781 (OJD). Majority of its shares are held by Edouard de Rotschild of the Rotschild
banking family (Wikipedia).

The selection for America includes The New York Times, a largely independent and analytical
paper and The Wall Street Journal, a paper focussing more upon business and economics and
hence said to have a conservative editorial page (Wikipedia).The New York Times, owned by The
New York Times Company, has a worldwide readership of 228,654 (Wikipedia). The Wall Street
Journal is owned by Dow Jones & Company, a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. It is
the largest circulating newspaper in the US and is read by more than 2.2 million people
(Wikipedia).

In Pakistan, Urdu-language newspapers have more readership than English ones that cater
mostly to urban and elite classes (Wikipedia). This presents a limitation to the dissertation which
chose the English newspapers namely The Nation and Dawn. However, at the political and
opinion-forming level, English newspapers have greater influence (Wikipedia).

The Nation is owned by Nawa-i-waqt group which fosters independence and objectivity in
journalism (Wikipedia). Dawn has a centrist and progressive stance and is recognised for its
assertive and investigative quality (Akhtar, xxviii-xxix). Individual readership figures of the
newspapers were not available but the total circulation of dailies is about 3.5 million according to
All Pakistan Newspaper Society and 6 million according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics
(Banerjee and Logan, 2008:373).

The time period chosen was fifteen days from the day after the attacks took place i.e. 8 January
2015 to 21 January 2015. Due to the vast selection of newspapers necessitated by this
dissertation and the restricted amount of time for analysis of 4 months, 60 articles were chosen
for analysis in total, taking 10 from each publication. This was done to make the research
manageable and also allow for credibility by having a sufficient amount of data.

Articles chosen were distinguished according to the research parameters viz. the representation
of Islam and immigration and the role of freedom of expression in the context of Islam.

4.2 Coding Frames

The analysis is divided into two sections – quantitative and qualitative. For the first part,
information was collected for the following parameters:

1. Role of Islam: otherness frame, radical frame, alienation frame etc.

2. Sources: official, experts, religious leaders, journalists and vox pops.
3. Role of immigration: victim frame, hero frame, threat frame.
4. Role of freedom of expression: offensive frame, defensive frame, middle ground frame.

The frames were decided upon by keeping the research questions in mind. The ‘role of Islam’
frame was formed with help from a frame which identified the main focus of newspapers in
17
relation to women politicians; it appeared a research conducted by Markstedt (2007). The frame
denoting the role of immigration was borrowed from Benson (2013:8).

The second part of the analysis deals with qualitative content analysis for which the words used
to describe Muslims and Islam were considered. A lot of the research into the representation of
Islam in the media has used discourse analysis. However, this dissertation deemed qualitative
content analysis as a more suitable method to complement quantitative content analysis which
this dissertation is primarily concerned with.

Please refer to Appendix A and B for the full coding schedule.

There are two main approaches in selecting frames for content analysis – inductive and
deductive. The inductive approach allows the researcher to begin with a loosely defined set of
frames in an attempt to discover all possible frames during the course of the research (Gamson,
2000). This approach is suitable for a small sample and also provides the grounds to analyse an
issue from various possible frames. The deductive approach requires the researcher to use a set
of pre-established frames. This approach has no scope for flexibility and runs the risk of
neglecting some important frames that may be outside of the pre-defined set.

In order to identify the codes for the first parameter, this dissertation adopts an inductive
approach. The main consideration for using this approach was that the words used to represent
Muslims cannot be pre-defined for fear of omission of some important terms and also would
greatly depend on their presence in the articles.

Most of the previous research on comparison of international coverage of news events about
Islam and Muslims has aimed at comparing only Western media. This dissertation fills a gap in
previous research by including an Islamic country’s press where Islam is not approached as a
phobia, thus bringing Western press and Eastern Islamic press on the same platform for analysis.

This dissertation hopes to broaden the perspective beyond Islamophobia. To do this, it has a
chance to focus on the representation of Islam and Muslims. Thereby it hopes to be able to
analyse a spectrum of tendencies in the coverage of Islam and to add new findings to
contemporary studies.

18
 5
Analysis
The Charlie Hebdo attacks took place on 7 January 2015 and the incident ended in the gunmen
being killed on 9 January 2015. The period selected for the study of articles was fifteen days
counting from 8 January 2015 to 21 January 2015. Two newspapers each from Pakistan (Dawn
and The Nation), France (Libération and Le Figaro) and USA (The New York Times and The
Wall Street Journal), were selected. 10 articles from each of the six newspapers were analysed,
making for a total sample size of 60 articles.

The articles were selected from e-papers of the said publications available online. The French
and American e-papers were only available on subscription amongst which Libération was the
only one that allowed access to e-paper archives as old as January 2015. For the other three
newspapers (Le Figaro, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal), the online database
Factiva was used. This database did not reproduce the newspapers digitally but displayed their
articles upon searching the term “Charlie Hebdo” – a problem for comparison which needs to be
flagged up, as only with Libération and the Pakistani newspapers e-paper versions of the printed
newspapers were obtained. Still, the material obtained can be considered profound enough for a
comparison.

The dissertation aims to look at the representation of Islam and Muslims as well as the Muslim
Diaspora in the immigration context. Additionally, it also follows the debate on freedom of
expression which unfolded in the newspapers. However, not all articles spoke about all three
aspects. Most of them addressed one or at the most two parameters or none at all. Hence, there
was a certain degree of intentional selection in order to choose articles that did touch upon at
least one of the three topics.

As discussed in the methodology chapter, the dissertation opts for the inductive approach to
research. A broad sketch of the coding frames was made before analysis but the codes were
finalised only after going through the articles. The coding frames are the following: the role of
Islam and Muslims, the Muslim Diaspora in the context of immigration and the freedom of
expression. For further analysis of the representation of Islam, the dissertation also looks at the
language used to identify Islam and Muslims as well as the sources used by newspapers.

The analysis of the articles was conducted twice for efficiency. Only one coder i.e. the author of
this dissertation worked on the analysis. While efforts were made to maintain an objective
approach, the findings could be limited to the perspectives of the author.

19
The individual coding frames can be found in full in the Appendix A and B. In order to organise
the findings, the chapter has been divided into sections. The first one looks at the representation
of Islam and Muslims in the newspapers. The second deals with the representation of the Muslim
Diaspora in the context of immigration. The last one discusses the findings on freedom of
expression.

5.1 Representation of Islam and Muslims

This section discusses the media representation of Islam through three sub-sections: their role in
the coverage, the language used to describe Islam and news sources.

5.11 Role of Islam and Muslims

Role of Islam and Muslims

10
9
8
7
6
Count of frames
5
(Total 103)
4
Pakistan
3
2 France
1 USA
0

Frames

Figure 1 – Role of Islam and Muslims

The Charlie Hebdo reportage had a lot to do with Muslims and the perception of Islam, and it has
also been informed by the 9/11 attacks and the insurgency in Islamic terrorism that grappled the
world since. In case of reporting after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, Muslims have been
represented in a variety of forms other than blatant demonizing. Six main trends can be identified
during the research which will be denoted as frames; frames are the ideas about Muslims and
Islam that were put across through the articles. These frames are – alienation, dissociation,
Islamophobia, otherness, provocation and radical. A seventh frame could be identified as
Introspection, but it is only prevalent in a small proportion in Pakistani newspapers alone. Hence

20
it was decided to exclude it from the figure above. It will nevertheless be discussed at the end of
this sub-section.

Before presenting the findings, it is important to understand what the frames mean. They are
explained here in detail:

1. Radical frame: that which recognises a second Islam, a potentially radical, fundamentalist
and violent Islam.

2. Dissociation frame: that which does not recognise a second Islam but views Islam and
terrorism as separate.

3. Islamophobia frame: that which depicts a dislike or prejudice against Islam or Muslims
(Islamophobia) in the West or implicitly states the presence thereof; that which warns
against a Muslim threat in the West.

4. Provocation frame: that which holds that Muslims are provoked into violent actions and
that they are not violent without reason.

5. Otherness frame: that which depicts Islamic values (or a part thereof) as being
incompatible with French values.

6. Alienation frame: that which talks about the failed integration policies of France towards
its Muslim community; which blames the country for having stereotyped Muslims and
alienated the banlieues (suburbs) of Paris predominantly occupied by immigrant
Muslims.

7. Introspection frame: that which views Islam as having a violent side and urges
introspection and change (seen only in Pakistani newspapers).

In the figure above, the X-axis denotes the frames and the Y-axis denotes the number of times
they appeared in the Pakistani, French and American press. It is important to note that some
articles depicted more than one frame while some depicted none at all, which was especially the
case when they focussed on freedom of expression.

The research suggests that while representing Islam and Muslims, newspapers showed the
highest presence for the radical frame (27%). This is not surprising as previous research, often
discourse analyses, have found this kind of representation. While surprisingly, the Pakistani
press illustrates it ten times, the American and French press do so nine times each. Though
radical Islam has negative connotations since it is related to violence and Islamic
fundamentalism, it needs to be remembered that newspapers aim to report the truth. Hence, it
seems inadvisable to go with a simplistic observation that newspapers promote stories depicting
a violent Islamic streak. What becomes interesting to note is whether newspapers approach an

21
Islamic terror story using various other approaches apart from the radical one. Further findings
will reflect on the other frames found.

The radical frame shows a very interesting outcome as it is approached differently in each
country. For example, in Pakistan, The Nation reported a story (Rahman, 2015) about a
resolution being passed in Pakistan against the reprinting of the Prophet cartoons. Lawmakers
also marched out in protest and one was quoted as saying that Muslims should wage war against
the caricaturists and that the latter be killed in order to teach a lesson- a clear indication of a
radical attitude.

The American manner of reporting the radical frame was found to be quite polemic. A story in
The New York Times (Kristof, 2015) illustrates this observation – “Many ask, is there something
about Islam that leads inexorably to violence, terrorism and subjugation of women? The question
arises because fanatical Muslims so often seem to murder in the name of God...”

The French press shows another nuance. Le Figaro in an article (Waintraub, 2015) reported that
France’s enemy had one name – Islamist terror – that was a homegrown threat rather than an
outside one. While they addressed the radical part of Islam, they also treated it as the nation’s
problem and not an isolated one which is different from how other nations treated it.

The next dominant frame is the otherness frame (20%) which appears to the greatest extent in the
French press. As the West tackles the “problem of Islam” as regards integration, French
newspapers depicted an “otherness” element in that Islamic values were found to be
incompatible with the French Republic. Through incidents like refusal to obey the minute’s
silence for the dead journalists by school students, Islamic attitudes suggest to be different than
that of France. Libération asks in an article (Vincendon, 2015) whether it is as easy for French
Muslims and the children of immigrants to share the minute’s silence. In another story
(Tourancheau, 2015) it states that Hayat, the wife of one of the gunmen Saïd Kouachi, had to
resign because she took to wearing the veil. These examples point at Islamic otherness, which
separates Muslims from the French identity.

As reported in Pakistani newspapers, Germany had at the time of the Charlie Hebdo several anti-
immigration rallies by Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West). Though
their movements had begun even before the attacks, a sentiment of “otherness” came across
through these rallies that were picked up by international media after Charlie Hebdo. Pakistani
newspaper Dawn reported in a story (AFP, 2015) the anti-immigration group Pegida stating that
“Islamists” had shown France that they were not capable of democracy but rather look to
violence and death as the answer. On the same day, The New York Times also reported (Eddy and
Olsen, 2015) along similar lines drawing attention to cultural differences like women wearing
head scarves in public and girls being prohibited from participating in coeducational sports
classes, as indications of Muslims refusing to integrate in the German society.

22
While the otherness frame focuses on Islam being incompatible with France, the alienation frame
talks about the failed integration policies of France and blames the country for having
marginalised its Muslim community, especially those living in the suburbs, a major origin of
radical youth. The otherness and alienation frames can thus be seen as two sides of the same
coin. This is one of the most important findings of the research and the discussion chapter will
shed more light on the phenomenon. The alienation frame (18%) is highly represented in the
French press with seven instances followed by the American and Pakistani press at six each.

For example, in a rather ideologically-driven piece (Benaissa, 2015) in Libération, the author
reflects that the French Republic confronts the Muslim community with a paradoxical request.
With laws like the headscarf ban, France tries to make the distinctness of the Muslim community
less visible while at the same time points out that Muslims must speak out against their
counterparts who carried out the attacks; here the author says that France uses their distinct
identity to address them, an identity that it tried to diminish in the first place.

But French newspapers also amplified the marginalisation felt by Muslims post the attacks, thus
leading us to believe that Muslims are of two kinds - moderate and extreme, the former feeling
fear and apprehension and who condemn the violent acts of the latter. The moderate ones have
appeared to denounce the acts of the Islamic terrorists by describing them as “not Islam”, while
also voicing the importance of the French Republic’s democratic values of secularism and
freedom of expression.

Nations are also seen to have covered each other’s coverage. In one article, Pakistani newspaper
The Nation criticised France for stereotyping Muslims as “terrorists, outsiders and marginals”
and looking at them as criminals instead of law-abiding citizens (Beydoun, 2015). The New York
Times did a story where a neighbour of the terrorist Saïd Kouachi states, “We Muslims are used
to being labelled” (Alderman et al., 2015) Thus, the alienation frame has been repeatedly seen
throughout the French, Pakistani and American press.

While there are a lot of media in the world that look at Islam as a religion that breeds terrorists,
or, if disagreeing, do not take the effort to counter this take, this research also finds a new take.
Overall, one can say that the trend of demonizing Islam has been somewhat replaced by digging
deep to understand the situation. In the pursuit to get to the bottom of the ideology of terrorism,
many stories try to distinguish Islam from terrorism thus giving rise to the dissociation frame
occupying 15% of the total frames analysed. With eight stories, it is the Pakistani press which
tries most to see Islam and terrorism in a separate light, followed by France (four) and USA
(three).

In a story that appeared in The Nation, the journalist emphasizes to not conflate Islam with
extremism – “People and ideas might be radical but to target a religion with radicalism adds
insult to injury and shifts from the proper focus which is the individually created extremism”

23
(Kuttab, 2015). Pakistani journalists and columnists largely stress on distinguishing Muslims
from extremists and terrorists.

As pointed out before, many French Muslims denounced the acts of the gunmen. Le Figaro
carried a story (Guénois, 2015) on the very next day of the attacks quoting the imam of Drancy
(a Parisian suburb) Hassen Chalghoumi as strongly expressing that the killers are not talking
about the Prophet of peace and love, but about the one from their Internet websites, which preach
only hatred and horror, thus drawing a line between Islam and extremism.

USA’s attempts at dissociating Islam and terrorism appear to be weaker than France and
Pakistan, with the Wall Street Journal having shown just one example of the dissociation frame.
However, The New York Times stated in an article (Kristof, 2015) that majority of the Muslims
are not connected with such attacks, unfortunately when they are its victims, like with the Yemen
car bomb that killed 37 on the same day as the Charlie Hebdo attacks. This example however
also amplifies terror and extremism in the Middle East, a territory widely known to have
bittersweet relations with the USA.

Quite an expected result, the fifth frame identified during this research is Islamophobia.
Described as a prejudice against Islam or Muslims, it should not be confused with the radical
frame. The Islamophobia frame refers to any undue fear or misconceptions attached to Islam and
Muslims while the radical frame reveals a potentially violent and radical side to Islam.
Islamophobia may thus be derived from radical news stories but that is up to the consumer of
such news. The Islamophobia frame may be seen as a news trait which clearly manifested in a
fear for security.

This frame was portrayed 14 times in all (14%), five times each in Pakistani and American press
and four times in the French press. In the American press, The Wall Street Journal alone was
testament to four times of its depiction. There is a very visible hero-villain trend in their articles
studied. For example, an article (Gingrich, 2015) outlines the actions of Islamic terrorists and the
American response, recommending strategies to defeat “the enemy.” Statements such as “It is
extraordinary that the political correctness of Western elites has discouraged the study of what
inspires those who dream of slaughtering us,” and “The ability of Western European citizens to
travel without visas offers enormous opportunities for jihadists whose dream target remains the
U.S.” (Gerecht, 2015) can be interpreted as Islamophobic statements.

An article (Barotte, 2015) appeared in Le Figaro that chronicled Pegida’s (Patriotic Europeans
Against the Islamisation of Europe) evolution in Germany. It described some of the posters held
by demonstrators – “Today Paris, tomorrow Dresden?”, “Stop hurting us” and went on to say
that Angela Merkel who gave out messages like “Islam is a part of Germany” was detested by
this group, emphasizing that the enemies here were Islam and immigration.

There were several acts of hatred against Muslims reported by French newspapers too. Pakistani
newspapers tended to report on the growth of Islamophobia in the West.

24
The last frame identified in all three countries’ press is the provocation frame (6%). This frame
holds that Muslims act violently upon provocation. It is visible in the Pakistani press on five
instances, while it appears only once in French and American newspapers. The best example to
illustrate this frame would be the Pope’s statement after the Charlie Hebdo attacks when he said
that there were limits to freedom of speech and that if his friend said a curse word against his
mother, “he can expect a punch, it’s normal” – a story picked up by the newspapers in all three
countries researched here.

A few days after the attacks, a minute’s silence was held across France but it was greeted with
some disregard from French schools. Libération (Sabéran, 2015) went to a classroom to study
the debate unfurling there. Many students thought that the journalists at Charlie Hebdo did not
understand that they hurt Muslim sentiments because they were all atheists. One student added
that they chose to do what they liked even upon knowing the risks associated.

An additional frame, the introspection frame, is found in Pakistani newspapers. It is worth

mentioning because it reveals that journalists and thinkers in Islamic countries use the press to
hold their politicians accountable for their paradoxical behaviour and not fulfilling the economic
and social expectations of the society. This may be seen as a form of developmental journalism.
The Nation published an opinion piece (Bukhari, 2015) where the author criticized Muslim
leaders for stating that Islam has nothing to do with terror acts and demands an explanation for
“certain instructively violent verses of the Quran” – “How does Islam have no connection with
what is going on in the world at large, and particularly and tragically going on in my country
right now?”

To conclude, six common frames were found throughout these three countries in varying
proportions, the radical frame being the highest recorded while the alienation frame was the most
important as it went deeper into the problem of terrorism associated with Islam. The next part of
this sub-section will explore the language used to describe Islam and Muslims.

25
5.12 Language used to describe Islam and Muslims

Language used to describe Islam and Muslims

60

50

40
Count
(Total 295 30 Pakistan
words/phrases)
France
20
USA
10

0
Islamism Islam (31%) Muslim (5%) Assorted
(25%) (39%)
Categories

Figure 2 - Language used to describe Islam and Muslims

The kind of language used in communication goes a long way in determining the message of the
text. It was decided to identify the gamut of words used to describe Muslims and Islam in
addition to the six frames presented in the section above in order to get a more comprehensive
understanding. The research finds more than 40 words – a combination of nouns, adjectives,
verbs and past participles – that were used to describe Muslims. For convenience, they were
grouped under four umbrella categories – Islamism, Islam, Muslim and Assorted. While majority
of the words portrayed Muslims in a negative light, only one phrase was found to be different –
moderate Muslims/moderate Islam.

Given below is a table of the words and phrases that fall under the various categories:

26
 Categories
Islamism Islam Muslim Assorted
Islamist Radical Islam Anti-Muslim Jihad
Radical Islamic State Moderate Jihadist
Islamist Muslim
Islamist Anti-Islam Radical Muslim Jihadism
extremism
Islamist Islamic militant Fundamentalist Radicalise
terrorism Muslim
Radical Islamic Fanatical Muslim Radicalism
Islamism extremist
Islamist Islamic Cult
militancy fundamentalism
Islamophobia Pegida
Fanatical Islam Salafi
Moderate Islam Communatarianism
Islamic Salafi terrorism
intolerance
Islamic Extremism
radicalism
Islamic Extremist
extremism
Islamic terrorism
Islamic militant
De-Islamicize
Islamized
Islamisation
Anti-
Islamisation
Total – 18 27 5 44
Pakistan (32%)
France (22%) 18 11 2 35
USA (46%) 39 54 7 35
Table 1 – Language used to describe Islam and Muslims

The findings suggest that USA (46%) used the most number of descriptive words and phrases to
represent Islam and Muslims, followed by Pakistan (32%) and France (22%). It is interesting to
note that the usage of ‘Islamism’-related terms is seen almost as frequently as ‘Islam’-related
terms (25% and 31% respectively) thereby showing media focus on political Islam. This research
also finds that the term ‘Islamist’ has been used more popularly in the context of terrorism.

27
Another important name to be noted is the Islamic State. Besides the gunman at the kosher
supermarket who happened to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State, the term was used
frequently even otherwise, especially by the USA to outline the growing threat from this terrorist
organisation.

Terms like “de-Islamicize”, “Islamisation” and “anti-Islamisation” point to a negative attitude

towards the Muslim community and Muslim immigrants in the West. “Pegida” was also found to
be used very frequently. Though it is the name of an organisation, mentioning it becomes
important, because it illustrated an interest in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment in the
article.

Thus, the words used to describe Islam and Muslims have not only been stereotypical like
“radical Islam” or “Islamic terrorism”, but there has been a development of a new set of
terminologies as well.

5.13 Sources used in the press coverage

Sources
45
40
35
30
Count 25
(216 sources) 20 Pakistan
15 France
10
USA
5
0
Official Relgious Experts Journalists Vox pops
(55%) leaders (6%) (9%) (21%)
(9%)
Type of sources

Figure 3 – Sources used in the press coverage

Sources are important to look at because they render a story reliable, besides indicating where
the comments or opinions are coming from (Media Helping Media, 2014). Interestingly, the
sources used in the press coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attacks are very diverse. Five types of
sources could be identified in the research –

1. Official: official sources are those who hold governmental positions or positions of power
in an organisation

28
 2. Religious leaders: religious leaders include imams, preachers, mosque rectors and the
Pope
3. Experts: experts include those persons with expertise in certain subjects including
academics and think tank researchers
4. Journalists: journalists also include cartoonists
5. Vox pops: persons who are usually interviewed as part of vox pops generally used to
represent the opinion of a specific group

The type of sources used in a story adds credibility to it. It is found that all three countries made
use of official sources in high numbers (55%). Not very surprisingly, French newspapers tend to
use more original quotes instead of statements from press releases when reporting the attack that
had happened in their country. French newspapers also use the most number of vox pops (37)
like residents of the suburbs (generally Muslims) including people living in neighbourhood of
the terrorist brothers, as well as school students due to the debate about the refusal to take part in
the minute’s silence.

Again, mostly in French newspapers, religious leaders are used as sources (nine persons
recorded) followed by USA and Pakistan at par at five each. Religious leaders are generally of
Islamic faith. In most of the cases, they are seen condemning the attacks, an important source for
French newspapers to deliver a social message. It can also be inferred that these powerful
religious leaders came across as moderate Muslims, who reckoned strongly with French values.

It is interesting that Pakistani newspapers generally rely on foreign news agencies like Reuters
and AFP for their international news stories, while American newspapers are seen to have
foreign correspondents from Europe along with American journalists, to produce international
news stories. Hence, USA and France appear to have more original sources due to greater
resources for investigative and analytical reporting.

29
5.2 The Muslim Diaspora in the context of immigration

The Muslim Diaspora in the context of

immigration
6

4
Count of Frames Pakistan
3
(Total 26) France
2
USA
1

0
Threat (58%) Hero (15%) Victim (27%)
Frames

Figure 4 – The Muslim Diaspora in the context of immigration

Immigration is a sensitive issue because of the great humanitarian factor attached to it.
Especially Europe has a long history of immigration and Muslim immigration. In addition, it is
currently facing an immigrant influx due to people fleeing war-torn Syria and Iraq to seek refuge
in Europe. A direct outcome of immigration is adaptation to the host country. The failure of
immigrant integration with the host society and the rise in Islamic terrorism has led to a negative
perception of Muslim immigrants, be it new or older generations.

Charlie Hebdo needs to be understood in the context of European immigration because though
the second generation of immigrants has always been under attack, Charlie Hebdo fortified the
discussions (pros and cons) of pre-existing issues between Muslim immigrants and Europe.

Just after the attacks, anti-immigration rallies were conducted by a right-wing party Pegida
(Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) in Germany. The movement, loosely
connected with the so-called “Neonazis”, started before the Charlie Hebdo attacks and died
shortly afterwards following a huge opposition all over Germany, from the Chancellor to the
Catholic Church and left anti-fascist student movements. However, Pegida drew an interest from
international media and gave rise to discussions about immigrants, and in particular Muslim
immigrants, in Europe.

Though this can be viewed as part of how Muslims were represented in the Charlie Hebdo
coverage, it was deemed important to recognise it separately from the point of view of
immigration since it is a very important debate today in the West. In order to identify the trends

30
in their representation, three frames identified by Benson (2013: 8) are used – threat, hero and
victim. The figure above represents the frames on the X-axis and the count or the number of
times they appeared in the articles on the Y-axis.

The individual frames are explained as follows:

Threat Frame
Jobs Immigrants take national’s jobs or depreciate wages
Public Order Immigrants cause disruption to public order and are more likely to conduct
criminal activities or spread diseases; their numbers may burden the
environment and cause degradation; illegal immigrants break the law to
come to the country
Fiscal Immigrants (especially illegal ones) take disadvantage of government
social services programs like health and education and tax payers have to
bear the brunt
National Cohesion Immigrants bring their own cultural values and customs that threaten to
override the host country’s national identity and culture, immigrants cannot
adapt
Table 2 – Threat frame

Hero Frame
Cultural Diversity Immigrants add to a society by bringing different cuisines, arts, literature
and culture
Good worker Immigrants bring economic prosperity and growth, they are industrious and
do jobs that citizens cannot or will not do
Integration Immigrants adopt mainstream cultures and civic obligations of a society
Table 3 – Hero frame

Victim Frame
Humanitarian Immigrants suffer because of government policies and business practices
Global Economy Immigration arises out of the economic situation due to globalisation;
economic insecurities affect domestic workers and immigrants equally
Racism/Xenophobia Discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, religion or culture
Table 4 – Victim frame

The findings clearly suggest that a trend in the usage of the threat frame to describe Muslim
immigrants in Europe (58%). Pakistan depicts this frame on six counts, followed by France at
five and USA at four. As described above, the threat frame describes immigrants in a negative
light as they put pressure on the economy by taking domestic jobs or taking disadvantage of the
government’s social programmes, create law and order situations or threaten the host country’s
identity and culture.

31
It appears that Pakistan being an Islamic country is concerned about the Muslim Diaspora
overseas and makes an effort to report the attitude of Western countries towards them. For
example, in an opinion piece (Khuhro, 2015) in Dawn, the author warns that calls to defend
Europe’s cultural identity will be getting louder, and warns about more surveillance. He also
observes that anti-immigration calls are in fact anti-Muslim calls, going by the right wings’ fear
of a Muslim takeover of Europe.

An article (Fidler, 2015) in The Wall Street Journal focused on the difference in appearance that
could more likely cause the Arab minorities to be stopped and searched, instead of their white
counterparts in France, making it a racial rather than a religious problem. This steers the debate
towards Muslim stereotyping.

In France, the anti-immigration sentiment is most disseminated by the right-wing party National
Front (FN) and reported widely. In one article (Forcari, 2015) in Libération, FN President
Marine Le Pen remarks that today’s terrorist is not Bin Laden but the radicalised scum. Many
inflammatory statements are also to be found in stories discussing Pegida’s anti-immigration
rallies.

In contrast to the threat frame, the hero frame portrays the immigrant in a positive light by
stressing on their valuable cultural inputs to the host society, their industrious personality and
their ability to integrate with the mainstream ethos. This frame is depicted in Pakistan (three
instances) more than in the USA (one instance), and not at all in the French press according to
the samples studied. For example, The Nation carried an article (AFP, 2015) about the anti-
Islamophobia rallies in Germany attended by thousands; the President speaks about the positive
effects of Muslims who have made the German society “religiously, culturally and mentally”
more diverse.

From all the findings till now including those from the section ‘The role of Islam and Muslims’,
it is seen that immigrants have come across various obstacles in integrating with the society. The
victim frame reveals that immigrants suffer mainly due to government policies, racism and
xenophobia or economic insecurity that has arisen from globalisation where domestic workers
are equally affected. This frame is noticeable at par in Pakistan and USA (three instances each)
and lesser in France (just once). The New York Times (Breeden et al, 2015) described immigrants
in France (which are largely Muslim) to be suffering from racism, segregation and
unemployment. To add salt to the injury, French Premier Manuel Valls used the word ‘apartheid’
to indirectly address the divide between immigrants and non-immigrants in France.

A statement made by Marine Le Pen could be an example to Muslim immigrants being

victimised when she calls to stop the construction of mosques financed by public funds (Forcari,
2015).

Thus, in the growing debate of immigration in the West, this research adds to the fact that
Muslim immigrants are being victimised and looked at in a negative light more than ever before.

32
5.3 Defending the freedom of expression or the right to offend?

Freedom of Expression
7
6
5
Count of frames 4
Pakistan
(Total 36) 3
France
2
USA
1
0
Offence (33%) Defence (47%) Middle-ground
(20%)
Frames

Figure 5 – Freedom of expression

Freedom of expression constitutes an important human right. The limits to which freedom of
expression can be exercised without turning into hate speech is a fine line that many believe
Charlie Hebdo crossed, as the findings shall reveal, drawing ire of religious communities,
especially Muslims. The framework for freedom of expression is different in different countries,
and hence the debate unfolded differently in each of them.

The above figure illustrates the attitude of the press towards freedom of expression (frames) on
the X-axis, and the count (number of times these attitudes were portrayed) on the Y-axis.

The debate on free speech was one of the most important aspects of the reportage on the Charlie
Hebdo attacks. Not only did the press contest or defend this right of the publication but also
explored the kind of freedom of expression that they routinely engaged in – satire and deliberate
mockery of religion. This gave rise to the identification of three frames – offence, defence and
middle-ground frames, which are explained as follows –

1. Offence frame: freedom of expression went too far and was perceived as hate speech
2. Defence frame: freedom of expression must be protected; this freedom also supports the
right to offend and as such it should be preserved
3. Middle-ground frame: freedom of expression should be exercised as long as it does not
hurt religious sentiments

The middle-ground frame can be seen as a derivative of the offence frame. However, it was
identified as a third frame because a plurality of voices in the articles deemed it necessary.
33
In the Pakistani press, the offence frame and the middle-ground frame came across more strongly
(five instances or 14%) than the defence frame (four instances or 11%), unlike in France where it
held high ground (seven instances or 19%). The French press quoted French Muslims as
defending freedom of expression and the French laïcité or secularism. However, there were also
voices, albeit fewer, who were opposed to the cartoons and who opined that the journalists had
called it upon themselves. For example, an article in Le Figaro (Kovacs, 2015) quotes a high
school boy from the suburbs as saying that he too would have probably killed the journalists.
This kind of statements can be seen to put the focus on Muslim populated suburbs or the
“problem areas” which feel alienated from the rest of France.

In Pakistan, newspapers urged that freedom of expression should not be used to hurt people’s
sentiments. The Nation published an article (Malik, 2015) where the author called to the
international community to foster inter-faith harmony instead of supporting a self-proclaimed
“Journal Irresponsable” magazine like Charlie Hebdo, adding that Muslims should keep their
violent agitation in check but the Western “free world” should reformulate their “hurtful
freedoms” too.

While the American press showed signs of supporting the defence frame (six instances or 17%),
it was followed by the offence (four instances or 11%) and middle-ground frames (3 instances or
8%). For example, in an article in the Wall Street Journal (Crovitz, 2015), President Obama
addressed the United Nations stressing that the future should not belong to those who slander the
Prophet of Islam. At another time that year his spokesman also criticized Charlie Hebdo
remarking, “We have questions about the judgment of publishing something like this.” This
suggests that on many counts, freedom of expression did not support the right to offend.

Since the newspapers in question are both right-central and left-wing, it is interesting to note
certain differences within a country’s press. The right-wing Le Figaro focussed most on
defending French values and the free speech as compared to the reportage of the left-central
Libération that gave weight to all three frames. Similarly in Pakistan, The Nation covered all
three frames equally and substantially as compared to centre-progressive Dawn that portrayed
Charlie Hebdo as having offended in most instances. In fact, from the 60 articles studied, The
Nation seems to have discussed freedom of speech the most (nine instances) closely followed by
The New York Times (eight instances). Independent and analytical, The New York Times covered
this issue more vociferously than the economic liberal newspaper The Wall Street Journal that
showed more tendencies for the role of Islam and Muslims.

It is indeed very difficult to judge the national tendency from a particular newspaper and vice-
versa and this is a limitation to the dissertation; hence the dissertation uses collective results from
right- and left-wing newspapers to look into a nation’s stance.

34
This research concludes that freedom of expression in such a case as Charlie Hebdo’s was
accepted as quite natural and defended mostly in the country of attack, France, while the other
countries debated the limits of it at length.

35
 6
Discussion
The aim of this research was to compare the international press coverage of Charlie Hebdo with
the main focus being the representation of Islam and Muslims followed by how the intense
debate of freedom of expression unfurled in the three countries studied. To achieve this, the
discussion chapter will bring together elements of the analysis chapter and discuss them in
relation with previous research, thereby leading to understand the Charlie Hebdo international
coverage and adding principally to the knowledge about the portrayal of Muslims in the media.

The frames identified during this study can state that Islam and Muslims were not chiefly
demonized as far as media history dictates but efforts were made to be objective about terrorism
by not naming and shaming an entire religion, though the findings differ from country to country
and newspaper to newspaper. Overall, it is seen that newspapers used a complex approach
towards describing Islam from a broader outlook.

6.1 French Muslims: a people alienated

The most interesting aspect of the dissertation is a shifting of the blame from Muslims to France
whose responsibility is discussed in the light of the attacks. This inference is apparent mainly
through the alienation frame which constitutes 18% of the Muslim representation. The findings
show vividly the discussion of the marginalisation of Muslims in France. For example, an article
(Peillon, 2015) in Libération talks about a lack of opportunity to French Muslims, arguing that a
deprived community cannot be expected to echo national sentiments if they feel discriminated
against.

Deplorable conditions of Muslims in the banlieues have made them resent France, and a number
of articles across French, American and Pakistani press shed light on the growing sense of
isolation and fear amongst this community. Thus, the assimilationist practice of France as
discussed by Bohon and Conley (2015:31, 32) seems to have failed in the banlieues where
Muslims prefer sticking to their own identity instead of adapting to a French one, hence once
again putting forth the question of integration.

As discussed in the literature review, Bowen suggested in 2007 that after the headscarf ban of
2004, dialogues about Islamism and the lack of safety in suburbs proved to be destructive.
However, in the case of Charlie Hebdo, these dialogues can be construed as a sign of integration
because firstly, they come from French Muslims and are not the opinion of the rest of France
about the condition of the suburbs and secondly, instead of being destructive, they could actually

36
lead to awareness and call for economic development, especially after the French Premier in an
article accepted the attacks as a failure of France’s integration policies. However, calls for
stronger integration by leaders may not always manifest in the society. The reality could be
different and it will make for interesting future research.

Another aspect reflected by the press is the threat frame of immigration which gives rise to a
sentiment that Muslims are a danger to the West. The West is seen to have their guards up
against radical Muslims. Anti-immigration calls are seen to be in response to curbing the
‘radicalisation’ or the ‘Islamisation’ of the West, a distinctive feature of the Pegida movements
too.

What is surprising to note is that even though Frachon and Sassoon (2009) points out an
overemphasis of the National Front or FN (France’s right-wing party) in the French media, this is
not to be seen from Le Figaro and Libération, the leading newspapers researched. The FN’s
stance is anti-immigrant but both these newspapers tend to give voice to everyday Muslims more
than the political party. As to Institut PANOS’ claim of the trend of amplifying the FN, this
could be accounted by other newspapers like tabloids, regional dailies or free newspapers and
radio and television. The research re-establishes the two newspapers to be elite opinion formers
without links to any political party, as found by Kuhn (2011:74).

The research suggests that though the media has strived for balance, the overall attitude towards
immigration in France is still negative; verifying Ghosh’s finding (2013:134).

6.2 Conflicting trends in reportage on Islam

In the course of reportage on Islam, there are conflicting trends to be seen. Urging the world to
dissociate Islam from terrorism, the research finds a prominent dissociation frame (15%) within
the terrorism narratives, an important step forward to discuss extremism differently and not
through the lens of a religion, which could lead to Islamophobia.

At the same time, media focus on a gamut of words like ‘Islamist’ and ‘Islamic State’ call for a
strong generation of Islamophobia. As discussed in the literature review, Islamism refers to
political Islam and the terrorist organisation Islamic State are Islamists opposed to Western
democracy and wish to establish a caliphate. Islamism- and Islam-related words are used in a
high proportion (25% and 31%) as seen in the analysis chapter.

Leaders like Cameron who want the media to use the words ‘so-called’ before Islamic State or
denote them by ISIL or ISIS signal the distinctly threatening connotations of the words.
Reconsideration of the term ‘Islamist’ is also being discussed in the news, as seen in the
literature review. This dissertation flags up the debate that is slowly unfurling over the use of
words like ‘Islamic State’ and ‘Islamist’.

37
While Islamophobia is being created by such words, the press also creates two distinct categories
of Muslims – extremists and moderates, stressing that it is only the former we need to be worried
about. The latter group is seen speaking out against extremist attacks and also deeming them un-
Islamic. For example, Le Figaro reported (Guénois, 2015) an imam expressing that the killers
did not follow the Prophet of peace but that from Internet websites which preached hatred.

This leads to an important two-part conclusion – a) that moderate Muslims speaking against
extremist acts are being heard more frequently in the media nowadays, unlike what Alatas says
in 2005, and b) as to Bowen’s findings in 2007 which state that French media gives prominence
only to the voices of secularist Muslims, this research agrees but to a certain extent. Quoted
Muslims can be categorised as secularist if they uphold French values over radical acts; at the
same time those who felt the journalists had it coming were also given a platform to voice their
opinion. Here, this research clearly finds a distinction of Muslims in the international press –
moderate, secularist Muslims and those who think otherwise. However, this dissertation refrains
from calling them extremists on moral grounds as a difference of opinion may not necessarily be
a sign of extremism.

As regards sources, this research presents more religious leaders, experts, journalists and vox
pops in Western press than in Pakistani press, thus countering Alatas’ take (2005) of insufficient
plurality of sources in Western media regarding Islamic news.

Pakistani press, in its own respect, does not refrain from calling a spade a spade, a result of press
freedom owing to privatisation (Hoodbhoy, 2011). Though religious sentiments were seen to be
targeted through the coverage of protests against Charlie Hebdo, the Ulema, the supposed
spokesman of Islam (Akhtar, 2000), hasn’t spoken in all the 20 articles examined from Pakistan
which can only lead us to believe that English newspapers cater to a modern society who wishes
to see the State and religion in different lights.

Meanwhile in America, the sentiment of ‘Islam vs. us’ is still strong, signalled by a strong
presence of Islamophobia and radical frames (five and nine times each) and the highest use of
negative words (46%). This could also be a result of high religiosity in the American society, as
pointed out by Kuru (2009).

These statistics are important because the superpower’s influence is significant not only on
politics but also on the Western press. They also present the insecurity and guardedness of a
nation which percolates through the press. Hence, this study verifies Said’s observation in 1997
that American journalists are indoctrinated with protecting the interests of the superpower.

38
6.3 “Free-speech fraudsters” and identity politics

“I do not agree with what you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it,”
Voltaire famously said. While most of his fellow citizens, the French, are on board with this
school of thought, America and Pakistan beg to differ. This research has studied countries with
very different frameworks for freedom of expression and indeed, newspapers with different
political leanings which have affected the trends seen in this debate.

France supports the defence frame very strongly (19%), closely followed by USA (17%).
Pakistan seems to attach more responsibility to free speech through the middle ground frame
(8%) and finds the right to offend unacceptable on more counts than other countries through the
offence frame (14%). For example, The Nation reported in an article (Malik, 2015) that the
Western “free world” should reformulate their “hurtful freedoms.” Such instances bring up the
issue of identity politics, in this case of Islam. Strong group identities calling to curtail free
speech are seen as an intolerant reaction, a hindrance to free speech, thus concurring with
Richards studies (1999:212).

None of the Pakistani newspapers explicitly support this kind of freedom of expression and if
they do, they are part of international news stories from news agencies and not views of their
own journalists. Pakistan is home to strict blasphemy laws as seen in the Saleem Taseer case
where he was killed by his own bodyguard for having argued Pakistan’s blasphemy law (Yusuf,
2015).

Though USA defends Charlie Hebdo’s right to publish the cartoons, it also shares a similarity
with Pakistan in protecting group identities through the middle ground frame seen equally (8%)
in both countries. This dichotomy is testament to the view that though USA ostensibly promotes
free speech, people find it unreasonable to practice it absolutely without any responsibility
attached to the freedom, thus verifying studies by Cohen (2012) and Mondal (2014). This does
not come as a surprise because the American society is recorded to be high in religiosity
according to a survey by Kuru (2009). Also, the First Amendment does not support defamation, a
fact exemplified by the Obama administration which criticised the publishing of Mohamed
cartoons in 2005 (Eko, 2013).

Though the defence frame (47%) trumps the offence (33%) and middle ground (20%) frames
individually, it does not trump both of them put together. This leads to the conclusion that the
debate is divided over the right to offend a religion or a group. Free speech is being distinguished
from hate speech, thus a result opposed ideologically to Hume (2015) who states that any
limitation implies cessation of free speech. Those who draw lines are in fact “free-speech
fraudsters” (Hume, 2015:161)

So while Charlie Hebdo practices a deliberately provocative style which not many practice, this
dissertation suggests that only France could have supported this type of magazine with their

39
unique framework for freedom of expression of which satire is an inherent part, as pointed out by
Eko (2013). The European Court of Human Rights further declares that it doesn’t recognize the
Sharia law (Eko, 2013), thus seemingly upholding the right to offend.

While both French newspapers reprinted the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, no Pakistani newspaper
did. In America, The New York Times was the only major newspaper to not have republished the
offensive cartoons (Calderone, 2015). Thus, we see that public debate is informing the evolution
of free speech, a right that falls in an ideologically grey area due to conflicting ideas of identity
politics and group defamation.

40
 7
Conclusion
The study shows that Islam is being represented in a very diverse yet dichotomous manner. A
significant finding are the variety of frames identified like alienation and otherness which
proves that Islam is being addressed at various levels in the news other than blatant
demonizing of the religion. However, there is a hidden element of Islamophobia which
comes across through the terminology used, namely ‘radical Islamist’ and ‘Islamic State’.
USA is found to have used the maximum number of a combination of phrases, thus
highlighting its hostile attitude towards Islam. The study is one of the pioneers in putting
forth that an increasing use of ‘Islamic State’ has also become synonymous with
Islamophobia, a feature that will benefit from further research.

We find that even though secular Muslims speak out against extremist ones, marking the
distinction between moderates and extremists, the battle is still the same - Islam against the
West. This time around the media is more precise in what it calls ‘political Islam’ against the
West. This marks an important turn in reportage on Islam.

Additionally, the dissertation illustrates that the Muslim Diaspora is being treated more as a
threat to the West, with inflammatory dialogues about anti-immigration doing the rounds.
This media attitude draws attention to French Muslims living in banlieues, and the larger
European Muslim population, highlighting the problem of integration for second- and third-
generation immigrants. This is an important finding corroborating that immigration is being
reported negatively in the West. At the same time, the alienation frame helps address
Europe’s situation with its isolated Muslims more keenly.

The dissertation also discusses the Muslim community from the point of view of identity
politics in relation to free speech. It finds that restrictions to free speech come in the form of
group defamation laws. On the other hand, the debate is also torn between opposing and
supporting the right to offend. The debate in the three countries is affected by factors such as
different frameworks of freedom of expression and dissenting voices in the press studied – a
mixture of centre right- and left-leaning newspapers.

Overall, it is found that France is vociferous about the right to offend while USA and
Pakistan tend to attach responsibility to free speech. It is important to note that the discussion
around free speech is evolving and the Charlie Hebdo attacks have given a platform to study
it more deeply. Since the focus of this dissertation was the role of Islam, the free speech

41
aspect has been studied principally from this point of view, a limitation to the dissertation.
The current debate on freedom of speech necessitates further in-depth research.

Lastly, as regards Pakistani press, English newspapers were chosen which have lesser
readership than their Urdu counterparts which presents a limitation to the findings. However,
they are influential in view of politics and opinion-making in the country. In light of the
findings, the dissertation infers that in essence, Pakistani press has condemned the Charlie
Hebdo attacks. On the other hand, it has also been vocal about the offensiveness of the
cartoons. Incidents in the country like the protests against Charlie Hebdo by leaders and the
public alike highlight the fact that though the press strives for objectivity in terrorism
narratives, attempts at open dialogue by Pakistani newspapers may tell a different story than
ground reality.

42
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List of examples cited in chapters 5 and 6
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 Tourancheau, P. (2015). Kouachi-Coulibaly : les chemins du jihad parisien. Libération.
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52
 APPENDICES
Appendix A
1. Role of Islam and Muslims

Pakistan France USA

Newspapers Dawn The Nation Libération Le Figaro The New The Wall
York Street
Frames Times Journal

Alienation 3 3 4 3 4 2
Dissociation 5 3 2 2 2 1
Islamophobia 2 3 1 3 1 4
Otherness 3 1 4 6 4 3
Provocation 2 3 1 0 0 1
Radical 3 7 5 4 1 8

2. Language used to describe Islam and Muslims

Pakistan France USA

Newspapers Dawn The Nation Libération Le Figaro The New The Wall
York Street
Times Journal
Categories
Islamism 18 18 39
Islam 27 11 54
Muslim 5 2 7
Assorted 44 35 35

53
 3. Sources

Pakistan France USA

Newspapers Dawn The Nation Libération Le Figaro The New The Wall
York Street
Sources Times Journal

Official 10 32 20 17 23 18
Religious 1 4 4 5 5 0
leaders
Experts 4 0 2 1 3 2
Journalists 0 2 0 4 9 4
Vox pops 0 0 1 0 0 1

4. The Muslim Diaspora in the context of immigration

Pakistan France USA

Newspapers Dawn The Nation Libération Le Figaro The New The Wall
York Street
Frames Times Journal

Threat 5 1 3 2 2 2
Hero 1 2 0 0 1 0
Victim 2 1 1 0 2 1

5. Freedom of expression

Pakistan France USA

Newspapers Dawn The Nation Libération Le Figaro The New The Wall
York Street
Frames Times Journal

Offensive 2 3 1 2 3 1
Defensive 1 3 2 5 3 3
Middle- 0 3 1 0 2 1
ground

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 Appendix B
Coding frame used to gather information for each of the 60 articles:

1. Name of newspaper
2. Date
3. Author
4. Headline
5. Role of Islam
6. Words used for Islam
and Muslims
7. Sources
a. Official
b. Religious leaders
c. Experts
d. Journalists
e. Vox pops
8. Role of immigration
9. Freedom of
expression
10. Extra information

55