This article reports on the first stage of a research project on German university students’ conceptualization of Arab women and to what extent it is affected by the latters’ representation in the Western press during the Arab Spring. We combined discourse analysis and corpus-linguistic approaches to investigate the relationship between lexical items used by the students to express their attitudes toward Arab women and those featuring in news headlines about them published in British, American, and German news media. Results show that the portrayal of Arab women in Western news headlines has a clear impact on German students’ opinions of them. The findings also show that our participants tend to be aware of this effect, which could be partly due to their familiarity with discourse analysis as students of linguistics. These results have implications for incorporating media education systematically in general university courses.
AhmedL (1992) Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
2.
Al-AliN (2012) Gendering the Arab Spring. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication5(1): 26–31.
3.
Al-HajjiMNelsonJ (1995) American students’ perception of Arabs in political cartoons. In: KamalipourY (ed.) The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 222–234.
4.
Al-HamarnehAThielmannJ (2008) Islam and Muslims in Germany. Leiden: Brill.
5.
Al-HejinB (2012) Covering Muslim women: A corpus-based critical discourse analysis of the BBC and Arab News. PhD Thesis, Lancaster University, Lancaster.
6.
Al-HejinB (2015) Covering Muslim women: Semantic macrostructures in BBC News. Discourse & Communication9(1): 19–46.
7.
AllenC (2010) Islamophobia. Farnham: Ashgate.
8.
AlyA (2007) Australian Muslim responses to the discourse on terrorism in the Australian popular media. The Australian Journal of Social Issues42(1): 27–40.
9.
AnthonyL (2005) AntConc: Design and development of a freeware corpus analysis toolkit for the technical writing classroom. In: Proceedings of the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference 2005 (IPCC 2005), Limerick, 10–13 July, pp. 729–737. New York: IEEE.
10.
ArebiS (1994) Women and Words in Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Literary Discourse. New York: Columbia University Press.
11.
AwassO (1996) The representation of Islam in American media. Hamdard Islamicus19(3): 87–102.
12.
BakerP (2006) Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: A&C Black.
13.
BakerPGabrielatosCMcEneryT (2013) Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The Representation of Islam in the British Press. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14.
BaronBA (1994) The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
BrewerPRGrafJWillnatL (2003) Priming or framing: Media influence on attitudes toward foreign countries. International Communication Gazette65: 493–508.
17.
BushmanB (1998) Priming effects of media violence on the accessibility of aggressive constructs in memory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin24(5): 537–545.
18.
ConboyM (2010) The Language of Newspapers: Socio-historical Perspectives. London: Continuum.
19.
DasEBushmanBBezemerMet al (2009) How terrorism news reports increase prejudice against outgroups: A terror management account. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology45: 453–459.
20.
DastgeerSGadePJ (2016) Visual framing of Muslim women in the Arab Spring: Prominent, active, and visible. International Communication Gazette78(5): 432–450.
21.
DixonTL (2007) Black criminals and white officers: The effects of racially misrepresenting law breakers and law defenders on television news. Media Psychology10: 279–291.
22.
DixonTLLinzD (2000) Race and the misrepresentation of victimization on local television news. Communication Research27(5): 547–573.
23.
DunnK (2001) Representations of Islam in the politics of mosque development in Sydney. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie92(3): 291–308.
24.
ElayanY (2005) Stereotypes of Arab and Arab-Americans presented in Hollywood movies released during 1994 to 2000. MA Thesis, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN.
25.
EltantawyNMA (2007) U.S. newspaper representation of Muslim and Arab women post 9/11. PhD Thesis, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA.
26.
FaircloughN (1989) Language and Power. London: Longman.
27.
FaircloughN (1995) Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold.
FalahG (ed.) (2005) Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion, and Space. New York: Guilford Press.
30.
FilterDJanaRFuchsE (2013) Arabischer Frühling? Alte und neue Geschlechterpolitiken in einer Region im Umbruch [Arab Spring? Old and New Gender Politics in an Awakening Region]. Freiburg im Breisgau: Centaurus Verlag & Media.
31.
FowlerR (1991) Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.
32.
GreensladeR (2005) Seeking scapegoats: The coverage of asylum in the UK press, Asylum and Migration working paper no. 5. London: Institute for Public Policy Research, pp. 1–39.
33.
HaddadYYEspositoJL (eds) (1997) Islam, Gender, and Social Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
34.
HallerM (2003) Europe and the Arab-Islamic world: A sociological perspective on the socio-cultural differences and mutual (mis)perceptions between two neighbouring cultural areas. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research16(3): 227–252.
35.
HallidayF (2006) Anti-Arab prejudice in the UK: The ‘Kilroy-Silk affair’ and the BBC response. In: PooleERichardsonJE (eds) Muslims and the News Media. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 24–34.
36.
HamadaB (2001) The Arab image in the minds of western image-makers. Journal of International Communication7(1): 7–35.
37.
HashemM (2004) Coverage of Arabs in two leading U.S. news-magazines: Time and Newsweek. In: KamalipourY (ed.) The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 151–162.
38.
HornokJ (2011) Moderne arabische Frauen: Die neue Generation in den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten [Modern Arab Women: A New Generation in the United Arab Emirates]. Wien: Molden.
39.
IrfaeyaMMaxwellAEKrämerA (2008) Assessing psychological stress among Arab migrant women in the city of Cologne/Germany using the Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC) approach. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health10: 337–344.
40.
JabbraN (2006) Women, words and war: Explaining 9/11 and justifying U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. Journal of International Women’s Studies8(1): 236–255.
41.
JoEBerkowitzL (1994) A priming effect analysis of media influences: An update. In: BryantJZillmannD (eds) Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 43–60.
42.
JohnsonJBushmanBDovidioJ (2008) Support for harmful treatment and reduction of empathy toward blacks: ‘Remnants’ of stereotype activation involving Hurricane Katrina and ‘Lil’ Kim’. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology44(6): 1506–1513.
43.
KelekN (2012) Die arabische Revolte und die Frauen – eine Reise durch Ägypten, Tunesien und Marokko. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
44.
KhiabanyGWilliamsonM (2011) Muslim women and veiled threats: From ‘civilizing mission’ to ‘clash of civilizations’. In: PetleyJRichardsonR (eds) Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media. Richmond, VA: Oneworld Publications, pp. 173–200.
45.
KratochwilG (2012) Die neuen arabischen Frauen: Erfolgsgeschichten aus einer Welt im Aufbruch [The New Arab Women: Success Stories From an Awakening World]. Zurich: Orell Füssli Verlag.
46.
LeeD (1992) Competing Discourses: Perspective and Ideology in Language. London: Longman.
47.
McEneryTXiaoRTonoY (2006) Corpus-based Language Studies: An Advanced Resource Book. London: Taylor & Francis.
48.
ManleyM (2009) Framing the feminine: Portrayals of Middle Eastern women in American television news. Inquiry10: 60–69.
49.
MartinJD (2011) Palestinian women, the western press and the first intifada. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research4(1): 95–107.
50.
MastroD (2009) Effects of racial and ethnic stereotyping. Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research3: 325–341.
51.
MerskinD (2004) The construction of Arabs as enemies: Post-September 11 discourse of George W. Bush. Mass Communication and Society7(2): 157–175.
52.
MishraS (2007) ‘Liberation’ vs. ‘Purity’: Representations of Saudi women in the American press and American women in the Saudi press. Howard Journal of Communications18(3): 259–276.
53.
MontgomeryM (2013) An Introduction to Language and Society. London: Routledge.
54.
NavarroL (2010) Islamophobia and sexism: Muslim women in the Western mass media. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge8(2): 95.
55.
NewsomVALengelL (2012) Arab women, social media, and the Arab Spring: Applying the framework of digital reflexivity to analyze gender and online activism. Journal of International Women’s Studies13(5): 31–45.
56.
PalmerA (2004) The Arab image in newspapers political cartoon. In: KamalipourY (ed.) The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 139–150.
57.
ParkJFelixKLeeG (2007) Implicit attitudes toward Arab-Muslims and the moderating effects of social information. Basic and Applied Social Psychology29(1): 35–45.
58.
PartingtonA (2015) Corpus-assisted comparative case studies of representations of the Arab world. In: BakerPMcEneryT (eds) Corpora and Discourse Studies: Integrating Discourse and Corpora. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 220–243.
59.
PartingtonAMarchiA (2015) Using corpora in discourse analysis. In: BiberDReppenR (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of English Corpus Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 216–234.
60.
PerloffR (2009) Mass media, social perception and the third-person effect. In: BryantJOliverMB (eds) Media Effects. New York: Routledge, pp. 252–268.
61.
PetleyJRichardsonR (eds) (2011) Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media. Richmond, VA: Oneworld Publications.
62.
PooleE (2002) Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims. London: I.B. Tauris.
63.
PooleERichardsonJE (eds) (2010) Muslims and the News Media. London: I.B. Tauris.
64.
PyszczynskiTSolomonSGreenbergJ (2003) In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
65.
RaoudaN (2008) The Feminine Voice of Islam: Muslim Women in America. South Bend, IN: Victoria Press.
66.
RichardsonJE (2004) (Mis)Representing Islam: The Racism and Rhetoric of British Broadsheet Newspapers. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
67.
SaharK (2011) The Arab ‘feminist’ spring?Feminist Studies37: 692–695.
68.
SaidEW (1997) Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. London: Vintage.
69.
SchifferS (2005) Die Darstellung des Islam in der Presse: Sprache, Bilder, Suggestionen. Eine Auswahl von Techniken und Beispielen [How Islam is Presented in the Media: Language, Images, Insinuations. A Selection of Techniques and Examples]. Würzburg: Ergon.
70.
SchifferS (2008) Islam in German media. In: Al-HarmarnehAThielmannF (eds) Islam and Muslims in Germany. Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill, pp. 423–440.
71.
SchragRManoocherJ (2004) Through a glass darkly: American media images of Middle Eastern cultures and their potential impact on young children. In: KamalipourY (ed.) The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 212–221.
72.
ScollonR (1998) Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction: A Study of News Discourse. London: Longman.
73.
ShaheenJG (2003) Reel bad Arabs: How Hollywood vilifies a people. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science588: 171–193.
74.
ScottM (1999) WordSmith Tools Help Manual (Version 3.0). Mike Scott and Oxford University Press.
75.
ShanneikY (2008) A literary dialogue of cultures: Arab authors in Germany. In: Al-HamarnehAThielmannJ (eds) Islam and Muslims in Germany. Leiden: Brill, pp. 423–444.
76.
ShawEF (1979) Agenda-setting and mass communication theory. International Communication Gazette25(2): 96–105.
77.
ShrumLJ (2009) Media consumption and perceptions of social reality. In: BryantJOliverMB (eds) Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research. New York: Routledge, pp. 50–73.
78.
SimpsonP (1993) Language, Ideology and Point of View. London: Routledge.
79.
SjobergLWhooleyJ (2015) The Arab Spring for women? Representations of women in Middle East politics in 2011. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy36(3): 261–284.
80.
ThörnerM (2012) Die arabische Revolution und ihre Feinde [The Arab Revolution and its Enemies]. Hamburg: Nautilus.
81.
TuckerJE (1993) Arab Women – Old Boundaries, New Frontiers. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
82.
Van DijkT (1988) News as Discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
83.
Van DijkT (1991) Racism and the Press. London: Routledge.
84.
WantaWGolanGLeeC (2004) Agenda setting and international news: Media influence on public perceptions of foreign nations. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly81(2): 364–377.
85.
WilkinsK (2004) Middle Eastern women in western eyes: A study of US photographs of Middle Eastern women. In: KamalipourY (ed.) The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 50–61.
