ABSTRACT
In the age of Internet technology and satellite, the western media has taken the central role of portraying the negative image of Arab women. The stereotypical representation of Arab women in the western media has focused on victimization, oppression, and violence. The Western media tend to play a central role in portraying the negative image as ‘evil,’ and this negative perspective of Arab women has been propagated and amplified since the 9/11 terrorist attack in the US. Both Arab and Muslim women have been represented as ‘passive victims’ of religious extremists and misguided actors. The western media has been colonized by fabricated stereotypes of Arab women in all channels of communication. The TV stations such as Al-Jazeera and BBC have also played a central role in portraying the negative image of the Arab Women and the Muslims in general. This study seeks to investigate the role of Western media in portraying a negative image of Arab women. The study used a corpus of materials from the UK’s newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph and Saudi Arabian newspapers such as Arab Times, focusing on Arab women and Western media that appeared from 2010 to 2020. Besides, qualitative data were obtained through online questionnaires distributed through Google docs to Qatar university students in a study sample comprising 109 participants. The results reveal that Western media cling to certain Arab norms and traditions to propagate the bad news and portray the negative image of Arab women. Besides, the results showed that movies and series were the most dominant means of propagating this influential stereotype of Arab women. Although most of the respondents agreed that Al-Jazeera had played a key role in defending the Arab nations, media has significantly changed the consciousness of Arab followers because they contend that changing behaviors will offer the best solution.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
The Western media has played a central role in portraying the image of Arab women as ‘evil’ for several years (Shaheen, 2003). After the terrorists attacked in the US on September 11, 2001, this negative image of the Arab women and the Muslims, in general, has intensified and broadcasted in the western media mainstream (Jabbra, 2006). The Times of London Special Report of December 13, 2001, titled “Lifting the Veil,” portrayed the Afghan woman as a green-eyed woman covering her hair with a black scarf (Time Magazine, 2001). The stereotypical representation of the Arab women in the western media has focused on victimization, oppression, and violence Al-Hejin, 2012). Indeed, according to the recent opinion polls conducted in Germany, it was found that about the Arab Islamic community is characterized by terrorism (83%) and suppression of women (93%) (Al-Hejin, 2014). In another opinion poll, the US Gallup poll established that most American women associate Arab women with ‘gender inequality’ (Al-Hejin, 2014). Besides, another study conducted in the US found out that the majority of US citizens are unable to understand the Islam community regarding the ‘oppression of women.’ Most of the studies conducted in Britain shows that about 69% of the respondents believe that Islamic culture encourages the subjugation of Arab women. Although Arab women’s representation in the news is often mixed with Muslim women in Western media, this negative representation of Arab women’s image has become deep-rooted in Western conceptualization for years.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature Review Article #1: Altohami, W., & Salama, A. (2019). The Journalistic Representations of Saudi Women in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): A Corpus Critical Discourse Analysis. International Journal of English Linguistics, 9(6), 320.
Altohami and Salama (2019) conducted research on how Saudi Women are portrayed in the western media by journalists in the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The researchers contend that Saudi society is regarded as one of the sexiest nations in the world and is predominantly associated with patriarchal values. Over the recent past, the Saudi women experienced a series of changes characterized by some strategies of empowering women, such as employing them and enabling them to own publicly and drive vehicles. Regardless of these unprecedented changes in Saudi society, the discourse addressing Saudi women’s issues has not been given much attention. Thus, the researchers’ central theme was based on conducting a corpus critical discourse investigation of the journalistic discourse that broadcasts the news that perceives the Arab women as the central area of interest. These areas of interest on Arab women’s image are the dominant section in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Specifically, the paper attempted to answer three fundamental questions regarding Arab women’s image: (i) what are the main areas of interest in Corpus of Contemporary American English? (ii) what are the main themes underlying the focus on Saudi Women by the media? (iii) what are the various strategies used in analyzing such themes related to Arab women in the COCA?
They provide answers to these fundamental questions. Their study adopted a socio-cognitive method as the main framework top establishes the ideas regarding the development of contextual models by the discourse journalists. These models base their analysis on the socio-cultural behavior from a psychological foundation. The researchers adopted this methodological framework to combine both qualitative and quantitative research approaches.
The study established four main findings. Firstly, the study found that the central themes underlying the focus on Saudi women by the mainstream western media are referentially and textually consistent. Both provide a basis for elevated narrative regarding the context model. Secondly, the Arab women (the Saudi Women) are negatively represented in the western media because they have no specific social roles assigned to them. Thirdly, other social players are also influencing the image of Arab women from various socio-cultural contexts. Lastly, in the discursive strategies, Arab women’s image is associated with stereotypes, victimization, exaggeration, categorization, and normalization.
Literature Review Article #2: Ghazi-Walid, F. (2005). The Visual Representation of Muslim/Arab Women in Daily Newspapers in the United States. In G. Falah & C. Nagel, Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion, and Space (pp. 300-320). New York: The Guilford Press.
Ghazi-Walid (2005) conducted a study on the visual representation of Arab women in Western newspapers, particularly in the US. The study focused on the events that occurred between the 9/11 terrorist attack and the time of US inversion in Iraq in March 2003. The main areas of focus in this study were the prevailing tensions in Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan. Ghazi-Walid (2005) contend that the visual representation in the newspapers during that period was irrelevant to the subject matter of the topics, rendering these images useless since they had no bearing on the issue. In his research, Ghazi-Walid (2005) argues that “I wish to suggest that these images are insinuated into the text, where they serve to project cultural judgments about Islam and Muslim societies and to convey the political viewpoints of the editors,” (p. 305). In his study, the Arab women were represented as ‘passive victims’ of religious extremists and misguided actors. The study established that two main and contradicting themes emerge from various representations of the Arab women in the American newspapers- as active political agents and passive victims.
According to the study, neither of the two themes captures the sympathy and empathy of the viewers. Instead, they elicit the various moral repugnance and feelings of self-righteousness. The author mentions specific images of the Afghan and Iraqi women, where the central themes were attributed to passive victims and the dominant message highlighted in the caption. Such messages portrayed the oppression and suffering of Arab women in various settings such as war, hunger, and other calamities, and being rescued by the western liberations. On the contrary, some images, such as those presented in the Palestinian contexts, give the impression that those sufferings are based on the women themselves. The second theme is jarringly defying the stereotypical representation of Arab and Muslim women as victims. The author argues that “however the subtexts of these images project meanings that reinforce rather than challenge such stereotypes” (p.306). The Muslim and Arab women images represented as suicide bombers when contributing to political protests are some of the images cited by the author. These images do not only represent Arab women as vibrant political activists but have no relation to the stereotype of victimization.
Literature Review Article #3: Mustafa-Awad, Z., & Kirner-Ludwig, M. (2017). Arab women in news headlines during the Arab Spring: Image and perception in Germany. Discourse & Communication, 11(5), 515-538.
This study is based on the Arab women’s conceptualization in Germany and how such representation is affected by Western media during the Arab Spring. The article combines both discourse analysis and corpus-linguistic methods to explore the correlation between lexical choices employed by students to demonstrate their feelings towards Arab women and those items that feature in news headlines about Arab women as presented in German, American, and the British news media. The Western media tend to play a central role in portraying the negative image of ‘evil,’ and this negative perspective of Arab women has been propagated and amplified since the 9/11 terrorist attack in the US. However, the investigation of Arab women’ image on the Western media has never been intensified because Arab women are usually mixed with Muslim women. The recent protests in the Middle East called the Arab Spring, and its effect on news discourse triggered the authors to research the underlying issues on Arab women’s representation on Western media.
The study’s central aim was to investigate how Arab women’s image in Germany has been viewed by the university students and its impact on the Western press. To achieve their goal, the researchers focused on the news headlines on Arab women between 2010 and 2014, as presented by American, British, and German press read in the German language.
The researcher employed a semantic analysis method to examine various news headlines and extract what might have contributed to lexical items’ perception of Arab women as perceived by the university students. To carve out these items, the study consisted of three mainstages: (i) circulating and administering questionnaires on the perception of German university students on Arab women; (ii) examining published reports on Arab women perception by the western media between 2010 and 2014; and (iii) analyzing the news headlines on the lexical items that described Arab women and making a comparison to the items used by the university students to convey and evince their attitudes towards Arab women.
Their findings established that Arab women had been portrayed as stereotypes in the Western media during the Arab Spring in both British and German press. This negative image, although it is declining, is still rampant among the Western media mainstream. In this study, the researchers also found out that during the Arab Spring, the Arab women are not portrayed ‘passive victims’ in the society, but rather active agents of change (p.19). Finally, the results showed that many participants aware of the negative depiction of Arab women in Western media, which somewhat was attributed to student’s familiarity with discourse analysis in linguistics.
RESEARCH QUESTION
Whether printed or televised, it is evident that the western media has constantly distorted the image of Arab women and Muslims. The western media has been colonized by fabricated stereotypes of Arab women in all channels of communication. The TV stations such as Al-Jazeera and BBC have also played a central role in portraying the negative image of the Arab Women and the Muslims in general (Seib, 2005). Women in Arab countries have attracted the attention of the western media, and this has been majorly on the representation of a bad image and therefore becoming an issue of concern. Therefore, it is important to understand why such issues take place and driving factors. This study seeks to examine the role of western media in distorting the image of Arab women. The research will form the basis of finding solutions to the issue by involving the necessary players. The topic is related to mass communication studies because it incorporates Western media’s influence on the contemporary issues affecting society, such as women’s position. For that reason, the study seeks to provide answers to the following research questions:
RQ1: What are the issues or factors propagated by Western media to distort Arabian women’s image?
RQ2: How is the influence of the western media has a change in perception or impacts by the west on Arabian women?
RQ3: What are the solutions that can be incorporated to change the media narrative?
METHOD
(Describe how you did your analysis, what material you analyzed, what variables you included and the variable values. Also, describe how you did the inter-coder reliability test and the results from it and if it led you to change anything before you coded the entire material).
- Material: the UK and Saudi Arabian newspaper articles in Arabic and English.
The primary aim of the research was to establish two corpora consisting of various articles from Arab and BBC news that focuses on Arab women. For that reason, the study used a corpus of materials from the UK’s newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph and Saudi Arabian newspapers such as Arab Times focusing on Arab women and Western media. The news articles comprised of those articles that appeared from 2010 to 2020. The study examined a total of 300 articles were examined, comprising of English and Arabic articles.
An automated search was conducted on two websites using various keywords such as Arab, Woman, Islam, and Female were used to extracting the articles. An automated query was established during the content extraction, which led to the required text showing the link to the article on the web page. After reading the abstract, the articles were downloaded and saved as HTML code. Besides, the source codes were examined to determine the reliability of the articles and the discarding of the irrelevant ones. Duplicate articles were also removed before the articles were coded.
Sperate inter-coder reliability was performed, and this made the researcher to later the coding scheme. Firstly, re-define terms such as Western media and Arab women were used. Secondly, the researcher realized a need to define further the contents of each variable identified in the first coding. In this coding, 1 = Saudi Women, 2= Muslim women. This variable gave a clear picture of the nature of the contents in each article.
The second part of the research was based on a quantitative research method, which used questionnaires. The materials were obtained by survey methods conducted through online platforms to give a clear picture of how the media narrative has impacted women in Arab countries. The study participants were 109 Arab and Muslims University students living in Qatar. For that reason, the questionnaire was distributed to Qatar University students via Google docs website. About 109 participants responded to the study questions, comprising of 9 males and 100 females. The results were analyzed using Microsoft Office Excel.
RESULTS
News Reports Articles
After we, the questionnaire had been distributed, the researcher went ahead to carve out all articles relating to Arab women published between January 2010 and March 2020. News reports were obtained from all the 22 Arab countries focusing on Arab women. After reading through the abstracts of various articles, the online database provided 62% English articles, while Arabic articles comprised about 28%.
The issues that are propagated by the Western media to distort the image of Arabian women
Regarding the issues that are propagated to distort Arab women’s image, 42% indicated that these stereotypes are associated with the behaviors of some Arab and Muslim communities living abroad. The nature of the Islamic religion was raked 29%. Arabic customs and beliefs were 12%, and Policies of Arabic nations and other issues were ranked 10% and 7%, respectively.
Rate of influence of the western media on perception by the west on Arabian women
The results showed that about 91% of the samples supported the idea that western media significantly contributes to damaging Arab women’s image to serve the interests of the western communities and culture. Besides, the survey participants who agreed that they had been exposed to defaming contents of the Western media were about 98%. Regarding the rate of influence of these western media on these participants, Movies and Serial constituted the largest portion comprising of 50%. It was followed by Satellite channels, which comprised of the 40 %, while Newspapers and Radio comprised of 7% and 3 % respectively. From these results, it is evident that Movies and Serials are the most critical in portraying Arab women’s image in Western media.
The Solutions That Can Be Incorporated to Change the Media Narrative
The study correspondents were asked to state the types of solutions that can be incorporated to change the media’s narratives on the negative stereotype that they are disseminating through the press. 20% agreed that there is a need to convince the Western media. 23% agreed that there is a need to change the intensify of the campaign by Arab media and Al-Jazeera. To change the distorted image of Arab women, about 30% of the sample agreed that there is a need to change the behaviors of Arab women. About 10% agreed that there is a need to change online Arabic content. Regarding filmmaking industry practices and building education institutions, the respondents ranked these suggestions 8% and 6%, respectively. However, only 3% of the respondents agreed that writing books could offer a valid solution.
ANALYSIS/DISCUSSION
There are several issues behind the distortion of the image of Arabian women by the Western media. Firstly, were the assumptions made under the Islamic religion. The results indicated that Western news coverage regards religion as a crucial element in the empowerment of Arabian women. Besides, the image of the Arab women and the Islamic community has been distorted by the perception of the Islamic religion. Western media use some Arab policies, such as driving a car to distort Arab women’s image. The study also established that Western media cling to certain Arab norms and traditions to propagate the bad news and portray the negative image of Arab women. All these stereotypical customs and norms drive Arab women to change their beliefs and practices to avoid giving the Western media an opportunity for exploitation. Regarding these beliefs and assumptions, the participants were asked to indicate the issue propagated by the Western media to distort Arab women’s image.
It was evident that most people seem to be aware of Western media’s role in mobilizing and persuading both Arab and Western nations on the negative image of Arab women. 23% agreed that there is a need to change the intensify of the campaign by Arab media and Al-Jazeera. People no longer trust the contents presented by the Arab media abroad. Indeed, the results showed that movies and series were the most dominant means of propagating this influential stereotype of Arab women. For that reason, there is a need for Arab channels and satellites to critically choose the films they are presenting to the public without portraying any stereotype element. Parents also need to be taken the responsibility of monitoring their children on the type of movies of contents they are watching from such media. Although, the majority of the respondents agreed that Al-Jazeera had played a key role in defending the Arab nations. The results show that media has significantly changed Arab followers’ consciousness because they contend that changing behaviors will offer the best solution
REFERENCES
Al-Hejin, B. (2014). Covering Muslim women: Semantic macrostructures in BBC News. Discourse & Communication, 9(1), 19-46. doi: 10.1177/1750481314555262
Altohami, W., & Salama, A. (2019). The Journalistic Representations of Saudi Women in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): A Corpus Critical Discourse Analysis. International Journal of English Linguistics, 9(6), 320. doi: 10.5539/ijel.v9n6p320
Ghazi-Walid, F. (2005). The Visual Representation of Muslim/Arab Women in Daily Newspapers in the United States. In G. Falah & C. Nagel, Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion, and Space (pp. 300-320). New York: The Guilford Press.
Jabbra, N. (2006). Women, words and war: Explaining 9/11 and justifying US military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 8(1), 236-255.
Mustafa-Awad, Z., & Kirner-Ludwig, M. (2017). Arab women in news headlines during the Arab Spring: Image and perception in Germany. Discourse & Communication, 11(5), 515-538. doi: 10.1177/1750481317714114
Ridouani, D. (2011). The representation of Arabs and Muslims in Western media. RUTA Comunicación, 3, 1-15.
Seib, P. (2005). Hegemonic No More: Western Media, the Rise of Al-Jazeera, and the Influence of Diverse Voices. International Studies Review, 7(4), 601-615. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2005.00535.x
Shaheen, J. (2003). Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. The ANNALS of The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 588(1), 171-193. doi: 10.1177/0002716203588001011
Time Magazine. (2001). An Inside Look at How Women Fared Under Taliban Oppression and What the Future Holds for Them Now. Time:Lifting The Veil, (Vol. 158 No. 24). Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601011203,00.html
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