Making global news: “Freedom of speech” and “Muslim rage” in U.S. journalism

Abstract

The American press began to take notice of the Danish cartoons after they began to circulate outside of Europe. The press primarily framed the events as a single problem of global interaction: an issue of 'freedom of speech' opposed to 'religious sensitivity.' Much of the coverage permitted, within limits, a plurality of voices. Drawing on a case study of stories about the 'cartoon controversy' in the Boston Globe, I argue that U.S. journalism is organized by a logic of objectivity that seeks to produce a 'perspectiveless perspective on all perspectives' (Bourdieu, On television. New York: The New Press, 1998), showing voices on 'both sides,' simultaneously masked and contributed to the press's reifying a series of events into a single global 'event,' one that reflected a clash of Western and Islamic values.

A relational perspective comparison of workplace discrimination toward Muslims in Muslim-minority and Muslim-majority countries

“…The democratic value highly endorsed in the WEIRD countries, mixed with the secular value embraced by the Western society, lead to the vigorous enforcement of freedom of speech which frequently disregards the sacred value of religion. Henceforth, the exchange between freedom of speech and blasphemy arises as a heated public debate, contrasting WEIRD and non-WEIRD (commonly Muslim society’s, if the case is related to Islam) perspectives (Green, 2014; Peterson, 2007). This principle also might explain the forthright manner of hatred toward Muslims shown by right-wing politicians in Western society.…”

Remembering arrivals of refugees by boat in a Canadian context

“…Journalists have varying agendas depending on types of media venues and geographic location. There are different emphases between practices, symbols, and narratives directed at local and national audiences, and these are dependent on a variety of factors, including institutional practices, allocation of beats, expectation of editors, and most importantly, beliefs about readers’ expectations and interests—“… rendering the world meaningful to local communities” (Peterson, 2007: 248). Stories that bring faraway places and people to small localities are rare.…”

“…We conceptualize ourselves as interconnected, but news narratives must be framed in specific localized terms in order to make meaning. “Most news editors love reporters who can ‘bring the story home’” (Peterson, 2007: 247) or make the story relevant by finding local angles. Even though there is a global flow of ideas, or “ideoscapes” as Arjun Appadurai (1991) explains, news stories need to be understood on a local level by readers.…”

Ten Years after the Danish Muhammad Cartoon News Stories: Terror and Radicalization as Predictable Media Events

“…Since the mid-1980s, argued Ferruh Yilmaz (2011), the Danish hegemonic project has displaced social identities from the economic to the cultural realm and more clearly becomes an emancipatory project for the nonwestern world. During the Cartoon Affair, western media and commentators reified diverse incidents and processes around the world into a single story about freedom of speech and Muslim rage (Kunelius et al 2007; Peterson 2007, 2015). Readers were invited to see the events following the publication of the cartoons as a single global event in which rational western actors engaged in logical, democratic practice were met with a hostile global response by undifferentiated “Muslims,” whose protests were not seen as forms of democratic expression but as actions based on highly irrational emotions.…”