The Use of Terminology in Reporting Islam: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The use of terminology in reporting Islam has been one of the major concerns of many scholars and religious experts in recent years. Specifically, the media's selection of words to describe Islam attracts attention of many righteous people. Words such as extremist, terrorist, militant, insurgent are mostly used to describe Muslims. This indicates the need to explore how the media particularly newspapers use terminology in reporting Islam, since people rely on the media for news and information. The present study focuses on content analysis of terminology used to describe Islam in selected Nigerian and Malaysian English newspapers. Two different divisions of sampling procedure were employed; sampling for the newspapers and sampling for related articles in the newspapers. The study used purposive sampling to gather data. Punch and Vanguard were chosen from Nigeria while The Star and New Straits Times were chosen from Malaysia based on their popularity and readership. Meanwhile, an internet-based search for news articles on Islam was performed. The aim was to locate the news articles relating to Islam in the selected newspapers. Articles between November 2015 and September 2016 were selected. Any article that focuses upon reporting Islam or Muslims fulfills the inclusion criteria. The content of each article was examined and read for relevance. The newspapers produced 599 different Islam-related articles within this period. The study found that 260 different Islam-related terms appeared in the selected newspapers. But Malaysian newspapers used more (200) of these terms than Nigerian newspapers, which used only 60. However, the most frequently used Islam-related term in the selected newspapers is "Islamist militants" which appeared 60 times, followed by "radical Islam" and "Islamist attacks", which came second and third respectively. It was found that these words were used in negative context. It is therefore recommended that journalists should make an effort to understand clear connotation of the terminology they use, and use them properly. Newspapers should mind the use of terms in or order to avoid creating negative perception toward Islam.

A Pragmatic Analysis of Islam-related Terminologies in Selected Eastern and Western Mass Media

“…A few studies focused specifically on the use of terms in Islam-related news (e.g. Allen, 2012;Hassan et al, 2017;Moore, Mason, & Lewis, 2008). These studies found that Islam-related terms are mostly used in a negative context, which might create negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims.…”

“…The use of Islam-related terminologies in news coverage of Islam has become a contentious issue amongst scholars, researchers, and religious experts (Mohideen, & Mohideen, 2008;Reynolds, 2015;Hassan, Azmi, & Abubakar, 2017). The problem associated with the use of Islamrelated terms in the media arises when expressions are used without regard to their original connotations.…”

“…These kinds of terminologies constitute part of media texts with the tendency to associate Islam with terrorism depending largely on the manner in which the news story is constructed (Hassan, Azmi, & Abdullahi, 2020). As a result of the distortion of words' meaning, taking into consideration the news context, the media reinforce stereotypes and negative images of Islam (Moore et al, 2008;Reynolds, 2015;Hassan et al, 2017). This problem arises when the media use Islam-related terms in negative context without considering their original connotations.…”

“…In essence, previous studies established that the language used in news coverage of Islam is mostly distorted as a result of the media's choice of words to describe Islam and Muslims (e.g. Allen, 2012;Hassan et al, 2017;Moore, Mason, & Lewis, 2008). Most of these studies were conducted in the western countries, particularly the US and the UK (e.g.…”

“…Allen, 2012;Moore et al, 2008) while very few relevant studies focused on the media in Muslim-majority nations (e.g. Hassan et al, 2017). None of the previous studies compared between the eastern and the western mass media in relation to the use of Islam-related terms.…”