Contemporary Securitisation of Islam and Muslims: A Content Analysis of Twitter
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study is to address and explore the securitisation of Islam and Muslims on Twitter. It examines whether or not and to what extent securitised images of Islam and Muslims have been produced on Twitter. In addition, the study analyses the dominant securitised themes and their sub-dimensions. The methodology used for this purpose consisted of an empirical and sentiment analysis, analysing three hashtags trending on Twitter. It was found that the portrayal of Muslims and Islam on the Twitter platform was problematic and produced securitised images of Islam and Muslims. Totalitarianism and Sharia law as sub-dimensions of the ideological threat in the context of the securitisation of Islam were dominating, while general Muslims and women as sub-dimensions of securitisation of Muslims were dominating on Twitter. Similarly, hashtags #banislam and #stopislam produced more securitised images than #racism. A few positive and neutral Tweets were found producing positive images of Islam and Muslims on Twitter, showing that these hashtags produced securitised images of Islam and Muslims. Finally, in the securitisation of Islam and Muslims, these hashtags produced more tweets on Islam as an ideological threat category rather than Muslims as an existential threat category.
Article Details
References
Ahmed, M. I. (2020). Representation of Islam and Muslims on social media: A discourse analysis of Facebook. Journal of Media Critiques.
Allen, C. (2015). People hate you because of the way you dress: Understanding the invisible experiences of veiled British Muslim women victims of Islamophobia. International Review of Victimology, 21(3), 287–301. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269758015591677
Ansar, M. (2013). Islamophobia and the Muslim civil rights crisis. ABC Religion and Ethics. http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/01/29/3678693.htm
Awan, I. (2014). Islamophobia and Twitter: A typology of online hate against Muslims on social media. Policy & Internet, 6(2), 133–150.
Awan, I. (2016). Islamophobia on social media: A qualitative analysis of the Facebook’s walls of hate. International Journal
of Cyber Criminology, 10(1), 1–16.
Awan, I., & Zempi, I. (2015). We fear for our lives: Offline and online experiences of anti-Muslim hate crime [Research report]. Tell MAMA UK.
Baykara-Krumme, H. (2010). Explaining family cohesion in an immigration context: Patterns of intergenerational relationship quality among young adult Turks and their parents. Arbeitspapier des Beziehungs- und Familienpanels (pairfam), 20. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-369474
Bergen, P. L. (2016). United States of jihad: Investigating America's homegrown terrorists. Crown.
Buzan, B., Wæver, O., & De Wilde, J. (1998). Security: A new framework for analysis. Lynne Rienner.
Cesari, J. (2012). Securitisation of Islam in Europe. Die Welt des Islams, 52(3/4), 430–449. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41722006
Ciftci, S. (2012). Islamophobia and threat perceptions: Explaining anti-Muslim sentiment in the West. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 32(3), 293–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2012.727291
Civila, S., Romero-Rodríguez, L. M., & Civila, A. (2020). The demonization of Islam through social media: A case study of #StopIslam in Instagram. Publications, 8(4), 52. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8040052
Coliandris, G. (2012). Hate in a cyber age. In I. Awan & B. Blakemore (Eds.), Policing cyber hate, cyber threats and cyber terrorism (pp. 75–94). Farnham: Ashgate.
Doosje, B., Moghaddam, F. M., Kriekemans, D., & Schmid, K. (2009). Terrorist threat and perceived Islamic support for terrorist attacks as predictors of personal and institutional out-group discrimination and support for anti-immigration policies: Evidence from 9 European countries. Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale, 22(2), 203–233.
Dostal, J. M. (2015). The Pegida movement and German political culture: Is right-wing populism here to stay? The Political Quarterly, 86(4), 523–531.
Faiola, A. (2016, April 24). Tracing a deadly refugee deceit: Four ISIS terrorists used migrant route. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-europes-migrant-crisisbecame-an-opportunity-for-isis/2016/04/21/ec8a7231-062d-4185-bb27-cc7295d35415_story.html
Ghauri, M. J. (2020). Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Australian press: Exploring the “securitisation” discourse. Journal of Peace, Development & Communication, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.36968/JPDC-V03-I01-04
Hall, S. (2013). The internet as a vehicle for hatred: Hate groups and the casual expression of prejudice. Journal of Hate Studies, 10(1), 45–67. https://doi.org/10.1234/jhs.2013.0101
Hanson, L. (2016). Contagious revolution and colonial securitization. English Language Notes, 54(1), 139–141.
Hoffman, B. (2015). ISIS is here: Return of the jihadi. The National Interest. https://nationalinterest.org
Iqbal, Z. (2010). Islamophobia or Islamophobias: Towards developing a process model. Islamic Studies, 49(1). https://doi.org/10.52541/isiri.v49i1.3643
Iqbal, Z. (2020). Islamophobia: History, context and deconstruction. https://doi.org/10.4135/9789353287863
Jaspal, R., & Cinnirella, M. (2010). Media representations of British Muslims and hybridised threats to identity. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 2(4), 283–298. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021566
Khan, R. A. A., Shah, M., & Ahmad, N. U. B. (2020). Securitisation of Islam and Muslims through social media: A content analysis of StopIslam in Twitter. Global Mass Communication Review, 5(4), 186–203. https://doi.org/10.31703/gmcr.2020(V-IV).14
Khan, R. A. A., & Umbreen, F. (2022). Media representation of Islam and Muslims as a security threat. Annals of Human and Social Sciences, 3(2), 255–263.
Lasten, J., & Wastworth, P. (2000). The process of securitisation. Journal of Comparative Law and Culture, 1(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.31703/jclc.2000.01
Merskin, D. (2004). The construction of Arabs as enemies: Post-September 11 discourse of George W. Bush. Mass Communication & Society, 27(2), 157–175.
Messina, A. M. (2016). 'Securitising' immigration in Europe: Sending them the same (old) message, getting the same (old) reply? In G. Triandafyllidou (Ed.), Handbook on migration and social policy (pp. 239–264). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Mirza, H. S. (2013). Embodying the veil: Muslim women and gendered Islamophobia in ‘new times’. In Z. Gross, L. Davies, & A. Reid (Eds.), Gender, religion and education in a chaotic postmodern world (pp. 303–316). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5270-2_20
Mozaffari, M. (2017). Islamism: A new totalitarianism. Verlag Hans Schiler.
Oboler, A. (2013). Islamophobia on the internet: The growth of online hate targeting Muslims. Online Hate Prevention Institute. https://ohpi.org.au/islamophobia-on-the-internet-the-growth-of-online-hate-targeting-muslims/
Oswald, D. (2005). Understanding anti-Arab reactions post-9/11: The role of threats, social categories, and personal ideologies. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 35(9), 1775–1799.
Phillips, A. (2007). The limits of 'securitization': Power, politics and process in US foreign economic policy. Government and Opposition, 42(2), 158–189. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2007.00236.x
Richnovska, M. (2014). Securitisation and the power of threat framing. Perspectives: Review of International Affairs, 22(2), 9–32.
Ridouani, D. (2011). The representation of Arabs and Muslims in Western media. Ruta: Revista Universitària de Treballs Acadèmics, 3(1), 1–2. http://ddd.uab.cat/pub/ruta/20130740n3a7.pdf
Runnymede Trust. (1997). Islamophobia: A challenge for us all – Report of the Runnymede Trust Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia. Runnymede Trust.
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Vintage Books.
Said, E. W. (1985a). Orientalism reconsidered. Race and Class, 27(2), 1–15.
Said, E. W. (1985b). An ideology of difference. Critical Inquiry, 12(1), 38–58. https://doi.org/10.1086/448320
Saleem, N., Yousaf, Z., & Ali, E. (2021). Framing Islamophobia in international media: An analysis of terror attacks against Muslims and non-Muslims. Statistics, Computing and Interdisciplinary Research, 3(2), 225–244. https://doi.org/10.52700/scir.v3i2.59
Schmid, A. (2016). Links between terrorism and migration: An exploration. The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague, 7(4). http://dx.doi.org/10.19165/2016.1.04
Shooman, Y. (2014). Narratives of the anti-Muslim racism. Transcript Verlag.
Singh, J. (2016, February 23). The death of Islamophobia: The rise of Islamo-racism. Race Files. http://www.racefiles.com/2016/02/23/the-death-of-islamophobia-the-rise-of-islamo-racism
Skitka, L. J., Bauman, C. W., & Mullen, E. (2004). Political tolerance and coming to psychological closure following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: An integrative approach. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(6), 743–756. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167204263968
Spencer, R. (2007). Religion of peace? Why Christianity is and Islam isn’t. Regnery Publishing.
Tenety, E. (2011, February 24). Sharia law ban proposed in Tennessee. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2011/02/Sharia_law_ban_proposed_in_tennessee.html
Tsagarousianou, R. (2016). Muslims in public and media discourse in Western Europe: The reproduction of aporia and exclusion. In S. Mertens & H. de Smaele (Eds.), Representation of Islam in the European media (pp. 3–20). Lexington Books.
Tsytsarau, M., & Palpanas, T. (2012). Survey on mining subjective data on the web. Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 24(3), 478–514. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10618-011-0238-6
Uenal, F. (2016). Disentangling Islamophobia: The differential effects of symbolic, realistic, and terroristic threat perceptions as mediators between social dominance orientation and Islamophobia. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 4(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v4i1.463
U.S. Department of Justice. (2016). Asylum statistics F.Y. 2011–2015. Executive Office for Immigration Review, Office of Planning, Analysis, and Technology. https://www.justice.gov/eoir/file/asylum-statistics/download
Vakil, A. (2009). Is the Islam in Islamophobia the same as the Islam in anti-Islam; or when is it Islamophobia time? e-cadernos CES, 3, 74–85.
Weng, E., & Mansouri, F. (2021). 'Swamped by Muslims' and facing an 'African gang' problem: Racialized and religious media representations in Australia. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Islamic Studies, 11(2), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.5555/ajis.2021.11.2.1
Wohlfeld, M. (2014). Is migration a security issue? Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies. https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/21715