Crazy priest versus terrorist people : Den mediala framställningen av muslimer kring utspelet med pastor Terry Jones plan att bränna Koranen

The purpose of this study is to examine the medial depiction of Muslims in the case of Pastor Terry Jones' intention to burn the Quran. Our study is based on theoretical framework regarding an alleged clash of civilizations, how that leads to global conflicts and controls the world politics. It’s also based on the western way of characterize Muslims as violent, irrational human beings, and how mass media have a tendency to depict Muslims as “the others”. The questions we aim to seek answers to are: How were Muslims portrayed in CNN's and Al-Jazeera's reporting regarding Terry Jones plan to burn the Quran? Which discourses exist about Muslims in each news channel and what are the main differences between them? The qualitative method used is a critical discourse analysis on empirical data consistently of twelve articles. A profound thematic and schematic analysis of each article is applied in order to make interpretations and relate the result to our theoretical framework. The result of the study shows that Muslims are, to a high level, portrayed as violent or dangerous with a strong connection to terrorism. A slight difference existed in the themes and discourses between each news channel. CNN objectified Muslims, as a whole, as a safety threat to the western community when Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, had the similar portraytion, but with an explanatory approach.