Constructions of the Islamic peril in English-language Canadian print media : discourses on power and violence

This is an inquiry into cultural constructions of "Islamic violence" in dominant Northern discourses. Mainstream Canadian journalism's participation in these discourses is analyzed within the context of its cultural and structural integration into global media networks. Media materials are scrutinized using critical discourse, dramatistic, and ritual analysis methodologies. The thesis follows Hamid Mowlana's suggestion that inquiries into international communication flows should move beyond traditional paradigms of inter-national relations (in which nation-states are the primary objects of study) to consider intra- and transnational participants as well.Borrowing from Jacques Ellul, this study examines the importance of myth as a fundamental basis of communication. However, unlike Ellul, it also explores alternatives to the operations of dominant communication structures. Edward Said's critique of Orientalism informs the analysis of Northern portrayals of Muslim societies; but the dissertation attempts to avoid overstating the Orientalist discourses' hegemony by proposing a model of competition among dominant, oppositional and alternative discourses on "Islam."Mainstream media's adherence to dominant technological myths and their general reticence about the structural and direct violence of elite states are examined. Distinct similarities are found between the utopic orientations and technical operations of dominant Northern and Muslim discourses, as well as in Jewish, Christian and Muslim conceptions of holy/just war. The proliferation of contemporary Northern images about "Islam" are traced historically to four primary stereotypes about Muslims.Examinations of the supposedly objective and secularist media reportage on terrorism show differences in portrayal according to the perpetrators' religions. Analyses of the coverage of wars involving peoples of Muslim backgrounds in the Middle East, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the former USSR demonstrate the tendency of dominant journalistic scripts to attribute diverse political, economic and territorial conflicts to a monolithic "lslam" The dissertation traces how the global media narrative's transformation of Saddam Hussein from an ally of the West to a demonic despot was aided by according him "Islamic" characteristics. It also looks at the emergence of "Islam" as a post-Cold War Other. Lastly, proposals made by scholars and journalists for enhancing inter-cultural communication between Northern and Muslim societies are considered