Inside the Harem, Outside the Nation
Framing Muslims in Radio Journalism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18947244 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Amina Yaqin (0000-0001-5641-5211, SOAS University of London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 226-238 |
| Publication date | 2010-07-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Interventions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-801X • E-ISSN: 1469-929X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1369801x.2010.489697 |
| OpenAlex | W1891765524 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 6 |
Since 9/11, Muslims in the West have been repeatedly exposed to questions from various quarters about their supposed conflicting allegiances: first to the secular law of the nation-states in which they are resident, and secondly to ‘international’ Islamic or shariah law. The subjectivity of the Muslim community has been heightened by intensive media attention which frames their representation within the current context of the international war against terror. Inevitably, they are juxtaposed as the enemy within. I will argue that this frame of representation has been explored on BBC Radio 4 with a series of programmes on Muslims, including Inside the Harem (2004) and Taking the Cricket Test (2006). The limits of representation were also tested in the BBC Radio 4 series entitled Koran and Country aired in 2005, which included topics ranging from the ‘biography of a bomber’ to Muslim faith schools. I suggest that even in the ostensibly ‘liberal’ environment of BBC radio, and in programmes designed to mediate Muslim practices to a western audience, an ambivalence over the delimiting of areas of social custom is in evidence. These programmes feed into the current newsworthiness of Muslims and their truth claims are seemingly underlined by the ‘authenticity’ of the presenters. However, by relying on stereotypes and arranging them within the recognized frame – as a problematic body requiring both to be explained to wider society and bedded into the norms by which that society is understood to operate – do they really offer any kind of alternative critique of prevailing discursive orthodoxy? Keywords: BBC Radio 4British Muslimsfaith schoolspolygamySarfraz ManzoorShagufta Yaqub Notes 1Conference on ‘Islam and the Media’, One World Broadcasting Trust, London, 22 November 1993, quoted in Modood (Citation1995). 2Here, I refer to the definition of ‘framing’ offered by Maxwell McCombs: ‘the frame is the central organizing idea for news content that supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphases, exclusion and elaboration ... [calling] our attention to the dominant perspectives in these pictures that not only suggest what is relevant and irrelevant, but that actively promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and/or treatment recommendation for the item described’ (2004: 87–9). 4See www.bbc.co.uk/print/outreach/2006_review/business/diversity.html (accessed 17 February 2008). 3See www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1104305.stm (accessed 17 February 2008). 5Frank Gardner, Koran and Country: How Islam Got Political, broadcast 10 November 2005. 6Mark Whitaker, Radio Ramadan, broadcast 18 November 2005. 7The Native Informan t figured first in Kant's Critique of Judgement (1790) and was more recently analysed from a postcolonial perspective by Gayatri Spivak. Spivak critiques Kant's casually dismissive invocation of the inhabitants of New Holland and Tierra del Fuego as ‘unnecessary’ and useless instances of humanity, arguing that it is through the expulsion of these natives ‘from the name of Man’ that western identity comes to be inscribed. The figure of the ‘Native’, used in this way, remains a blank despite giving shape to the self-perception of his colonial master. Spivak proposes a postcolonial reading strategy which will produce ‘a counternarrative that will make visible the foreclosure of the subject whose lack of access to the position of narrator is the condition of possibility’ of Kant's philosophy and thus of western identity itself (Spivak Citation1999: 9). Crucially, according to Spivak, the success of this project is dependent on the silence of the actual Native. He is made into a kind of silent informant, mutely yielding to the colonizer all that is necessary for the latter's self-constitution, yet never himself the speaking subject. 8Nasreen Suleaman, Biography of a Bomber, broadcast 17 November 2005. 9Jenny Cuffe, Inside a Muslim School, broadcast 24 November 2005. 10Shagufta Yaqub, Inside the Harem, Programme One, ‘Polygamy: The Positives’, broadcast 13 October 2004 and Programme Two, ‘Polygamy: The Negatives’, broadcast 20 October 2004. 11See www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/living/polygamy.shtml (accessed 10 December 2005)
Ambivalence · Epistemology · Islam · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Political science · Sharia · Sociology · Subjectivity · Gender Studies · History · Law · Media, Religion, Digital Communication · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Psychology · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.21 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2012 - 2019 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |