This week Wednesday Forum provides the discussion with the topic “REPORTING ISLAM: CASE OF LOCAL NEWSPAPER IN ARIZONA”. The Speaker is Ali Amin M. A. We invite you to join this forum. The time, place, and brief information about this forum are here inturn:
Date: Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara Pogung
Speaker: Ali Amin M. A
Abstract:
This paper will discuss the representation of Islam in an American news paper The Arizona Republic. It will focus on what most The AZ Republic covered about Islam during 2005-2006 related to some major events in that period such as London bombing, on going war in Iraq, immigrant protests in France, Bali bombing two, conflict Israel-Palestine, tension with Iran, and Danish cartoon. It will concern on the recurrent language, text, and image in this news paper. The aim of this study is to identify the representation of Islam in American media testing the hypothesis that Islam and Muslims? coverage in Western media is usually negative, or biased with certain ideological orientation. This also will identify whether Western media especially The AZ Republic is Islam-phobic. In order to examine the hypothesis systematically, I will apply both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative approach is used in order to achieve certain patterns of The AZ Republic when covering about Islam relating to the major events by examining the recurrent language, text, and image of Islam and Muslim. All on- line news and articles in this period January 1, 2005- March 30, 2006 containing the words of Islam and Muslim are selected, classified, and percentaged based on its focus such as terrorism, women in Islam, social culture, domestic and international affairs. Also, I will conduct qualitative content analysis by using principals of critical discourse analysis (CDA) such as investigating the sociopolitical background of the discourse and and focusing on dominance relations by elite groups and institutions as they are being enacted, legitimated or otherwise reproduced by text and talk (Dijk, Teun A. van. 1993). This leads to determine the level of subjectivity, objectivity, or neutrality of the news and articles also highlight the complexities involved in constructing Islam and Muslim on The AZ Republic.
About the speaker:
Ali Amin currently is the academic coordinator of CRCS. He has graduated from CRCS in 2005 and obtained his second Master degree from Arizona State University in 2008 majoring in religious studies. He has received grants from Fulbright for his two years of education in the United States. He has conducted a few researches from a communal conflict to religion and popular culture in Indonesia. Amin has joined the CRCS since July 2008.
Books and Articles: Representing Religion in Indonesian Movies 2000-2006 , Master thesis, Arizona State Univ, 2008; Agama dalam Film Horor Indonesia 2000-2006 , Journal of Ma’arif Institute, Jakarta , published January-February 2008; Nia Dinata and Yasmin Ahmad : Framing Islam and Multiculturalism in Malay Movies, a research proposal presented at Young Southeast Asian Scholars Workshop, AMAN, Bangkok Thailand , February 1-4, 2008; Defining Religion in Indonesian Films 2000-2006 , a paper presented in American Academy of Religion Annual Conference , Nov 15 th to 18 th , 2007 , San Diego , United States; The Representation of Islam and Muslim in Local American Newspaper : The Arizona Republic , presented in Annual Conference of Middle East , and Central Asia Association, MECA, September 15 th -17 th , 2006, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States; Intra-Religious Persecution among Muslim Societis in Indonesia; Case study of Ahmadiyah Persecution in Kuningan West Java , MA Thesis in Religion Cross Cultural Studies, Graduate School of Gadjah Mada University , Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2005.
Registration:
The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis. If you want to be speaker in Wednesday Forum, please contact us.
Contact person:
Elis (ICRS): elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina(CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com ; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu(CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail.com
