New Cultural Spaces and Representation: Identifying and Critical Analysis of the Orientalist Stereotypes of Muslims in American Chosen News Blogs

Abstract

Cyberspace has provided new cultural spaces for public discourses through language. In addition to traditional media, news weblogs as one of the new cultural spaces are new actors in the news process, and in many cases they have become an important source of news for most people. These weblogs as new forms of public communication and representation in the West, particularly in the United States, have played a major role in representing the ‘other’ and shaping the views of many ordinary Americans on Islam, and more specifically Muslims. The aim of this paper is to identify and analyze orientalist stereotypes of Muslims in American news blogs by employing the critical theory framework and cluster analysis. Analysis of case study demonstrated that their display of Muslims and Islam for the public are negative and when referring to Muslims, they frequently use implicit or explicit orientalist stereotypes of Muslims in their blogs that are rooted in American dominant values and changes have not yet happened in accordance with special features of cyberspace and weblogs. Hence, historical orientalist stereotypes of Muslims in mainstream western media have been revived and reinforced in American news blogs. This indicates the new way of western dominance over the East