The coverage of Islam - marginalized and moralizing narratives

Abstracts

This article presents um approach of how the press portrays Islam in current media coverage. As the object of the analysis, this study addresses both the discursive representations (Discourse Analysis) and the interconnections with (and from) Islam in Folha de S.Paulo and in O Estado de S.Paulo printed newspapers, based on the material published by the aforementioned on the International Editorial Board during the 15 days before and after the date that commemorated the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attack . The article also covers a brief historical and cultural inventory of the Islam formation, the construction of the Different in history and the Other-Islam concept. The article also observes an approximate depiction of the actions from the Islamic fundamentalists according to the generalizations and simplifications of this particular media, which guides the complex context of Islam as the Other, the Different in current history and denies it fromits cultural assignments of authenticity and otherness.

Islam; Representations; Discourse Analysis; Folha de S.Paulo; Estado de S.Paulo

Este artigo realiza uma abordagem da representação do Islamismo produzida pela cobertura jornalística atual. Como objeto de análise, o estudo aborda as representações discursivas (Análise de Discurso) e as interconexões com (e do) Islã na Folha de S.Paulo e no Estado de S.Paulo, tendo por corpus o material publicado pelos jornais, na Editoria Internacional, nos 15 dias anteriores e posteriores à data que marcou, historicamente, os 10 anos do ataque às Torres Gêmeas. O artigo também faz um breve inventário histórico-cultural da formação do Islã, da construção do Diferente na história e do Outro-Islã. Observou-se, nas generalizações e nas simplificações das representações do Islã da mídia analisada, um retrato aproximado das ações dos fundamentalistas islâmicos, instruindo o contexto complexo do Islã como o Outro, o Diferente da história atual, denegando a ele suas atribuições culturais de autenticidade e de alteridade.

Islã; Representações; Análise de Discurso; Folha de S.Paulo; Estado de S.Paulo

En este artículo se presenta una aproximación a la representación del Islam producido por la cobertura de noticias de actualidad. A medida que el objeto de análisis, el estudio aborda las representaciones discursivas (Análisis del Discurso) y las interconexiones con (y) el Islam en el periódico Folha de S.Paulo y el Estado de S.Paulo, con el corpus del material publicado por los periódicos, el Comité Editorial Internacional, dentro de 15 días antes y después de la fecha que marcó la historia, 10 años del atentado a las Torres Gemelas. La tesis también hace un inventario de la formación histórica y cultural de Oriente y el Islam moderno, la construcción de la historia A diferencia del Islam y el Otro, y el rescate del periodismo internacional. Había, en generalizaciones y simplificaciones de las representaciones de los medios de comunicación del Islam analizado, una representación aproximada de las acciones de los fundamentalistas islámicos, instruyendo el complejo contexto del Islam como el otro, la historia de corriente distinta, negándole sus atributos culturales de la autenticidad y la alteridad.

Islam; Representaciones; Folha de S.Paulo; Estado de S.Paulo

ARTIGOS

JORNALISMO NA HISTÓRIA E NA PRÁTICA

The coverage of Islam – marginalized and moralizing narratives

Ingrid Gomes

Doctor and teacher of Journalism in the Social Communication course at the Education Unity of FACED, Santa Mônica campus, at Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Uberlândia-MG, Brazil. E-mail: [e-mail]

ABSTRACT

This article presents an approach of how the press portrays Islam in current media coverage. As the object of the analysis, this study addresses both the discursive representations (Discourse Analysis) and the interconnections with (and from) Islam in Folha de S.Paulo and in O Estado de S.Paulo printed newspapers, based on the material published by the aforementioned on the International Editorial Board during the 15 days before and after the date that commemorated the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attack. The article also covers a brief historical and cultural inventory of the formation of Islam, the construction of the Different in history and the concept of Other-Islam. The article also observes an approximate depiction of the actions from the Islamic fundamentalists according to the generalizations and simplifications of this particular media, which guides the complex context of Islam as the other, the different in current history and denies its cultural attributions of authenticity and otherness.

Keywords: Islam. Representations. Discourse Analysis. Folha de S.Paulo. Estado de S.Paulo.

Introduction

A theme that has become common the media is religious. A subject that had a strong impact on global media was the terrorist acts on 11 September in the United States, which killed thousands of people with the impact of the plane crash at the World Trade Center and other specific targets in the country, which were guided by terrorists. International events have repercussion and historical meaning and generate complex reflections due to their intrinsic power. According to sociology and social anthropology authors, in special those who study the division of the world in civilizations, the concentration of powers and economical and cultural empires, the international information factor, developed as a product of the media, has generated a political and ideological importance to the global communications culture.

The researcher Liu Binyan, a Chinese dissident in the United States and former director of Princeton China Initiative, in his essay "Civilization Grafting: No Culture is an Island" published at Foreign Affairs, says that, in the current conflict between the nations, the predominant sources of conflict are political, economic and social, and mentions three questions of prominence among these orders: "economic dislocation, xenophobia and populism." He explains that the Cold War it's in the past, but highlights the hostile climate existent in more than thirty countries and regions. "The wave of immigrants from poor territories to rich countries and the influx of people from rural areas to cities have reached an unprecedented scale, forming what the U.N. Population Fund has called the 'current crisis of mankind'" (BINYAN, 1993, p.153).

To show, in this empirical aspect, how an international matter exploited by the printed media with huge influence in the country can, during its coverage, increase other complicated points in the international contemporary logic. In the thesis "A look at the Others, A study of the representations of Islam in the newspapers Estado de S.Paulo and Folha de S.Paulo"

Media coverage

Currently, the Islamic world comprehend about 1,3 billion people (DEMANT, 2008, p.13), who corresponds to a fifth of humanity – the other religions and distinct cultures needs to rethink a way to co-exist and cooperate in order to remain in regions close to one another and, at the same time, so culturally different. "They find themselves concentrated in vast arc, which extends from West Africa to Indonesia, crossing through Middle East and India. In many of the countries of this vast region, the Muslins constitute the minority of the local population and, in others, an important minority" (DEMANT, 2008, p.13).

Besides the presence of this culture in the world, the history of Islam is a predominant factor to the comprehension of any current conflict between Israel and Palestine, Fundamentalists and the West, specially the United States and its allies, must come from the study of a long history of the constitution of the Islam in the world, that initiated more than 1.400 years ago and spread through three continents in various societies, solidifying its religion and its social values, differentiating itself and creating new lines.

In this sense, Islam is in a crossroad of historical conflicts among traditional muslins, fundamentalists reorganized, and others ramifications that are based in the Islamic faith to agglutinate believers and act with violence against those who call them "West" and other symbolic elements of this culture. However, an issue with interpretation has generated a reason for the wars, like what happened in the last American invasion (with the support from the English) in Iraq, in 2003, that has been creating a dispute among nations and cultures that differentiate among themselves, and in this view of the difference, the current symbolic power situates the Muslims as subaltern, inferior, archaic, primitive and sometimes demoniac.

Taking all these facts in consideration, Robert Fish in The Great War for Civilisation (The Conquest of the Middle East) identifies old characteristics of the East universe and the cultural norm of the Muslims, which allow the reader to think about the anchorage of this Other-Islam. Fisk highlights in his book about the "imperial adventures", the character Tom Graham was the British hero who fought against the "Islamic savagery", and the title was a typical romance to the generations of Fisk's father.

The rest of the romance is a disturbing tale of racism, xenophobia and explicit hate against Muslims during the Second Afghan War. In the second half of the XIX century, the rivalry and the hesitation Anglo-Russian were concentrated in Afghanistan, that with his non-delimited borders were transformed in an inexact frontline between Imperial Russia and the British Raj in India. The main victims of the "Big Game", as the British diplomats used to wrongly refer to the successive conflicts in Afghanistan – in reality there was something typically childish in the jealousy between Russia and Great Britain – were evidentially the Afghans. This continental land of deserts, high mountains and dark green valleys had been, for centuries, a cultural gathering place – between Middle East, Central Asia and Far East – and a battlefield at the same time (FISK, 2007, p.70).

As seen in the excerpt, the anti-Muslim tale of Willian Johnston characterizes the aggressive view towards the Middle East by the empire in 1900, Great Britain. Further in the tale, the hero Graham finds a member of the Pashtuns (from Peshawar), currently Pakistan, and says: "[ ] infamous people ( ). Most of these fanatics wore those tight helmets that gives their wearer a diabolic appearance" (apud FISK, 2007, p.71).

It also identifies in the tale other prejudice and labels regarding the Muslims, like 'eyes sparkling with hate", "enraged indigenous". When the British soldiers fell into the Afghan hands, they suffered; "[ ] their bodies were atrociously mutilated and dishonored by those demons in human figure" (FISK, 2007, p.71).

As much as these biased representations come from a fictional view, from a romance, those are reflections of the popular conjuncture and the way they view this other East and the Muslim. Fisk declares that the story becomes racist and anti-Islamic (FISH, 2007, p.70). The Muslims are so "[ ] ignorant to everything that relates to their religion, beyond their most elementary doctrine" (apud FISK, 2007, p.73). The journalist Robert Fisk warns that the United States are the new Victorian version against the Afghans and the Islamic world, especially nowadays, after 122 years (FISK, 2007, p.73).

Fisk also highlights that the population and the media coverage were not as conniving with the cultural imperialism of military order, like they are today. In 1920 the Londoner journal The Times started to question the reason for the violence against the Arabic people, "[ ] valuable lives will be sacrificed for the vile attempt to impose to the Arabic population an intricate and expensive administration that they never asked for and they do not desire?" (apud FISK, 2007, p.215).

Strong critic of the position that the West, specially the United States, formulates about the Islam and the East, Edward Said

The associations created deliberately between the Islam and the fundamentalism guarantee that the common reader starts to see both as being essentially the same thing. Due to the tendency to reduce the Islam to some rules, stereotypes and generalizations regarding faith, its founders and all its people, the reinforcement of all the negative fact linked to Islam – its violence, primitiveness and atavism, threatening qualities – it's perpetuated. And all this without any serious effort to define the term "fundamentalism", or give a meaning to the precious "radicalism, to "extremism", or contextualize this phenomenon (for example, to say that 5%, or 10%, or 50% of all Muslims are fundamentalists). (SAID, 2007, p.xvi-xvii – own translation).

Therefore, Said worries about the label that surrounds the current idea of Islam, as in all his followers being fundamentalists, as much as to explain it or "indiscriminating condemn", what ends up becoming "[ ] a form of attack, which, in turn, provokes more hostility among those who denominate themselves as Muslims and spokesperson of the West" (SAID, 2007, p.xv-xvi). This kind of simplification, and at the same time, generalization, it's unacceptable and irresponsible according to Said. The researcher exposes that it's common to see journalists, while describing Islam, opting for "extravagant" declarations, filled with opportunism and dramatization (SAID, 2007, p.xvi).

That's verified by the researcher and professor of PUC from Rio Grande do Sul, Jacques A. Wainberg, in Media and Terror: Communication and Political Violence. "The attack to the World Trade Center in New York on 11^th September of 2001 by Muslim terrorists, found, by that reason, a fertile field in the Western imaginary that stereotyped a militant and aggressive Islam" (WAINBERG, 2005, p.50).

The roots of the idea of Islam as fundamentalist invaded society's imaginary, to Said "[ ] the Islam is nothing but trouble to the majority of the Americans" (apud SAID, 2007, p. xv). In his research of the contextual analysis of American media, foreign and national literatures – the United States – Said details the "atmosphere of danger" that means to address any subject close to the Islamic questions. In his work published in the New York Times on 21 January, 1996, in the title affirms: "The red threat is over, but here is Islam" (apud SAID, 2007, p.xix).

The rhetoric of this description from 1996 was identified, modestly, by Said, in 1992, as originating from the speech of an old member of the National Security Council, Peter Rodman, who wrote for National Review: "Yet now, the West finds itself being defied by an external, militant and activist force, driven by hatred of all Western political thought, that's repeating old complaints against Christianity" (apud SAID, 2007, p.xvii). The generalizations of "all Western political thought", and the vague proofs of "old complaints against Christianity", impoverish the attempt of argumentation by Rodman, just like there's an emptiness of clarity and objectivity. In the follow excerpt Said also transcribes: "The majority of the Islamic world is crumbling with the social divisions, frustrated by its material inferiority in relation to the West, embittered at Western cultural influences [ ]" (apud SAID, 2007, p.xvii). It's clear Rodman's stance to make inferior the "Islamic world", without saying which world is that, or bringing proof that justifies the suggested marginalization. The "West", according to the description, goes beyond of the geographical space, and approaches the idea of the division in relation to the East and the Eastern culture. This indirect conceptualization of the West connects it to the model of economic richness and superiority for such a social structure.

With the same disposition to generalize and simplify pseudo-concepts, in Brazilian soil, the weekly magazine Veja has generated inspiration as object of study of the representative entities and researchers, to investigate from behavioral and political themes to cultural and religious themes.

The researcher Ana Virginia Borges Queiroz, in her work The Westernization of Information, which is part of a larger study of the group in the Universities Jorge Amado, under the title: Heretics, Satanist and Terrorists: the Islamic world painted by the Western media analyzed the magazine during the period from September 12, 2001 until 2005, and identified the same points of view of Said in Covering Islam, the influence of the media and the influential people in the U.S. in characterizing the Islam as dangerous. During the analysis, the researcher verified the biased and pejorative tone about the Islamic communities, in an excerpt from the magazine on 17 October 2001: "In this universe of headscarf, it was created a syndrome of depression, caused by the tension between a past of glories and a present of failures" (apud QUEIROZ, 2005, p.03). In another excerpt from the text in the edition of October 14, 2001: "The Saudi Arabia is one of the fundamentalist allies in the campaign of the lunatics of Allah who want to ignite the world in a fundamentalist fire" (apud QUEIROZ, 2005, p.04). According to the analysis, the approach is simplistic and Westernized, besides containing elements that motivate the difference and shock between the West and the East. To Edward Said, this pejorative vision from the media, according to his book Orientalism (2003), is a typical Western way to understand the Other, in this case the East, therefore named as Orientalism.

To summarize, the terms identified by the researcher on Veja, which referred to the Muslims, were: "bearded", "fanatical Islamic gone mad", "society of headscarf", "universe of headscarf", "crazy for Allah" and "fanatic Muslim"; and the terms to refer to the terrorists were the following expressions: "bearded people from extremist movement", "Islam fanatics", "soldiers in a holy war against the West" and "fanatic Muslims" (apud QUEIROZ, 2005, p.04). However, besides the generalizations and the clear discrimination in the magazine, there's another factor in common with Said's thesis, the point of the Journalism from Veja of mixing the Islam to the fundamentalism and the other fundamentalist ideas.

Corpus and method

Sixty two editions of printed media were analyzed, with 31 of them being from Folha de S.Paulo and the other 31 from Estado de S.Paulo. The time frame was defined starting since September 11, 2011, considering it was the mark of the 10^th anniversary of the attacks to the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the White House in the United States, done by Islamic fundamentalists. It was 30 days, with fifteen of them prior to September 11 and the other fifteen after, totalizing 31 days of daily material, from both newspapers. The definition of the date for the analysis of the corpus was defined based on the journalistic expectations that the newspaper would develop a special material for the 10^th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, providing more content that was less emotional and more contextualized, considering that were enough time to create special report. The choice of the news media Folha de S.Paulo and Estado de S.Paulo is due to the importance that they both have in the embassies located in São Paulo, and in the country, and also the fact that they both have high sales and circulation in the country.

After the descriptive analysis, we applied a deeper analysis based on the concepts of speech analysis. The SD, on a French perspective, by having a support in the methods and concepts of linguistics, considers vital to analyze: "The board of the institutions in which the speech is created, that strongly delimit the enunciation; The historical collisions, socials, et cetera, that crystalize themselves in the speech; and the proper space that each speech configures to itself in the interior of an already existent speech" (MAINGUENEAU apud BRANDÃO, 2004, p.17). Therefore, the language is understood as a phenomenon that systematizes internally and externally, in an internal field as morphology, and the external field as a creation of social ideology.

The analysis constitutes of: I – Oblivion, II – Paraphrase and Polysemy, III – Power Relations, Semantic Relations, Anticipation: Imaginary Structures, IV – Discursive Structure, V – a) What is said and what is not, V – b) Interferences/Implicit to compose the deep analysis of all the informative material regarding the theme.

Representations and analysis

Caderno Mundo (the excerpt of the Newspaper containing the World news)

Of the material analyzed prior to September 11, starting on August 25, 2011, of the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, in the Caderno Mundo excerpt, had only one journalistic work, in the profile of testimony/chronicle developed by a reporter. In this journalistic text, since was still included in the month of Ramadan, in August, brought considerations about the way the reporter sees the Muslim world, identifying it in a scenery in which both the reporter and photographer acted in a "respectful" way in a space in the country that they co-share with the Islamic culture, but this vision wasn't conditioned to him and his team, so the Muslim was characterized as the villain, with him being the "victim". The Muslims also received the stereotype of food stealers in a hotel room and as non-respectful people, and besides the journalist brings, in a simplified way and out of context, the idea of the meaning of the Ramadan.

At the day of the 9/11 September 11 special and at the date of the Caderno Mundo excerpt, there were three features, one interview, one report and one news notes. In the interview, they showed the other Islam as apt to vengeance and the polarizing of the knowledge of the Muslim world between the United States and the Iraq, besides the reinforcement of this idea by the pictures used in the interview. The report was characterized by the primitive approach from the reporter, caricaturizing the fundamentalist Muslim as that boy who learns in the "snake's nest" to be the seed of misunderstanding. By doing a simplification the context, they also emphasized the Muslim as the generator of "future conflicts". And in the idea of the report, the news notes of 9/11 September 11 brought to Brazil the subject to be discussed by a group of teenagers in São Paulo, where they identify the son of Palestinians as belligerent and anti-American.

In the period after 9/11 September 11, is possible to verify one report that has a version, an opinion and negligence in the use of generic expressions and biased views by the reporter. It also utilizes the framing of thinking of the official sources, where it puts the Muslim as the one who sells alcoholic beverage and presents an exotic culture.

Of the secondary material during the period of analysis, it's possible to observe in the except of Maher Arar's testimony, the criticism from the source, who suffered torture in the United States for being considered a suspect of terrorism. In the analyzed sentence, Arar says that the American media barely covers the Islam, generating prejudice and discrimination about Islamism. In different news that was shown as being positive about Islam, it has a report about the prejudice against Muslims in New York, quoting researches and multiple sources, in a regular space.

Still in the secondary material, it's possible to find a report which quotes Islam in a neutral way, with a simple explanatory attachment. And other two reports, in the note about the controversy of a children's coloring book, that has the Muslim as a radical, extremist and the same as those who caused the terrorist attacks of 9/11 September 11 9/11. In the report about a study of the psychic and the violence in the minds of the society after 9/11 September 11 9/11 emphasizes, as part of the text, the Muslim as being the same as Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group.

International Section

Of the material analyzed to 9/11 September 11 9/11, since August 25, 2011, in the international section of the Estado de S. Paulo, there was a short report that wasn't compromised to explain the key terms of Islam, like the purpose of Ramadan, positioning the Muslim as the kind of people who don't follow their work in a rightful way due to the time consumed by their religion. In this note, generalized expressions delimit the non-acceptance of the Muslim in Salt, Spain.

The 9/11 September 11 special identified the Muslim, in its introductory text, as fundamentalist and troublemaker. The report characterized the Islam as a victim, alerting about the growing prejudice against Islamism in the United States.

And, in the period post 9/11 September 11, it's possible to notice that the Muslim was considered equal to the foreigner invader, besides of highlighting that the Islamic culture is "shocking" to the French laicism.

Of the secondary material during the period of analysis, was possible to observe four news articles that developed a favorable speech towards Islam. In the first article, there was a division of terrorists and extremists Muslims, and also of providing space for the description about the prejudice that the Muslims face in the United States. In the interview, it was possible to identify an important space to the leader of the Libyan spiritual rebellion, who's Muslim. In the other interview, that was also a separation of the idea of Muslims from the Islamic radicals, just like what was done in the other interview with the positive vision of the understanding of Islam. In a more neutral vision of Islamism, there was a news article that opened an explanatory note about Ramadan, not trying to influence the meaning of religion. E in the other negative articles about Muslims, three of them captures more attention. The first note that judges the Islam in a pejorative way; the second one, which, by not deepening the theme of religion, characterizes the Muslim boys as being prepared for war, warriors of Islam, and, in the last article, which shows the Muslims as having the same concept as fundamentalists.

Considerations and state of art

In the course of the brief historical inventory from the coverage about Islamism, it was possible to observe the process to dominate the differences with the intention of homogenize the speech about Islam. By doing that, while characterizing the Muslims as fundamentalists, they also make equal the differences of Islam. And who has interest on this matter? Who is this favoring? This Other doesn't present any discursive control over its representation in the international Journalism studied and its difference is emphasized as the old exoticism conceptualized by the cultural anthropology and restudied by the authors of the cultural post-colonialism. The question is that this "exotic" is reconfigured in the social-political logic as marginal by the journalistic speech presented, and the cultural-religious characteristics of this Islam are problematized as fundamentalists or terrorists inside of the liberal scenario that the Western modern social values that are put upon the way of living of Other-Islam; identifying the Muslim as fundamentalist, extremist, radical or even terrorist.

Thereby, the alterity of Islam is left to the stereotype. "The construction of alterity e the term itself moves in the same beat of the historical conjuncture. The changes in the hegemoniacal representations correspond to the new collective needs, proceeding from the renovation of the political, economic and social projects, the cultural situations and others" (ARRUDA, 2002, p.41). Therefore, the Journalism, just like its organizational and political conjecture, help spread the creating of speeches that hurt the alterity and obstructs the journalistic work of developing (and helping construct) the Muslim's representation as an Other more connected with its complex values, considering that the eyes of the journalistic repertory are based in the current social hegemony. These hegemonic forces impose to the Journalism studied to not move the representation of the Muslim in its historical alterity, since the criteria of noticeability and the journalistic act are anchored in the apparel of the power of the spare forces over the Western speech about Islam.

"The definition and the choice of what is reportable – in relation to what is , on the contrary, what is not – are always oriented in a pragmatic way, which means, in the first place, to the factuality of an informative product to accomplish in times and limited resources" (WOF, 1992, p.191). Therefore, the idea of looking for values applies pressure for the journalistic fat to inserts itself in the logic of the journalistic execution, what consequently interferes with the simplification and the non-deepening of the theme or fact.

Another important idea observed was the understanding of the existence of the thought, based in the discursive characteristic of the journalistic material, immersed in a unilateral understanding of the construction of the human representations with foundations in moral meaning. "[ ] 'to the organization of an image of a pedagogical and tyrannical nature', in which the 'information offered to the reader help build a univocal perception of the universe through a moral meaning created in the middle of description" (ARRUDA, 1998, p.25). In Journalism, the moral significance in the discursive version feeds a muddy vision and, at the same time, focused in the hegemonic forces that build reality, specially the representations of the Muslim in the media analyzed by this article.

In the journalistic material analyzed from Estado de S.Paulo and Folha de S.Paulo, it was possible to observe from the description made by the local journalists located in the place where the fact occurred, the use of terminology and speeches based on this univocal vision about the Other-Muslim. In the international section of Estado de S.Paulo, it was presented less descriptions based on opinions with the unilateral knowledge about Islam, including more sources of research, institutions and entities connected to the Arabic word, or specifically to the Muslim, or the human rights in general, besides of the presence of independent researches as main sources of the extensive reports. At the other side, in the World excerpt of Folha de S.Paulo, it was possible to see the use of more official and governmental sources, from the American military power or other representatives of governments of France and United States, which brought their speeches beyond the symbolic conjecture, problematic expressions about Islamism, that provides meaning to the ideological universe extra enunciated in the reports.

The reporters position from both newspapers in the United States, the place where the fact comes from, collaborated to the frequent use of the official terms, not remaining space for the problematization of the content, questioning and interrogating about the subject, with the exception of two reports from Estado de S.Paulo and one from Folha de S.Paulo. Continuing with the case of the reports worried with the meaning of Islam in history, the International excerpt from the Estado de S.Paulo, brought reports about the prejudice that Muslims face in New York and the United States in general, and also contextualizing the different concepts of what is Muslim, what is fundamentalism and what is terrorist.

Another question found is that the answer to the conflictive and moralist recovery came from the moments of humanistic crisis, which ends up characterizing the Other in its pejorative state, or in other words, unfolds a symbology culturally built that confronts the elements that puts at stake the dynamic of the "conflict". For example, in the context of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 September 11, it was possible to identify in the media the redeem of the subhuman elements to characterize the Muslim as the one who is educating its generations in the line of the radical fundamentalism, identified in Igor Gielow's work published at the Word except of the newspaper, as the "snake's nest". And also reminding the imaginary construction of an archaic and problematic Islam. Similar terminologies to the Other-Islam in the XIX century that characterized them as fanatics, with "diabolic appearance", "enraged indigenous" and "demons in a human form" pictured by Robert Fisk (2007, p.71).

In the same line of reflection, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo brought on its international coverage from Libya the reporter Samy Adghrini in a conflicting situation to sleep, rest and feed, and that in its limits restores the idea of Muslim as "radical and uncivilized believers" who don't deserve the respect that the reporter and the photographer had not drinking water in public, due to the Ramadan. The Muslim is subaltern in the culture, in the "civility" and in the habit of living.

According to the vision of the sources of research and the expert sources, the newspaper preferred to include opinions in the commentary sections and articles, this way the majority of the content analyzed became poor due to the absence of the specialist sources of multiple areas, something that compromised the contextualization e favored the simplification of Islamism.

However, it grows the desire of a tolerant international Journalism that respects the alterity, in its differences and contradictions, since that is the only way to understand why other people are truly different. "There's history and there's tradition. This is another way that the Journalism serves to the exchange of information between the nations" (LOS MONTEROS, 1998, p.423).

Finalizing with Arruda's argumentation that the "[ ] historical traces of anchoring that results in the construction of the hegemonical? representations in society" (2002, p.22) happen through the media and through the international Journalism, that reports and configures the Other, in the study of Islam, without history, as a subject of its own history (BHABHA, 1998, p.273). The denial of the alterity acts in the international Journalism as an invisible power, like seen in the short history of Islam and in the analysis. The presence of the dehumanization in relation to any Other hurts the journalistic logic of serving the factual history, besides of helping to build for tomorrow a controversial and saturated reality of polarizations and conflicts, either religious or of an order of simple behaviors. The Journalism facing the respect for the Other in its differences it's a necessary rescue to a social environment that is more equitable and tolerant to the public sphere. In this sense, the alterity in the Journalism also proses to catch a glimpse of the complex questions about Islam that are in a space outside of the journalistic participation and that, therefore, must be deprived of any simplistic intromission that deteriorates its historicity. There are functions to inform that belongs to the historian and other researchers, and their commentary have been painted in the news or reports like colors that do not match the velocity of the reading of a newspaper. Therefore, to rethink even the journalistic genders to the matters with complex orders it's a good start for the international journalist to serve the reader a content with respect, integrity to the other Islam, and the Others in a general way.

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¹

it's possible to notice that the representations of Islam shows the Muslins as the Other, the Different, who pertains to a distant and uncivilized culture. The uneasiness of this article is the use of this generalization, simplifications and the absence of contextualization about the facts of the object Islam that impoverish its cultural significance. And after 9/11, these journalistic characteristics contributed to reiterate the idea of Islam as fundamentalist. With that, the conceptions about Islam ended up being linked to the inferior culture, or in other words, as one of the Other? in the current international history. The method used to reach the results in this article was the discourse analysis (MAINGUENEAU, 1997; ORLANDI, 2010), which will be described ahead in the core text.

²

(2007, p.xvii), in his book

Covering Islam, affirms that there's a previously ideological work to direct the view of the American and the World media about Islam as dangerous and that, according to Said, this happens through the intellectual attitude from the studious who generalize the fundamentalism as being the Islam; and it goes further: he says that this understanding influences the way of thinking of politics and many other from the cultural sectors that help disseminate opinions (SAID, 2007, p.xvi-xvii).

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  26 June 2014
• Date of issue
  June 2014

History

• Accepted
  17 Dec 2013
• Received
  05 Sept 2013