Document Type
Article
Abstract
This paper examines the coverage of the hijab or veil, as it is popularly called in Western media, in the Al-Jazeera English website from April 25, 2003 to November 22, 2008. Headquartered in Doha, Qatar, Al Jazeera English is one of the three largest English-language news channels worldwide launched after Arabic-language Al Jazeera in order to appeal to an Anglophone demographic. The analysis revealed that stories of the ban of the hijab in Europe occupied a central theme in the corpus of data analyzed. This coverage isolated Western countries as hostile to the hijab, demonstrating a climate of consistent intolerance. However, the oppositional dynamic of Al Jazeera English is compromised when it attempts to provide "the opinion and the other opinion." This commitment to also verbalize dominant views led to the circulation of Western establishmentarian narratives of the veil. Some of the key frames of this coverage consist of the hijab as signifying male oppression, violence against women and as a security threat.
Repository Citation
Oumlil, Kenza. "Discourses of the Veil in Al-Jazeera English." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 10, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–13. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol10/iss1/9