Master thesis addresses the issue of stereotypical framing of Muslim women in the Western media. By overviewing the already existing studies of media texts it illustrates the most common media frames of Muslim women and presents frames' key characteristics with an infographic. It uses a combination of orientalism, as well as theory of prejudice and stereotypes in relation to media framing theories and post-feminism premises to answer the research question of how media represents Muslim women. Methodologically it adopts especially qualitative interpretative analysis and critical discourse analysis. It mainly deals with concepts of generalization and uniformity, as well as binary definition of Muslim women in relation to the women from Western societies and in relation to Muslim men. It identifies the most notable media representations of Muslim women as (i) different, (ii) covered victims, (iii) terrorists, and (iv) liberated, moreover, it discusses the potential reasons for these media frames related to the current events, especially the Islamic terrorist attacks after 9/11. The thesis illuminates the contextual transformation of media framing in relation to socio-political affairs and highlights the lack of authentic representation of individual members of the Muslim women’s community.
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