Do the media use Islamophobic language when portraying British Muslims?

A linguistic study of newspaper representations of British Muslims uncovered the covert and overt methods that the media uses to portray Muslims in an unfavourable light. Right wing media uses selective data samples and limited surveys to push an Islamophobic agenda. More overt tactics include inflammatory language from controversial columnists. These negative portrayals are extremely divisive and harm community cohesion.

Dr Salman Al-azami is a senior lecturer in English Language at the School of Humanities and the Deputy Director of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Centre for War and Peace Studies at Liverpool Hope University. He completed my BA (Hons), MA and PhD in Linguistics at Aligarh Muslim University - a reputed university in India. His areas of expertise are multilingualism, language in education, language and diversity, language maintenance and shift, language, religion and the media, political discourse, and South Asian popular culture. He has published three monographs on religion in the media, language maintenance and shift, and language of advertising; book chapters on language maintenance and shift, language in education, and language in South Asian popular culture; and journal articles on Islamophobia in the media, language maintenance and shift, early childhood bilingualism, language in education, and language in South Asian popular culture.