Questioning the Contemporary Ideology of the American Entertainment Industry towards Arab Muslims; a Multi-Semiotic Analysis

Abstract

The period of post-9/11 is characterised by a major focus of the American Entertainment Industry on portraying Arab Muslims as ‘villains’ through television and cinematic discourses. Concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ about Islam and Arab Muslims became challenged by a variety of ideological agendas which tend to reproduce reality through fictional discourses. ‘Anti-Arab’ and ‘Anti-Muslim’ sentiments, on the other hand, became the essential socio-cultural thoughts and practices about Arab Muslims in post-9/11. The Arab Muslim character is referred to as the ‘conventional radical Muslim’ who is religiously motivated to accomplish a ‘preordained totalitarian war’ against the US. Binary systems of ‘real/unreal’ and ‘truth/deception’ are ideologically combined in order to produce an ideological conjunction between Islam and terrorism. Television and cinematic discourses that are used to broadcast such issues are believed to be motivated by an ideology that is conceived by audiences as social consciousness and reality of Islam and Arab Muslims. This discourse, however, manifests in a complex combination of all semiotic resources and units of meaning which, in return, can be decoded using MultiSemiotic Analysis as an approach of Critical Discourse Analysis. Furthermore, the ideological interplay of semiotic signs’ systems is believed to create new socio-cultural hybrid meanings among audiences who already generate knowledge and experience of the world through social and cultural codes. This dissertation, therefore, attempts to question the extent to which the contemporary ideology of the American Entertainment Industry towards Arab Muslims is perceived as a social reality among the audience. Furthermore, it will bring forward a thorough examination of the linguistic features that characterise the use of this ideology as ‘reality out there’. The ultimate objective, hence, is to discuss the major motives behind the labelling of Islam and Arab Muslims as a problematic issue in American television and cinematic discourses. The purpose of this dissertation, and by adopting a qualitative content analysis methodology, is to examine the complex composition of television and cinematic discourses, signs, and moving images that serve as an ideology designated by the American Entertainment Industry to be a social reality of Arab Muslims.