A content analysis of Muslims and Islam in 'The Washington Post' and 'New York Times' post 9/11

The September 11 terrorist attacks have greatly increased the discussion in the news media about religion, specifically Islam. The mysticism that surrounds Islam in the West has created a demand for academic research on the topic of its discussion within news media. The lack of knowledge about Islam and Muslims has set the stage for the negative, stereotypical and homogenizing chatter in the American media. It is important to critically analyze the discourse of minorities in news media because of the influence they have over the way public opinion is created and shaped. This paper analyzed the texts and the different statements that were used in each article to discuss Islam and Muslims. By utilizing the Orientalist theory created by Edward Said (1978), this study sought to answer the questions, what connections can be made between "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" when looking at the type of articles, location of the article, placement of the article in the paper, and the target words terror, extreme, violent, and radical and how these findings then affect the Orientalist theme and the articles' overall connotations.;The findings showed the Human Interest articles in "The Washington Post" did not follow the Orientalist theme. These articles had the highest rates of positive and informative statements and the lowest amounts of key words. The Expose and News Analysis articles in "The New York Times" however, did follow the Orientalist theme, because these articles had the highest numbers of negative, suggestive, stereotypical and homogenizing statements. These articles also had the highest numbers of key words coded.