Framing of Arabs and Muslims after September 11th: a close reading of network news

Through a close reading and ideological critique of network news reports with particular attention to their use of sources, this study investigates the characteristics of Arabs and Muslims that network television highlighted and obscured in their coverage of the September 11th attacks. It analyzes how network news visual and rhetorical discourse framed Arabs and Muslims, to determine whether this case study indicates a departure from dominant trends in media coverage of those communities. By analyzing the types of sources used after 9/11 by the networks and what those sources said, the study illuminates patterns of ideological influence on media content about Arabs and Muslims established by scholars of the Middle East and American news.