Images of Islam. Representations of Islam and Muslims in Flemish TV News
The purpose of this study is to examine the ways in which Flemish news media report on Islam and Muslims, through a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 100 news items on one public and one commercial TV channel in 2010. Findings suggest that Islam was not a very prominent topic in the news. Although the focus was on international rather than on Belgian Islam, it was mostly portrayed in a ‘western’ context. Most recurrent topics were terrorism and fundamentalism, and religion. We found specific ‘Islam news’ (e.g. about religion) being fairly objective and balanced, while news items about different topics often simplistically associated Islam and Muslims with negative themes such as terrorism and violence.