978 - 1 - 107 - 00882 - 3 - Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes : The Representation of Islam in the British

On 18 October 2006 the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Star carried the front page headline ‘BBC PUT MUSLIMS BEFORE YOU!’. The headline was accompanied by a picture of a woman in a face-covering niqab making a two-fingered gesture. Despite the fact that the 2001 census recorded 1,588,890 Muslims living in the United Kingdom, comprising 2.78 per cent of the population, the use of the word you to address the reader directly appears to discursively exclude the possibility that a Muslim could buy the newspaper or even read the headline. It is unlikely, though, that Daily Star editors would think that Muslims would never see the headline. Instead, the article seems to have been intended to create an ‘us’ and ‘them’ distinction. On one side is the presumably nonMuslim majority readership of the newspaper, represented as overlooked by the BBC (a British public service broadcaster that is funded principally by an annual licence fee). On the other are Muslims, implied to be the recipients of undeserving privilege. One interpretation of the accompanying picture is that the Muslim woman is making an insulting gesture towards all non-Muslims, particularly Daily Star readers. This article is an explicit case of British journalism fanning the flames of conflict between the mostly white, nominally Christian (though mainly nonchurchgoing) majority of people living in the United Kingdom and the minority of Muslim residents, many whom were born in the United Kingdom, although their parents or grandparents may have come from countries such as Pakistan, India or Bangladesh. While Ford (2008) reports that most British people have become more accepting of ethnic minority groups, McLaren and Johnson (2007) and Eatwell and Goodwin (2010) have noted that public concerns about topics such as immigration, law and order and Islam have become more salient since 1999. In general, attitudes towards Muslims in the United Kingdom have not been positive. For example, according to the