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Perception of Shari’a in Sydney and New York Newspapers

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The Sociology of Shari’a: Case Studies from around the World

Abstract

Drawing on methodologies used to analyse the negative portrayals of new religious movements in the press, this chapter analyzes the way Shari’a has been reported in key newspapers in Sydney and New York over the last 5 years. It differentiates between perceptions of Islamic law as practiced in these global cities, as well as in other foreign countries and examines the different levels of perception. The chapter also investigates portrayals and perceptions of ‘good’ Shari’a (i.e. Islamic banking) as opposed to ‘bad’ Shari’a (i.e. family and criminal law).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Factiva is owned by Dow Jones, a News Corporation company. It was assessed that this played no role in access to information from News Corp newspapers nor from their competitors.

  2. 2.

    It should be noted that the contents of printed copy newspapers are also reproduced online but the content is updated at greater speed. Additionally, there is an emerging trend for online newspapers to require membership and payment for access to online material. Recent statistics reveal that hardcopy distribution continues to significantly outstrip online newspaper copy.

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Correspondence to Bryan S. Turner .

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Possamai, A., Turner, B.S., Roose, J., Dagistanli, S., Voyce, M. (2015). Perception of Shari’a in Sydney and New York Newspapers. In: Possamai, A., Richardson, J., Turner, B. (eds) The Sociology of Shari’a: Case Studies from around the World. Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09605-6_15

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