Abstract
In July 2010, an Evangelical Christian pastor preaching at a small church in Florida attracted the world’s attention when he announced his plan on social media to burn 200 copies of the Quran. Riots, protests, and angry statements from Muslim leaders followed. This book chapter investigates the way Arabic speaking YouTubers reacted toward the Quran-burning incidents that occurred in the West including the one involving US soldiers in Afghanistan in February 2012. The results of the study show that the majority of video clips’ comments were unrelated to the incidents (32.77%), while curses and insults against the USA, Terry Jones, or US soldiers constituted the second highest number of responses (21.56%) followed by neutral (17.09%), pro-Islam (13.09%) and anti-Islam comments (12.76%). Calls for a holy war against the USA made up 2.49% of the total number of comments. The study concludes that offline incidents cannot be easily forgotten online as commentators have never stopped posting views, mostly expressing anger and other negative sentiments.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Alvarez, L. 2011. Koran-burning Pastor unrepentant in face of furor. The New York Times, April 2. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/us/03burn.html.
Assakina. 2012. A special study by Assakina: Terrorists’ websites lose their scientific glamour, July 30. Retrieved from http://www.assakina.com/news/news3/17085.html.
Batty, David. 2011. Pastor Terry Jones banned from UK after 9/11 Qur’an burning threat. The Guardian, January 20. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/20/pastor-terry-jones-banned-uk.
Carr, Jeffrey. 2010. Inside cyber warfare: Mapping the cyber underworld. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media Inc.
CBC news. 2005. U.S. admits abuses to Qur’an in Guantanamo’, june 5. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2005/06/03/quran050603.html.
Gerhart, A., and L. Ernesto. 2010. Fla. Pastor’s koran-burning threat started with a tweet. The Washington Post, September 11. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091007033.html.
Hill, E. 2010. Quran row feeds media frenzy. Al Jazeera.com, September 10. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2010/09/2010910123534220284.html.
Keung, Nicholas, and Touria Izri. 2012. Terry Jones, controversial U.S. pastor, denied entry into Canada. The Star, October 11. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/10/11/terry_jones_controversial_us_pastor_denied_entry_into_canada.html.
Lidsky, L. 2011. Incendiary speech and social media. Texas Tech Law Review 44 (1): 1–18.
Lindgren, Simon. 2011. YouTube Gunmen? Mapping participatory media discourse on school shooting videos. Media Culture Society 33 (1): 123–136.
Silman, Jon. 2015. Infamous Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones is now cooking french fries in Florida. Vice News, January 12. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/talking-charlie-hebdo-with-pastor-terry-jones-at-his-french-fry-stand-in-florida-112.
Spiegel Online, Germany Bars US Pastor Terry Jones. Retrieved from (2012). http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-to-ban-us-pastor-terry-jones-from-entering-country-a-856173.html.
Tankard, James W. 2003. The empirical approach to the study of media framing. In Framing public life: Perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world, ed. Stephen D. Reese, Oscar H. Gandy, and August E. Grant, 95–106. London: Routledge.
Van Zoonen, L., F. Vis, and S. Mihelj. 2010. Performing citizenship on YouTube: Activism, satire and online debate around the anti-Islam video Fitna. Critical Discourse Studies 7 (4): 249–262.
Weaver, M. 2010. Qur’an burning: From Facebook to the world’s media, how the story grew. The Guardian, September 10. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/10/quran-burning-how-the-story-grew.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Al-Rawi, A. (2017). Burning the Quran. In: Islam on YouTube. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39826-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39826-0_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-39825-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-39826-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)