Abstract
This chapter investigates how the French mainstream press represents ‘Islamist/ jihadist terrorism’ via the analysis of two newspapers’ editorials (Le Monde and Libération). It follows the same analytical structure as the previous chapters by examining French media discourses on the terrorist attacks in Madrid, London, Paris and Brussels and completes the empirical part on mainstream media representations of ‘Islamist/ jihadist terrorism’ via a comparison of the national mainstream press of the three countries (Greece, Britain, France).
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Notes
- 1.
See more on the French–US relations during and after September 11th, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/france-the-united-states-and-the-war-on-terrorism/.
- 2.
G. W. Bush September 21st 2001.
- 3.
G. W. Bush September 17th 2001.
- 4.
Musolff (2006) introduces the concept of ‘metaphoric scenario’. As he explains: ‘we can characterze a scenario as a set of assumptions made by competent members of a discourse community about ‘typical’ aspects of a source situation’ (p. 26).
- 5.
Following Austin’s perspective, Balzacq (2005) explains that the main idea of speech-act theory is based on the principle that certain statements do more than merely describe a given reality and, as such, cannot be judged as false or true. Instead, these utterances realize a specific action—they are performatives as opposed to constatives that simply report states of affairs and are thus subject to truth and falsity tests (p. 175).
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Boukala, S. (2019). French Media Discourse About the ‘Islamist Threat’. In: European Identity and the Representation of Islam in the Mainstream Press. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93314-6_7
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