id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
ajiss-341	Lau, Ursula; Seedat, Mohamed; McRitchie, Victoria	Discursive Constructions of the Israel-Hezbollah War: The Struggle for Representation	2011.0	33	.pdf	application/pdf	12716	589	50	In resonance with this conceptualization of Islamaphobia, Deepak Kumar outlines specific discursive strategies that have achieved media prominence: Islam is a monolithic religion; Islam is a uniquely sexist re- ligion; the Muslim mind is incapable of rationality and science; Islam is inherently violent; and the West spreads democracy, while Islam spawns terrorism.31 Affirming Said’s argument,32 these media representations and images through their Manichean stance set up a presumed us-and-them polarization between the West and the global Muslim community,33 such that the latter are depicted as enemies to Western society.34 Discourse, War Journalism, and the Struggle for Representation The media, however, have drawn a chorus of conflicting criticism, some pro-Arab and others pro-Israel, concerning the broader Arab/Palestine- 7Discursive Constructions of the Israel-Hezbollah War Israeli conflict.35 Both contend that the North American media are biased in similar ways—for instance, in disproportionate, unfavorable reporting, cultural stereotyping of Arabs and Jews respectively, distorted views on the conflict, and reporting with double standards.36 What strikes as the pivotal basis in these disparate representations is the power of language in the media to influence, persuade, or alter public opinion. As the texts illustrate, in setting up Hezbollah as the hostile imposing force, as an enemy to Israel specifically and to the ideals of Western The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 28:216 democracy generally, pro-Israel texts reinforce another ideology— specifically one, which attests to the right of the existence of the State of Israel: 1.	cache/ajiss-341.pdf	txt/ajiss-341.txt