Quilting Muslims: A diachronic study of ideological representations around the master signifiers for Muslims in the TIME Magazine Corpus (1923–1992)

• Published in: Language & communication Vol. 74; pp. 141 - 153
• Main Authors: McKeown, Jamie, Ye, Meng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2020; Pergamon Press Inc
• Subjects: 20th century; Diachronic study; Ideological quilting; Ideology; Muslims; News values; Politics; Representations; TIME Magazine Corpus; Muslims; Representations; News values; Diachronic study; Ideological quilting; TIME Magazine Corpus
• ISSN: 0271-5309; 1873-3395
• DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2020.07.002

This paper reports on the findings of a diachronic investigation into ideological patterns of representation around the master signifier Muslim (and its lexical variants) during 70 years of TIME Magazine journalism. Manual analysis, of 1,573 concordance lines, showed that across the twentieth century the dominant master signifier transmuted, in both content and form. Three signifiers were used across the twentieth century to refer to Muslims. The signifier Mohammedan/Muhammadan was used in neutral constructions to reference religious and cultural themes. The signifier Moslem was predominantly used in neutral constructions but displayed a greater propensity to reference negatively constructed political. The signifier Muslim was largely used to negatively reference the narrow issue of conflict. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research. •We analysed representations of Muslims in the TIME Magazine Corpus across the 20th Century.•We used the concepts of ideological quilting and news values to analyse the data.•The master signifiers of Mohammedan, Moslem, and Muslim quilted with different themes.•Representations of Muslims shifted from a neutral focus on religio-cultural issues to a negative focus on political issues.•We frequently found (neo)orientalist representations throughout the data.