VISUALISATION OF WOMEN IN MUSLIM MEDIA AND THEIR RECEPTION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TWO BRITISH MUSLIM MAGAZINES

Within the politics of British integration, debates on media representation of Islam have shown how this focuses on Muslim homogenous identity and its uneven alignment to British values. This thesis explores aspects of visual representation discovered in Muslim media in Britain and offers a glimpse of how Islam is mediated and redefined in which Muslim cultural diversity is identified. By adopting a mainly interpretive paradigm, this research used the techniques of visual analysis of two British Muslim magazines and seven focus group interviews of Muslim and non-Muslim respondents. The analysis expands the range of visual representation by applying it specifically to images of Muslim women by drawing insights from the theory of Islamic arts and by borrowing Goffman’s analytic tools in visualising gender. My thesis provides evidence that the Islamic visual representations reflect the diverse identities of Muslim communities, and the magazines under study apply a subversive approach to visualising gender. In focus groups, the blended identity of Muslims is negotiated through the combination of Islamic and western values and needs. I argue that the representation in Muslim media could challenge homogeneity of normalised images of Muslims in mainstream media that has formed a strong cultural imagination of the binary of Islam and the West. My thesis contributes towards bringing theoretical input to media representation and empirical evidence to the study of Islamic visual representations in constructing identity. The distinctive visual representation by the image producers and the counter-depictions of Muslim women in various roles provides a redefinition of Muslim female identities in the British public sphere. It thereby invites us to consider the heterogenous identities of the women and the community at large which is compatible with the notion of diversity within a multicultural society. I conclude with a discussion of Muslim media as a possible force to establish a renewed media discourse on British Muslim integration.