European Identity and the Representation of Islam in the Mainstream Press

This book combines media studies and linguistics with theories of national and supranational identity to offer an interdisciplinary approach to the study of European identity/ies and news discourses. Taking representations of Islamist terrorism and Turkeys accession to the European Union as case studies, it analyses the discursive construction of supranational European identity through the discursive distinction of Us and Them. Moreover, it compares the medias representations of the Other in different socio-political moments in Europe- from times of European integration (2004-5) to the European dystopia (2015-16) through the discourse analysis of specific Greek, British and French newspapers. This timely work synthesizes classic argumentative approaches and Gramscian thought in the study of media discourses by focusing on the Aristotelian concept of topos and introducing the concept of hegemonic knowledge. This pioneering work will appeal to scholars across the fields of linguistics, social anthropology, European politics, and media studies.