II METHODOLOGY II.1 Research questions
II.2 Country specific hypotheses .1 Germany .1 Germany
II.2.2 Great Britain
H1: During 2002-2007, HT will be of much interest to the press in Britain.
It is assumed that due to the legal status of HT, its international headquarters in London and close public attention to the group after terrorist attacks on London’s transportation system on 7 July, 2005, the organization will be of much interest to the press in Britain during 2002-2007. To support or reject this hypothesis, fifteen sub-hypotheses were identified.
Most of these sub-hypotheses mirror the sub-hypotheses of the first main hypothesis for the German press. The hypothesis related to the number of visual images published in articles was excluded due to the absence of a reliable data.
1. The number of articles ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ to HT will account for more than 50% of all articles.
2. The number of articles ‘irrelevant’ to HT will diminish over time.
3. The number of articles attributed to news agencies will be lower than those attributed to staff journalists.
4. There will be a high number of articles published on the front page.
5. Many articles will refer to HT in the headlines or leads.
6. The longer the article, the more it will be relevant to HT.
7. The ‘Home news’ section will contain more articles than the ‘International news’
section.
8. The ‘Comments/opinion and discussion’ sections will contain many articles relevant to HT.
9. The ‘Feature’ section will contain mainly many articles relevant to HT.
10. There will be a high number of articles containing references to or quotes from HT organization, members, documents and/or websites.
11. Many articles ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ to HT will have ‘Britain’ as the main country.
12. Many articles ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ to HT will have ‘Britain’ as a sub-country.
13. HT ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ articles with Britain as the ‘main country’ will appear mainly in 2005, when HT was about to be banned in Britain.
14. Articles will often contain information on HT’s ideology, goals and activities.
15. A number of journalists will regularly report about HT.
H2: Coverage of HT will be mainly balanced although somewhat negative in 2005.
To support or reject the second main hypothesis, sixteen sub-hypotheses were identified. Only several differed from respective sub-hypotheses for the Germany press. As with the second main hypothesis for the German press, it is expected that a pluralism of views will be depicted in inter-media diversity rather than in an individual outlet (Eilders 2002). Thus, negative and neutral aspects of HT’s coverage are expected to be presented about equally in five British newspapers. It is also assumed that coverage of HT will be more negative in 2005, the year of terrorist attacks on London followed by the Prime Minister’s proposal to proscribe the group than during other years.
1. There will be about the same number of mentions that HT is banned somewhere and legal somewhere else.
2. There will be about the same number of mentions that HT should or should not be banned.
3. There will be parity in the number of references and/or quotations related to HT by different sources.
4. There will be parity in numbers of articles that use only negative, only neutral, negative and neutral or no terms in relation to HT members/organization.
5. A parity in the number of articles containing only negative, only neutral, negative and neutral or no references to HT will be preserved over time.
6. The number of articles containing only negative references to HT members/organization will be highest in 2005.
7. There will be a parity in the number of articles that mention the main points of HT ideology.
8. The main points of HT ideology will be mentioned more often in 2005 than other years.
9. The number of articles containing both of HT’s positions regarding use of violence will prevail over those mentioning only one position.
10. The number of articles containing information on HT rejecting violence and the number of articles containing information on HT supporting violence will be about equal.
11. There will be a parity in number of articles mentioning only negative goals, only neutral goals, both negative and neutral and no goals of HT.
12. Articles mentioning positive activities of HT will appear in the British press.
13. There will be a parity in the number of articles mentioning different activities of HT.
14. In 2005 there will be more information on HT’s violent and/or criminal activities than other years.
15. There will be parity of different main topics presented in articles ‘highly relevant’ and
‘relevant’ to HT.
16. There will be parity of different sub-topics presented in articles ‘highly relevant’ and
‘relevant’ to HT.
H3: Conservative newspapers will be more critical of HT than liberal newspapers.
It is assumed that the conservative newspapers The Times and The Daily Telegraph will be generally more critical of HT than the liberal The Independent, Financial Times and The Guardian. When Tony Blair declared his plan to proscribe HT in 2005, the views of the British national newspapers towards Islam and to HT in particular were easy to trace through articles they published. Thus, the conservative The Times published an article by Browne (2005, 19), who bitterly criticized the British left for supporting “Islamic fascism” and cited
examples of “the wacko Socialist Workers Party joining forces with the Muslim Association of Britain [MAB], the democracy-despising, Shariah-law-wanting group to form Stop the War Coalition”; “the former Labour MP George Galloway creating the Respect Party with the support of the MAB and winning a seat in the Parliament by cultivating Muslim resentment”;
“BBC and The Guardian regularly giving space to MAB to promote sanitised versions of its Islamist views”; The Guardian employing HT member Dilpazier Aslam; and the useful idiots of the “Left” suggesting that “victory of Shabina Begum, the Luton schoolgirl who, advised by HT, won a court case allowing her to wear head-to-toe Islamic clothes, was a victory over Islamophobia”. Poole’s (2002, 62) empirical study interpreted the fact that the Guardian published almost twice as many articles about British Muslims as The Times (48.5%
compared with 27.7%) as the liberal perspective of the first “to provide more extensive coverage assigned to minority groups and other alternative issues and perspectives” and the tendency of the second “to invoke Islam in relation to Christianity rather than as a subject in its own terms.” To support or reject the third main hypothesis, the eighteen sub-hypotheses identified for the German press were applied to the British press.
1. Conservative newspapers will publish more HT ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ articles than liberal newspapers.
2. Conservative newspapers will mention arrests/imprisonment of HT members/ more often than liberal newspapers.
3. Conservative newspapers will mention HT being banned somewhere (including in Germany) more often than liberal newspapers.
4. Conservative newspapers will mention HT being legal somewhere less often than liberal newspapers.
5. Conservative newspapers will mention the need of HT being banned more often than liberal newspapers.
6. Conservative newspapers will mention the need of HT being not banned less often than liberal newspapers.
7. Conservative newspapers will publish more articles containing at least one reference to law-enforcement officials than liberal newspapers.
8. References to other actors of the society rather than political and law-enforcement officials will be more often in liberal newspapers than in conservative newspapers.
9. Conservative newspapers will publish more articles referring to HT only in negative terms than liberal newspapers.
10. Liberal newspapers will publish more articles using no terms in relation to HT or referring to the organization only in neutral terms than conservative newspapers.
11. Conservative newspapers will mention points of HT’s ideology more often than liberal newspapers.
12. Conservative newspapers will focus on the ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘anti-Western’ points of HT’s ideology more often than liberal newspapers.
13. Conservative newspapers will mention HT’s ‘rejection of violence’ less often than liberal newspapers.
14. Conservative newspapers will publish more articles mentioning only HT’s negative goals than liberal newspapers.
15. Liberal newspapers will publish more articles mentioning only HT’s neutral goals than their conservative counterparts.
16. Conservative newspapers will provide more information on ‘any violent or criminal activity of HT’ than liberal newspapers.
17. ‘Crimes/terrorism/war’ will be the main topics of articles in conservative newspapers more often than in liberal newspapers.
18. ‘Human/civil rights’ topic will be the main topic of articles in liberal newspapers more often than in conservative newspapers.
II.2.3 Kyrgyzstan
H1: During 2002-2007, HT will be of much interest to the press in Kyrgyzstan.
Although HT has been banned in Kyrgyzstan since 2003 as in Germany, the group has been actively growing, as in Great Britain. However, unlike in Great Britain, the privately owned newspaper has never been independent in Kyrgyzstan from political, economic and judicial pressures of ruling elites. Thus it is expected that by demonstrating the growing threat of Islamic radicalism in the country, the press’s ‘interest’ in HT will be almost artificially constructed to justify undemocratic governmental policies or presence of foreign military bases at times in the country. To support or reject the first main hypothesis sixteen sub-hypotheses were identified. Most of them repeat the sub-hypotheses of the first main hypothesis for the British press.
1. The number of articles ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ to HT will account for more than 50% of all articles.
2. The number of HT ‘irrelevant’ articles will diminish over time.
3. The articles will be mainly journalists’ by-lines.
4. Many articles will contain references to HT in the headlines or leads.
5. The longer the article, the more it will be relevant to HT.
6. Many HT ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ articles will contain visual images.
7. Articles will appear more often in the sections covering news of a day than in other sections.
8. The ‘Public opinion/opinion’ sections will contain mainly HT ‘highly relevant’ or
‘relevant’ articles.
9. There will be a high number of articles containing references to or quotes from an HT member, organization, document and/or a website.
10. Apart from predefined variables there will be a lot of additional information about HT.
11. Many articles ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ to HT will have ‘Kyrgyzstan’ as the main country.
12. Many articles ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ to HT will have ‘Kyrgyzstan’ as the sub-country.
13. HT ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ articles with ‘Kyrgyzstan’ as the main country will appear mainly in 2003, when HT was banned in Kyrgyzstan.
14. Articles with ‘Kyrgyzstan’ as the main country will often contain information on ideology, goals and activities of HT.
15. Articles will often contain information about HT members/sympathizers facing legal consequences for their membership or activities.
16. There will be a number of journalists regularly reporting about HT.
H2: The coverage of HT will be mainly negative although most negative in 2002 and 2003.
This expectation assumes that the media are highly restricted in authoritative political settings to provide balanced coverage of controversial issues. As in Germany, it is expected, however, that coverage of HT in Kyrgyzstan will be most negative in 2003, the year when HT was officially banned there. To support or reject the second main hypothesis, sixteen sub-hypotheses were identified; they are reversed from sub-hypotheses of the second main hypotheses related to the German and British press.
1. The number of articles informing readers about HT being banned somewhere will be higher than the number of articles containing information about HT being not banned elsewhere.
2. The number of articles containing an opinion that HT should be banned will be higher than the number of articles containing an opinion that HT should not be banned or should be legalized.
3. The references and/or quotations related to HT made by different actors in the society will be dominated by the voices of law-enforcement officials.
4. There number of articles that will use only negative (‘terrorist’, ‘radical’, ‘extremist’,
‘fundamental’, ‘Islamist’ and ‘militant’) terms in regard to HT will be higher than the number of articles using only neutral (‘clandestine’, ‘Muslim/Islamic’ and ‘banned) or no terms in relation to HT members/organization.
5. The number of articles containing only negative references to HT members/organization will increase overtime.
6. The number of articles containing negative references to HT members/organization in 2002 and 2003 will be higher than in the subsequent years
7. The main points of HT ideology will be mentioned more often in 2003 than in the subsequent years.
8. HT’s use of violence in reaching their political goals will be mentioned more often than HT’s official rejection of violent means.
9. The number of articles mentioning only neutral goals of HT will be less than the number of articles mentioning only negative goals of HT.
10. The number of articles containing information on ‘Any violent or criminal activities of HT’ will increase over time and will be overall high.
11. In 2003 there will be more information on HT’s activities than during other years.
12. Many articles will contain information about HT posing threat.
13. The number of HT ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ articles with ‘Crimes’, ‘Terrorism’
and ‘War’ as the main topics will be high.
14. The number of HT ‘highly relevant’ and ‘relevant’ articles with ‘Crimes’, ‘Terrorism’
and ‘War’ as the sub-topics will be high.
II.3 Sources of analysis