Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT:
The aim of this study is to give voice to significantly muted Muslim women on their perceptions about Australian media representations of the hijab/burqa, and investigate the implications of such representation on their everyday living. In-depth interviews were conducted with 17 women from the Greater Brisbane region who wore the hijab/burqa. Results indicate that most participants opined that the media representations were biased, negative, and inaccurate. Frustrated with such (mis) representations, the women made conscious or unconscious choices to 'right the wrong' as they negotiated their muted group status. Wearing the hijab/burqa as a religious and cultural garment, they used varied strategies to accommodate with the dominant culture in non-assertive ways to amend the dominant representation of the 'oppressed' Muslim woman.
Introduction
The history of heightened media awareness for Islam and Muslims at an international level can be traced back to the 1979 Iran-US hostage crisis. The urge to label Muslims as terrorists has been on the rise ever since (see Eid & Karim, 2011; Karim, 2003). One can argue that representations of Islam have not changed much and that what we have today is the continuation of a process that began in the colonial era (Said, 1997); others contend that 9/11 was a significant turning point in media history, changing the way Muslims are represented in the media (Byng, 2010; Kabir, 2006; Mishra, 2007; Tarlo, 2007). Within Australia, events such as the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings and the 2005 Cronulla riots have resulted in much unfavourable media coverage for Muslims.
The last few years have also seen an increase in debates about the burqa ban, not only in Europe, but also in Australia. Since 9/11, the hijab/ burqa1 have increasingly attracted symbolic meanings of oppression and threat, and for the women who wear them, associations with security risks and terrorism (Bullock & Jafri, 2000; Droogsma, 2007; Frost, 2008; Kabir, 2006; Navarro, 2010; Ruby, 2005; Mishra, 2007; Tarlo, 2007). For example, after a broadcast of Network Ten's program 'Can of Worms', comments from the public on the show's website reflected views that Muslim women who wore the burqa were both a security risk and were seen as being un-Australian (Network Ten, 2011). One such comment read:
You have the right to wear...