Author Description

The attacks of 9/11 created a philosophical and cultural shockwave felt around the world. For many Canadians, 9/11 also produced feelings of insecurity, vulnerability, and suspicion of “Muslims” in general. Being Muslim was often seen as being Arab, and diverse Muslim communities were glossed over as if they were invisible. How did these negative attitudes come about? Many point to the role of the news media in framing and contextualizing events and its complicity in reproducing racist images of Muslim minorities. Strikingly lacking from media analyses, however, is a focus on the most significant stage of reportage: the initial weeks in which the events, surrounding issues, and primary actors of 9/11 were all first framed by journalists. The authors of Mission Invisible chronicle varying racialized constructions of Muslim communities in the news during these initial weeks. Through detailed examination of the naturalized underrepresentation and misrepresentation of Muslim communities, they map the production of racist ideology in the news, parsing textual productions to locate complex patterns of rhetorical devices, dramatic structure, and discursive themes. In showing how media coverage of Muslim communities was imagined, negotiated, and represented after 9/11, Mission Invisible provides much-needed empirical evidence of how racist discourses are constructed and reinforced by the media in a unique Canadian setting where linguistic and cultural communities are often in contention.