Countering Islamophobia through Webcomics on Instagram
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31436/ijrcs.v5i2.246Keywords:
Instagram, Islamophobia, Multimodal analysis, Representation theory, WebcomicsAbstract
The widespread use of social media is directly proportional to the widespread practice of spreading Islamophobia in the digital realm, especially in Western societies whose understanding of Islam or Muslims is primarily based on negative media stereotypes. Various efforts were made, including from Muslim groups to counter against these negative stereotypes through social media and form a counter-narrative. One of them is the Instagram account @yesimhotinthis, which conveys a message countering Islamophobia from an Egyptian-American Muslim’s perspective through the format of autobiographical webcomics. The approach taken is different from mainstream comics, which are mostly superhero themed. This study analyzes how countering Islamophobia is represented and how Instagram is used to counter Islamophobia. A qualitative analysis of seven webcomics of @yesimhotinthis was conducted. Results indicated that representation of countering Islamophobia emphasized more on the aspect of equality and highlighting similarities between Muslims and non-Muslims in social aspects. In addition, Instagram is utilized by adjusting the relations between webcomics and its captions, giving the impression that although Islamophobia is countered in a casual way, it is still a serious problem.
References
Aguilera-Carnerero, C. (2019, April 17). Memes of hate: Countering cyber Islamophobia. Fair Observer. https://www.fairobserver.com/world-news/cyber-islamophobia-memes-hate-speech-muslims-news-19112/
Blakeman, H. R. (2014). The Muslim veil in America: A symbol of oppression or empowerment? (Unpublished thesis). University of Maine.
Bleich, E. (2011). What is Islamophobia and how much is there? Theorizing and measuring an emerging comparative concept. American Behavioral Scientist, 55(12), 1581-1600. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0002764211409387
Bradley, D. (2014, April 22). Looking at lettering: Caps vs mixed case. Multiversity Comics. http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/looking-at-lettering-caps-vs-mixed-case/
Civila, S., Romero-Rodríguez, L. M., & Civila, A. (2020). The demonization of Islam through social media: A case study of #stopislam in Instagram. Publications, 8(52), 1-19.
Clemente, D. (2015, August 5). Why and when did Americans begin to dress so casually. Time. https://time.com/3984690/american-casual-dressing/
Dar, J. (2010). Holy Islamophobia, Batman! Demonization of Muslims and Arabs in mainstream American comic books. Counterpoints, 346, 99-110.
Fam, M., Hajela, D., & Henao, L. A. (2021, September 7). Two decades after 9/11, Muslim Americans still fighting bias. The Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/September-11-Muslim-Americans-93f97dd9219c25371428f4268a2b33b4
Fenty, S., Houp, T., & Taylor L. (2004). Webcomics: The influence and continuation of the comix revolution. Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, 1(2). http://imagetext.english.ufl.edu/archives/v1_2/group/
Gage, J. (1999). Colour and meaning: Art, science and symbolism. Thames and Hudson.
Hall, S. (2009). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Sage.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed.). Edward Arnold.
Heryanto, A. (2012). Budaya populer di Indonesia: Mencairnya identitas pasca-orde baru. Jalasutra.
Herzog, H. (2015, April 13). Why people care more about pets than other humans. Wired. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/people-care-pets-humans/
Hosein, S. (2020). Veiling the superhero: A comparative analysis of Dust and Qahera. Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 4(1), 1-12.
Hsieh, H-F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277-1288. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1049732305276687
Hu, Y., Manikonda, L., & Kambhampati, S. (2014). What we Instagram: A first analysis of Instagram photocontent and user types. In Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Press (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (pp. 595- 598). Palo Alto, CA: The AAAI Press.
Kogel, D. (2013). Rethinking webcomics: Webcomics as a screen based medium (Unpublised master’s thesis). University of Jyväskylä.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2002). Colour as a semiotic mode: Notes for a grammar of colour. Visual Communication, 1(3), 343-368.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Kruk, J., Lubin, J., Sikka, K., Lin, X., Jurafsky, D., Divakaran, A. (2019). Integrating text and image: Determining multimodal document intent in Instagram posts. arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.09073.
Landis, W. (2019). Ms Marvel, Qahera, and superheroism in the Muslim diaspora. Continuum, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2019.1569385
Leitch, T. (2004). Crime Films: Genres in American Cinema. Cambridge University Press.
Lyn, D. (2022, September 11). Decades after 9/11, Muslims battle plague of Islamophobia in US. Anadolu Agency. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/decades-after-9-11-muslims-battle-plague-of-islamophobia-in-us/2682672
Mirrlees, T., & Ibaid, T. (2021). The virtual killing of Muslims: Digital war games, Islamophobia, and the global war on terror. Islamophobia Studies journal, 6(1), 33-51.
Neuman, W. L. (2014). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (7th ed.). Pearson.
Oboler, A. (2016). The normalisation of Islamophobia through social media: Facebook. In I. Awan (Ed.), Islamophobia in cyberspace: Hate crimes go viral (1st ed., pp. 41-61). Routledge.
Plummer, J. (2019, August 9). What’s up with the lettering in comics?. Book Riot. https://bookriot.com/lettering-in-comics/
Quds, H. S. F. (2020). Mematahkan mitos tentang muslim di Amerika melalui komik “Yes I’m Hot in This”. Jurnal Middle East and Islamic Studies, 7(1), 56-65.
Rajan, B., & Venkatraman, S. (2021). Insta-hate: An exploration of Islamophobia and right wing nationalism on Instagram amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 14(1), 71-91.
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books.
Sobh, R. (2017, October 24). Yes I’m hot in this! An inside look into the heart and mind of creator, Huda Fahmy. Miss Muslim. https://missmuslim.nyc/yes-imhot/
Uyanne, M. C., & Oti O. J. (2012). The influence of socio-cultural domains on communication. African Research Review, 6(4), 234-247. https://doi.org/10.4314/afrrev.v6i4.16
Serafini, F., & Reid, S. F. (2019). Multimodal content analysis: expanding analytical approaches to content analysis. Visual Communication, 0(0), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357219864133.
Strömberg, F. (2011). “Yo, rag-head!”: Arab and Muslim superheroes in American comic books after 9/11. Amerikastudien/American Studies, 56(4), 573-601.
Sutkutė, R. (2019). Media, stereotypes and Muslim representation: World after Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. EUREKA: Social and Humanities, (6), 59-72. https://doi.org/ 10.21303/2504-5571.2019.001054
Van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing social semiotics. Routledge.
Wade, L. (2017, January 23). The birth of college party culture. Time. https://time.com/4643036/the-birth-of-college-party-culture/
Walker, N. (2019, August 26). Party culture: The dark side of college partying. The George-Anne. https://thegeorgeanne.com/1862/reflector/reflectorfeatures/party-culture-the-dark-side-of-college-partying/
Wijaya, A. (2019). Kontestasi merebut kebenaran Islam di Indonesia: Dari berislam secara teologis ke berislam secara humanis. IRCiSoD.
Winch, S. P. (2014). From “angry Arab” to “Arab Spring”. In M. Eid (Eds.), Exchanging Terrorism Oxygen for Media Airwaves: The Age of Terroredia (218-229). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-5776-2.ch015
Woodal, L. A. (2010). The secret identity of race: Exploring ethnic and racial portrayals in superhero comic books (Unpublished dissertation). University of Southern Mississippi.
Zaytoon, H. A. R. (2017). Caricature images for religious profiling: A multimodal analysis of Islamophobia in selected press images. An International of English Studies, 26(2), 185-224. https://doi.org/10.7311/0860-5734.26.2.11
