Talk by Erik Bleich (Charles Dana Professor of Political Science, Middlebury College)

What can we see about American newspaper coverage of Muslims using a systematic, large-scale analysis? By comparing the tone and nature of coverage over time, we demonstrate how negative American newspapers have been in their treatment of Muslims across the two-decade period between 1996 and 2016, both in an absolute sense and compared to a range of other groups as diverse as Catholics, Jews, Hindus, African Americans, Latinos, Mormons, and atheists. The striking negativity also holds in countries such as Australia, Canada, and the UK. While 9/11 did not make coverage more negative in the long run, it did dramatically increase the prevalence of references to terrorism and extremism. Our comprehensive overview shows how distinctive coverage of Muslims has been in the United States and beyond.