Anti-Muslim semantic framing by politicians, Facebook groups, and violent extremists

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that semantic framing can reveal bias and racism. The current study introduces a novel method for locating frames in texts, and employs this method to find frames for Muslims, Europeans and Australians in a range of texts by anti-Muslim and non-anti-Muslim authors. The study finds that several derogatory frames previously associated with racism are applied to Muslims in the anti-Muslim texts, supporting studies showing that anti-Muslim bias resembles other forms of racism. Moreover, different frames are preferred by more and less extreme anti-Muslim authors, with certain frames predominating in the manifestos of white supremacist gunmen. These frames may be a warning sign that frame users are potentially prone to violence.