Mission Invisible - Race, Religion, and News at the Dawn of the 9/11 Era (Hardcover)

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 "Arabs" 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.

Ross Perigoe was an associate professor of
journalism at Concordia University. Mahmoud Eid is an
associate professor of communication at the University of Ottawa.