Islamophobia in an American studies approach as seen in Donald Trump’s speech documentary videos

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30659/e.7.1.177-191

Keywords:

Islamophobia, Donald Trump, Conservative, Discursive Psychology

Abstract

Donald Trump’s rhetoric in his campaign was markedly different, his speeches on Islamophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric became a big issue. Trump used the rhetoric of fear to induce his followers against Muslims and immigrants by linking to both groups with the terrorism issue. This article has aims to analyse Trump’s speeches for protecting American people surrounded by the terror threat through an American studies framework. This research was under descriptively qualitative research supported by an interdisciplinary approach of American Studies. Theory of Conservatism and theory of Discursive Psychology were used to analyse American experiences of Islamophobia as seen from Donald Trump’s speeches of documentary videos as the primary data. The completion of this research shows that American conservatives in the era of Donald Trump were strongly enough and the discourse psychological approach was designed to persuade. The discursive approach also allows for an understanding of how American identity, history, and values are both invoked and constructed. It is like American identity of conservatives who are proud of their nationality of Americans.

Author Biographies

  • Kasiyarno Kasiyarno, English Literature Department, Faculty of Literature, Culture, and Communication, Universitas Ahmad Dahlan, Yogyakarta
    Senior lecturer majoring American Studies, Humanity and CulturalStudies at Faculty of Literature, Culture, and Communication, Universitas Ahmad Dahlan
  • Didik Murwantono, Sultan Agung Islamic University
    Senior lecturer of English Literature Program at Language and Communication Faculty, Universitas Islam Sultan Agung. His research interests include humanity, literary studies, American Studies and cultural studies.

References

ABC News. (2017). Trump inauguration speech (FULL)| ABC News. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRBsJNdK1t0

Bajo, M., Blanco, A., Stavraki, M., Gandarillas, B., Cancela, A., Requero, B., & Díaz, D. (2018). Post-traumatic cognitions and quality of life in terrorism victims : the role of well-being in indirect versus direct exposure. Health Qual Life Outcomes, 16(96), 1–9. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1186/s12955-018-0923-x

Bakali, N. (2016). Historicizing and theorizing Islamophobia and anti-muslim racism. In Islamophobia (pp. 11–24). SensePublishers. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-779-5_2

Brandt, S. L. (2020). Donald Trump, the reality show: Populism as performance and spectacle. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 50(2), 303-321. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41244-020-00170-3

Cooper, R., Fleisher, A., & Cotton, F. A. (2012). Building connections: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of qualitative research students’ learning experiences. The Qualitative Report, April 23, 17, 1. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ974974

Corner, E., & Gill, P. (2019). Psychological distress, terrorist involvement and disengagement from terrorism: A sequence analysis approach. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 0123456789. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-019-09420-1

Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Handbook of qualitative research. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Esposito, J. L. (2019). Islamophobia and radicalization: Roots, impact and implications. In J. L. Esposito & D. Iner (Eds.), Islamophobia and Radicalization Breeding Intolerance and Violence (pp. 15–34).

Fitriyani, R. A., Karmidi, S. M., & Estiani, P. (2015). Terrorism and Islamophobia : Media Representation on Islam and the Middle East (pp. 23–31). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-429-0

Goodheart, E. (2019). Conservatism in Trump time. Society, 56(3), 200–202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-019-00355-8

Goodman, S., & Perry, B. (2018). The American gun control debate: A discursive analysis. Discourse, Peace, and Conflict (pp. 67–82). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99094-1_4

Hafez, F. (2020). Unwanted identities: The ‘Religion Line’ and global Islamophobia. Development, 63(1), 9–19. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-020-00241-5

Hauhart, R. C. (2016). Seeking the American dream: A sociological inquiry. Seeking the American Dream: A Sociological Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54025-6

Herzog, B. (2016). Discourse analysis as social critique: Discursive and non-discursive realities in critical social research (J. Angermuller & J. Baxter (Eds.)). Palgrave MacMillan. https://doi.org/DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-56908-0

Hilberg, N. (2021). “He doesn’t think he’s lyingâ€: The moral significance. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 14(1), 107–121. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-020-00311-5

Hummel, D., Daassa, M., Alshabani, N., & Felo, L. (2020). Identifying as Muslim and American: The role of discrimination. Review of Religious Research, 62(0123456789), 465–483. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-020-00418-x

Jung, J. H. (2012). Islamophobia? Religion, contact with Muslims, and the respect for Islam. Rev Relig Res, 54, 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-011-0033-2

Moghaddam, F. M., & Sardo, M. (2020). The psychology of radicalization. Postdigit Sci Educ, 2, 471–477. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00080-9

Molder, H. T. E. (2015). Discursive psychology. The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction (1st ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118611463/wbielsi158

Munnik, M. B. (2018). Reaching out in a climate of negativity : Perceptions and persistence among Muslim sources engaging with news media. Cont Islam, 12, 211–227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-018-0415-0

Murti, K. P. (2019). The hijab as a metaphor for otherness and the creation of an ineffable b third space ^. 1(2), 269–285.

Roose, J. M., & Turner, B. S. (2019). Islamophobia, science and the advocacy concept. Society, 56(3), 210–221. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-019-00357-6

Rowe, J. C. (2012). The cultural politics of the new American studies. Open Humanities Press.

Rubin, G. (2020). The end of dignity in presidential rhetoric about terrorism. In Presidential Rhetoric on Terrorism under Bush, Obama and Trump. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30167-5_4

Scarcella, A., Page, R., & Furtado, V. (2016). Terrorism, radicalisation, extremism, authoritarianism and fundamentalism: A systematic review of the quality and psychometric properties of assessments. PLoS One, 11(12), 1. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166947

Smith, H. N. (1980). Studies in American culture (M. C. Kwait, Joseph J. & Turpie (Ed.)). University of Minnesota Press.

Taramundi, D. M. (2015). 110 between Islamophobia and post-feminist agency: Intersectional trouble in the European face-veil bans. Fem Rev, 110(1), 55–67. https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2015.13

VoA Learning English. (2016). Donald Trump victory speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGpmnA2JJ4U

Warren, K. (2020). Qualitative data analysis methods 101: The big 6 methods + examples. In Gradcoach. https://gradcoach.com/qualitative-data-analysis-methods/

Downloads

Published

2022-02-28

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2022): February 2022

Section

Culture

License

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Creative Commons License