Setting up the Stage

Analysing the corpora collected from the Bulgarian and the British media, it has been noticed that the articles generally fall within two main groups: articles providing either local/ national or international coverage on Muslims. In consistence with the analysis conducted by Poole (Reporting Islam: Media representations of British Muslims. I.B. Tauris, 2002) such a general division would help determine the sources contributing to the development of the image Muslims have with Bulgarian and British readers, that is, whether the general image of this religious group has been enhanced by local or by international coverage. Next, the main topics have been outlined and attention has been given to the places that are presented, the voices that get heard and the general tone of presentations. By focusing on particular topics, newspapers, as they are widely read, influence public opinion and thus create social reality. Therefore, they promote a particular way of “seeing Islam” (Poole, Reporting Islam: Media representations of British Muslims. I.B. Tauris, 2002, p. 100) and Muslims within the particular culture and reality they are a part of. Thus, the chapter provides a content analysis of the corpus of Bulgarian and British newspaper articles with a focus on the distribution of publications, topics, speakers and sources presented. It has two main subsections: local and international coverage.