Introduction

This introductory chapter begins by narrating the story behind this research; a series of events that stirred within me a multitude of questions, each one prompting a deeper study of the nexus between Islam and the secular and the dynamics at play. This chapter, then, sets out a discussion on the working definitions of some key concepts such as secular, Western, and postsecular. It then introduces the case study (TED Talks), research questions and methodological framework of this study. This chapter argues that to achieve a comprehensive understanding of a mediatised discourse, it is important to delve beyond the surface of media text. It argues for a study through analysing not only the media text but also the reception and production of it. This study employs a combination of three methods of inquiry: a discourse analysis of the text (TED Talks), a qualitative audience analysis to uncover the reception of TED Talks, and an analysis of interviews with TED speakers on Islam in order to understand the concept of authority and ideological standpoints. By adopting these methods, this study contributes to the debates on representations of Islam in new media by exploring three characteristics of the TED discourse as delineated by Fairclough (Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. Psychology Press, 2003): ways of representing (discourse), ways of acting (genre), and ways of being (styles).