The Media Framing of Islamists in Arabic Cinema: Adel Imam’s Movies as a Model

Abstract

This study investigated the media framing of Islamists in Arabic cinema analyzing Adel Imam’s movies as a model in order to identify the character, theme, and role frames through which Islamists were depicted. The qualitative method was used employing thematic analysis to yield results. Media frame analysis was utilized to study three frames: the “character frame,” the “theme frame,” and the “role frame.” A number of conclusions were reached, the chief among which was that the sub-frames exploitation, naivety, and pragmatism were the most salient “character frames” in Adel Imam’s movies. As for the “theme frame,” exploiting religion was the most frequent theme in the movies sample, followed by contradiction, terrorism, and unreality. In the “role frame,” it was discovered that most of the Islamist roles in the movies sample were secondary roles