The Representation of Islam in the Portuguese Media’s Response to the Charlie Hebdo Attacks

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the representation of Islam and issues related to Islamic religion in Portuguese media and to integrate that representation in the context of Western media, with a focus on Europe, the UK in particular, and North America. Through the analysis of two Portuguese daily newspapers and the language that they use to talk about Islam, I will examine how these themes are covered in a Portuguese context. In this article I seek to integrate popular Portuguese media in a wider context of news on Islam, seeking to find similarities between different media sources as well as seeking to identify the specificities of the Portuguese case. For this purpose, the article will focus on the week following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris and how Portuguese media discussed Islam during that period.