Representation of Kurdish Women in Media: A Case of Kurdish Female Fighters

Abstract

This article is preliminary research that highlights the need for conducting more research on the representation of Kurdish women in media from a linguistic perspective. This article provides an analysis of online news discourse on the Mail Online website to show how and why the journalist manipulating the linguistic properties how constructed the identity of Kurdish women in the way it is. It also partially carries the data analysis of news by the adoption of Koller's (2012) framework for the analysis of collective identity through a critical discourse analysis approach to investigate the stereotypical representation of Kurdish women in online news genres. The study is mostly a data-driven analytical approach. The findings indicate two prominent themes: women to be saved and Kurdish female fighter them. The analysis of female fighter them shows the fascination of western news with these women which has led to the ideological positive in-group construction of their identity vis-à-vis out-group negative representation of out-group ISIS.