A Naive Victim or a Willing ISIS-devotee? - Deserving or losing your human rights : A critical discourse analysis of two British newspaper's framing of Shamima Begum and her human rights

Sammanfattning: Between 2011 and 2019 around 900 British citizens left the United Kingdom to travel to Syria and join militant groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS) (EPRS, 2018, p.33). After the fall of the so-called caliphate the issue of prosecuting and/or bringing citizens back was widely debated in Europe, especially in the UK, who was accused of taking a drastic measure to the dilemma, causing a political rift in the nation (NPR, 2019). At the center of the debate, both in the media and in parliament, was a young woman called Shamima Begum, who was deprived of her UK citizenship in 2019. This event lead to a debate on human rights and if Begum had had hers violated (The Times, 2019). Previous research has shown that the ethical media discourse on human rights is multifaced, contested and strong in its ability to incite certain worldviews in society (Sampaio, 2016, p.2). Furthermore, previous studies argue that women tend to be framed differently from men in the media when they are involved in conflict, terror or war (Sjöberg & Gentry, 2007, p.30). In addition to this, western media tends to use Muslim women as a symbol of difference by stereotyping them in terms of culture and religion (Brown, 2011, p.716). This study aims to trace the width and depth of UK media’s discourse on human rights issues and the debate on foreign fighters over the political spectrum, through the case of Shamima Begum. Building off of framing theory and previous research on the framing of females and Islam, it asks how the Guardian and the Times, two national British newspapers, prioritizes the aspect of human rights in their reporting on Begum’s case. This by asking what frames they construct and how these frames compare and differ between the two outlets and the years 2015 and 2019. The material, constituted by articles and images, was analyzed on the base of Critical Discourse Analysis and Framing theory. The results find four different frames used. These frames are the Naïve victim, the Imperfect victim, ISIS radicalisation and the Willing ISIS devotee. The frames propose opposite standpoints of the newspapers both in their view on Begum and her guilt, and ultimately her human rights, perhaps aligning their discourse with the polarized political one in the UK. The study also shows that aspects connected to Begum’s gender and religion to some extent are prioritized in the framing of her, ultimately affecting the view of her end her fundamental rights as a human being.