Reframing the Arabic Narratives on Daesh in the English Media: The Ideological Impact

Abstract

This paper discusses the dynamic role of translators in possibly promoting certain ideologies and political agendas by presenting stories through the lens of an ideologically laden meta-narrative. It compares the representation of ‘Daesh’ in the narratives of Arabic editorials and their English translations published by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). MEMRI is a pro-Israeli organization, widely cited by leading Western media outlets, especially in the US. The study adopts the narrative theoryinformed analysis of Baker (2006) as its theoretical framework to examine how narrative is used to legitimize, normalize, and justify certain actions to the public. The findings suggest that through translation, MEMRI draws upon the meta-narrative of the War on Terror in furthering its ideologically laden agenda of terrorist Arabs and Muslims by publishing selective and decontextualized excerpts and mistranslation of concepts such as Daesh (داعش), Jihad (جهاد), and Jizya (جزية).

Keywords

• ideology
• isis
• media narratives
• memri
• translation
• war on terror