Speakers on “Panel 4: Disinformation and Misrepresentation” will be presenting their work from 2:00-3:20pm in Allard 123.
Katerina Kat Hansraj (SFU) | “Disinformation in the Iraq War”
This paper deals with the topic of disinformation in the Iraq war. How was the US able to blame Iraq and Saddam Hussein after 9/11, obtain public support, and justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq? This paper answers that question by attesting that the Bush administration and accompanying traditional news media outlets launched a campaign of disinformation which successfully misled the public and translated into support for the war.
This paper explores definitions of disinformation and related concepts, as well as theories on the propaganda that preceded the Iraq war. It contests and supports the debates and trends in these literatures. By providing a contextual background that includes the claims and justifications for invasion made by the Bush administration, and by showing that these claims were proven to be false, this paper argues on several points. It argues that disinformation is not a new phenomenon: that traditional media that uncritically repeated the Bush administration’s assertions were guilty of disinformation. It argues that what occurred before the Iraq war was not misinformation or any other kind of expressly misleading or biased information, but disinformation. It argues that disinformation can be successful in international politics, as evidenced here, when the US public was swayed by the disinformation purported by the Bush administration and legacy media. It also argues that disinformation can be effective in spite of political bias, as likewise evidenced by the almost undivided support for the war across the political spectrum in the US. Lastly this paper comments on the implications for global governance that this disinformation campaign and the subsequent war that it caused in Iraq can have in the future, and has already had in the past and present.
Brynne Gillies (UBC) | “Why Are We Not Past Ancient Aliens Narratives? How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Ancient Near East”
One of the most damaging practices that persists in the non-academic sphere of Near Eastern Archaeology are the constant ancient alien conspiracy theories perpetuated in online communities. These conspiracies placed throughout the internet in mass numbers argue in one format or another that almost every non-European culture and their art, architecture, and religion all are products of visitations from extraterrestrials that visited earth thousands of years ago. While these ideas may appear as nothing more than childish jokes, or perhaps idiotic ideals that only echo around in forums, they are in fact dangerous practices that have hindered the academic dissemination of archeological information, and have dominated the pop culture understanding of the Ancient Near Eastern historical past. By focusing on the theories that use sites and artifacts from the area of Mesopotamia as proof of alien intervention in human development, one can explore just how damaging ideas such as these are, and how they will always be rooted in white ethnocentric ideals.
Sabah Ghouse (SFU) | “Unveiled: Analyzing the Representation of Muslim Women in Canadian Print Media”
Following the aftermath of 9/11, Islamophobia increased significantly in Canada (Zine, 2022). Varying individuals are impacted by Islamophobia, however, studies have shown that Muslim women are often victims of Islamophobia due to their identity marker – the hijab (Zine, 2006). Jasmin Zine (2006) coined the term gendered Islamophobia to identify the specific form of discrimination experienced by Muslim women that proceed from Orientalist stereotypes. Institutional structures, such as the media, have played a role in contributing to gendered Islamophobia by reinforcing negative stereotypes through anti-Muslim imaging (Perry, 2014).
Although the general consensus amongst scholars is that the media contributes to gendered Islamophobia, some individuals have argued that media representation regarding Muslim women has improved (Kabgani, 2013). Moreover, there are limited studies that analyze the representation of Muslim women in Canadian media. Therefore, in order to explore the relationship between media and gendered Islamophobia in Canada in addition to contributing to the current literature, I will be analyzing the representation of Muslim women in Canadian print media. This study examined two Canadian newspapers, the National Post and The Globe and Mail, between the years 2017-2020. Upon reviewing 272 articles, three themes emerged: the veil, Muslim women’s rights, and Muslim women in society. Drawing upon the literature, I then measured the tone of the articles to determine whether Canadian print media reinforces or challenges Orientalist stereotypes that contribute to gendered Islamophobia. The aim of this study is to encourage further critical media literacy and to suggest recommendations to journalists.
Shehroze Ahmed Shaikh (SFU) | “Musings of the unlettered: Bazaar-gup and the Surveillance of Muslim Political Expression in the Bombay Presidency, 1912-14”
Towards the end of the First World War, the British Indian state commissioned a report to examine the causes of anti-colonial sentiment in the colony. After thorough examination, the Sedition Report, led by Justice Rowlatt, argued that anti-colonial resistance in India was rooted primarily in the dissatisfaction of the Hindu Brahmin sections of the population, particularly in the Bombay Presidency. Muslim resistance was tucked away into a one-page long afterthought, titled ‘The Muhammadan Current’ which argued that Indian Muslims are largely loyal subjects, with only a miniscule section of the populace susceptible to ‘foreign, pan-Islamic influences.’ However, a thorough examination of on-ground, everyday police surveillance in the Bombay Presidency, shows that the region was a ripe with Muslim discontent across classes and sects. What might account for the discrepancies in the understanding of Muslim political expression across colonial administrative hierarchies?
This paper will read colonial surveillance reports against the grain to extract insights, and argue that the lexicons of power employed in surveillance regimes cause large-scale erasures of Muslim political expression in the archive of South Asian history. Zoning in on the sites of ‘information panics,’ as discussed by C.A. Bayly, it will examine reports at the fringes of the colonial information order – rumours, speculations, rituals – to shed light on how globalized ideas of Muslimness were reflected in the local, everyday political expressions of the Presidency’s Muslims.