Introduction

The relation between media discourse, ideology and Muslim women converts represents the fertile ground to be put under examination. Cases of women and specifically Muslim converts women are critical when it comes to the existence of ideologies that strengthen divisions, difference and conflicts even among members of the same community. Falsified views and deviant beliefs circulate behind newspapers’ headlines and minimize the role of women converting to Islam marginalizing their effort and hiding their existence in the Muslim community using certain ideologies that affect the audiences’ beliefs and attitudes regarding Muslim women converts who are considered as “the Other” as illustrated by Cole and Daniel “media convey messages that potentially inform and influence attitudes and behaviors” (2005: Ⅻ). The ideological basis on which media constructs it discourse should be cautiously and critically analysed to unveil strategies and techniques used to convey discriminatory and powerful one-sided views to manipulate readers minds as media discourse has the power to insert partial and inadequate portrayals to maintain the split among the Muslim community and to fortify downgraded and subordinate ideas shaping offensive and derogatory attitudes concerning Muslim women converts. Moreover; newspapers’ discourse as being part of media has the tendency to insist on transmitting reality and offer the truth as it is; however as said by Norman Fairclough this mythical aspect of media strongly leads to the production of the social control and the reproduction of control and manipulation behind the words used:

Newspapers tend to offer sometimes contending (though often harmonizing) versions of the truth, each of which is based upon the implicit and indefensible claim that events can be transparently and categorically represented, and perspective can be universalized. This myth underpins the ideological work of the media : offering images of and categories for reality, positioning and shaping social subjects, and contributing for the most part to social control and reproduction. (N. Fairclough 1992 : 161)

Media coverage includes misrepresentation, underrepresentation and falsified information about women which is the case of many representations of Muslim women converts, who; have been almost discussed only in relation to western media since it serves clearly to perpetuate certain ideas and beliefs about Muslim women in general (brainwashed, and rejected ).

1. Data collection

The data selected for this study are originally cited in Algerian newspapers, they are selected because of belonging to the Algerian context and dealing with women converts as well. They are written in Arabic and translated into English. All fragments were extracted and analyzed through Critical Discourse Analysis “Thomson’s Modes of Operation of Ideology 1990”

2. Ideology and its modes of operation

2.1. Ideology

The concept of ideology emerged first in France in 1976 and coined by the French philosopher in order to denote “the science of ideas”. The notion acquired various significations according to Thomson (1991) ideology is a way to perpetuate symbolic forms in the social world since it is a process or a social form used to spread certain ideas and beliefs or to shape certain attitudes about others, and these ideas do not represent reality, thus; they provide distorted version of reality “a body of ideas which are alleged to be erroneous and divorced from the practical realities of political life”. (Thompson 1990: 32) Ideologies as well contribute in maintaining the social order and the hierarchy in societies, reinforcing dominance and the ruling of a given social class, giving it power over the other classes to perpetuate ideas and control the mental production within society, Marx and Engels argue that

The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas ; hence of the relationships which make the one class the one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. (Marx and Engels 1968: 21)

It is a complicated concept loaded with negative connotations especially when associated with people as being “ideological” reproduce and strengthen hating among social groups as stated by Croteau

“Ideology is a decidedly complicated term with different implications depending on the context in which it is used. In everyday language, it can be an insult to charge someone with being “ideological,” since this label suggests rigidity in the face of overwhelming evidence contradicting one’s beliefs”. (Croteau 2002: 159)

Ideologies are generally the set of ideas, beliefs and aims that a person or group holds. (Fairclough 1992: 87), and for Althusser (1971), ideologies are

“constructions of reality . . .which are built into various dimensions of the forms/meanings of discursive practices, and which contribute to the production, reproduction or transformation of relations of domination”.

Thus, ideologies are beliefs that are either personal or shared by members of one group perpetuated to manipulate and dominate the consumers of these beliefs. Ideologies have power over the social reproduction by means of controlling people’s minds as put by Teun A. Van Dijk:

In sum, our first step is to recognize that ideologies consist of socially shared beliefs that are associated with the characteristic properties of a group, such as their identity, their position in society, their interests and aims, their relations to other groups, their reproduction, and their natural environment. This is one of the reasons why we provisionally defined ideologies in terms of the socially shared basic beliefs of groups. (Van Dijk 2003 : 12)

In communication studies ideologies maintain asymmetrical power relations through discourse, as John Hrtley argued “in cultural/ communication studies, ideology is seen as the practice of reproducing social relations of inequality within the sphere of signification and discourse” (2002: 103). For Van Dijk they are fake ideas and convictions perpetuated by the dominant group in order to naturalize and legitimize their superiority, control and authority over members of society and to cover up the socioeconomic reality of the working class

“Ideologies were forms of “false consciousness”, that is, popular but misguided beliefs inculcated by the ruling class in order to legitimate the status quo, and to conceal the real socioeconomic conditions of the workers” (Van Dijk 2003: 7)

Furthermore; ideologies serve as a means to distribute power among groups and uphold differences between them in order to sustain the superiority of one over the other as it is the case of “Gender Ideologies” Van Dijk argues that

“they are fundamentally about gender, being a women or a men, as feminist or sexist ideologies show, or about race and ethnicity, as it is the case for racist and antiracist ideologies” (Van Dijk 2003: 12).

For feminists they have a great role in preserving the system of “the male centered society, where; societies turn around male members, men dominate, control, decide and legitimate their acts act of abuse against women members. Gender ideologies are beliefs and assumptions that naturalize women’s subordination and inferiority to men within androcentric societies, and then they determine and shape attitudes about women whether they conform to society’s assumptions and perception of femininity or not:

The same is true for the feminist movement and hence for the various ideologies of feminism : They arise in the broader societal context of male chauvinism, gender inequality and the institutional arrangements that have supported and perpetuated the subordinate position of women. That is, ideologies are so to speak the ’cognitive’ counterpart of social struggle and inequality. They are not only shaped by these social structures, but largely also sustain and reproduce them by monitoring the discourses and other social practices of group members, which at the micro-level realize the structures inequality, domination and resistance. (Van Dijk 2003: 38)

Additionally; gender ideologies distribute power relations between men and women in society, they are in service of power to determine who is dominating and who is the dominated as defined by Thomson ideology is “meaning in the service of power” (Thompson1990: 7). Ideologies regarding gender concentrate on differences between men and women and reinforce male’s dominance within societies as being shared beliefs that are deviated from reality; they serve to describe women as inferior and not competent as men, women are less intelligent, passive and subordinate to men, they ought to take care about their families and be reserved for the domestic sphere for people who believe in traditional gender role ideology women should be occupied with family responsibilities as illustrated by Gutek, Searl & Klepa (1991) what makes them meet with “gender stereotypes”. Gender ideologies strengthen asymmetrical power relations among men and women, men are socially more powerful than women especially in cases of ruling or effective roles in societies, at work place gender ideologies affect stance towards women as stated by Moya , Navas and Gomez-Berrocal (1991) these roles are hierarchically distributed on the basis of sex, support gender discrimination because of the prescriptive function that they are built upon and conforming what is appropriate for women and for men each alone.

2.2. Thomson’s Modes of Operation of Ideology 1990

The following table is providing an explanation of the second Critical Discourse Analytical approach elaborated by John B. Thompson in 1990 to have a closer look at ideologies perpetuated in the Algerian newspaper discourse representing Muslim women embracing Islam.

Modes of Operation	Linguistic Strategy	Explanation
Legitimation	Rationalization	Justify of rationalize social relations
	Universalization	Argue that institutional relations that serve few groups benefits everyone
	Narrativization	Relate current social relations within traditions and stories of the past
Dissimulation	Displacement	Use a term that normally refer to something else
	Euphemization	Shift the descriptive language to give social relations a positive “Spin”
	Trope	The figurative use of language, including synecdoche, metonymy and metaphor
Unification	Standardization	Create a union of individuals or groups through the standardization of language and symbols
	Symbolization of unity	Create a collective identity among groups from the adoption of shared set of symbols
Fragmentation	Differentation	Emphasize differences between groups
	Expurgation of the other	Create a common enemy to unite people in opposition
Rr Reification	Naturalization	Present situations as national and as the outcome of a natural historical process
	Externalization	Portray situations without their historical background
	Nominalization	Turn actors and actions within a sentence into nouns

Taken from Brasier (2002: 241)

Thomson (1984) emphasizes that investigations regarding ideology is the investigation of the manipulation of meaning to strengthen asymmetrical power relations and support domination and authority of particular groups over others and the power behind words and the symbolic forms shaping strategies that have a major role in ideology perpetuation.

Through discourse and mainly newspapers’ discourse ideologies flow through the linguistic forms that construct the whole discourse apart from the social and the historical background they are made to cover. They are required to be viewed as linguistic constructions since they exhibit expressions and structures burdened with précised significances and messages; that’s why they ought to be studied and analyzed to uncover their role in serving ideologies and perpetuating them smoothly under the name of news accessibility and transfer.

The forms of discourse which express ideology must be viewed, not only as socially and historically situated practices, but also as linguistic constructions which display an articulated structure. Forms of discourse are situated practices and something more, precisely because they are linguistic constructions which claim to say something. (John B. Thompson 1984 : 185)

The above table shows the organization of the approach proposed by Thomson in 1990 to explain how ideologies may circulate in discourse and the way analysts proceed to unveil their occurrence and facilitate the disclosing of objectives behind such a use of certain linguistic forms and discourses. This systematic analysis provided by Thomson strengthens the validity of the present study since it helps in carry on the analysis of discourse presented by the articles in a systematic and an organized way, this inventory serves at dealing with the analysis respecting each category of analysis which is named by Thomson as “mode of operation of ideology” i.e. manner discourse is used to make ideologies seem as an innocent part of the discourse delivered, it assists the researcher to give a careful reading and interpretation of the discursive representation of Muslim women converts in the Algerian newspapers.

Thomson’s model is a combination of five discursive structures and within each structure he clarifies more with the discursive strategy used to reach the perpetuation of the implicitly circulated ideology, in a methodical manner Thomson categorizes each strategy and gives an explanation to the possibility of its occurrence in a certain discourse. He starts with Legitimation that may be explained according to Thomson is a procedure of establishing power relations and legitimizing the dominance of a group, a class, gender or category over another; it is the exercise of brainwashing and playing with linguistic forms and discourses to convey specific beliefs and ideas and to set up asymmetrical relations among groups and represent them as being the magical and natural way in which they should come about in order to gain support and justify the disequilibrium in power distribution between the represented groups. Legitimation itself is divided by Thomson into three linguistic strategies that sustain the transmission of ideologies in discourse; these strategies are set as follows: Rationalization, Universalization and Narrativization.

First, Rationalization is that is defined by Thomson as a discursive structure that naturalizes the hierarchal organization in social relations or in the case of this study the gender relations, for instance this strategy justifies the categorizations among men and women in a certain society, the privilege or the abuse of the portrayed group is manifested and discursively described as the actual and the natural way in which things go on. The second linguistic strategy is Universalization as clarified by Thomson is the strategy that represents a group of institutional decisions and policies as being in favor of all individuals and categories, whereas; in reality these policies or institutions supply profits to specific groups or individuals so as to attract the approval of the abused groups; who are misled by this discursive strategy to preserve and maintain the privileges enjoyed by the preferred forces. The third linguistic strategy enlightened by Thomson is Narrativization; he identifies it as exposing stories, narrations and traditions invented to sustain the interests of a certain society through the making of the world’s constructions and norms. Throughout this strategy the cited social interests are consciously naturalized, generalized and believed to be the logical ways in which human relations should be set in societies.

The second mode of operation of Ideology in Thomson’s inventory is Dissimulation; it is the concealing and the obscuring of ideology all the way through discourse. Following this method, relations of domination and power exercising are denied and hidden behind the linguistic forms used or symbolized and deviated in order not to shed light on the intended objective of setting and maintaining authorities and domination. It is a mode that uses other three linguistic strategies as well to make possible the transfer of ideologies throughout discourse, it gathers under its meaning three other linguistic strategies: first; Displacement as identified by Thompson (1990) is the use of a term that has a specific meaning in order to mean another thing, the shift in the linguistic use of given terms emphasizes the deviation of meaning to hide from view what cannot be said in a direct way. Then; Euphemization , which is the highlighting of the importance end the positive roles of social relations and actions or even institutions that uphold this kind of relations , this strategy brings to mind an optimistic evaluation concerning these institutions and relations and embodies it as being constructive and productive as well.

Thompson (1990) clarifies more with examples on using words with certain significations to express different ones “the violent suppression of protest is described as the restoration of order’; a concentration camp is described as a ’rehabilitation centre’; institutionalized inequalities based on ethnic divisions are described as ’separate development’; foreign labourers deprived of citizenship rights are described as ’guest workers”. Thompson adds as a linguistic strategy in Dissimilation “Trope”; it is using language in a discourse which is figuratively constructed, the meaning is not said explicitly and clearly, instead other forms are used to perpetuate the intentional meaning, within Trope using Synecdoche is one form to dissimulate meaning via the application of a word that refer to part of something to mean the entire thing or the other way around like reversing social relations among groups in a trial to confuse the audience the illustration provided by Thompson is about referring by Irish people to the whole government or a rugby team. Trope may be also realized by means of Metonymy that is the replacement of a quality or a feature or even a term to substitute the name or the thing represented. Metaphor is another technique to attain Trope and then dissimulate the meaning; it is to make a combination between a term, a word or a characteristic and an act or an entity or an element to be represented regarding that there is no literal relation between the tow. Unification, it is a mode where ideology operates to create a common ground between participants or the groups portrayed, this method aims at unifying individuals and group and mentioning shared interests and emphasizing the united identity regardless of differences and divergences among them. Unification gathers a set of linguistic strategies to arrive at the operation of ideology through discourse, Standardization is one of these strategies and the example given by Thompson is the standardization of English in South Africa to be a national language in order to unify people around the country and to cover differences, the emphasis on sharing or speaking the same variety is a way to accentuate the similarities and collectivity between the population of South African people and to make them feel the importance of being united and having the same interests and the same destiny, generating the sense of identity is one appearance of ideology in discourse according to Thompson.

Symbolization of Unity is another key strategy to circulate ideology through discourse and even through newspapers’ discourse and mentioning details like the flag or anthems. Whereas; Fragmentation is the opposite of Unification in which it serves at perpetuating the ideology of difference, sustain and highlights distinctions and variations to symbolize them as threatens to the unity of a given society, using this type of ideology aims at dividing groups and splitting societies into categories and then creating conflicts and rejection among the members of this society and mainly this mode is based on Differentiation that disunite people. Expurgation of the other is another part of Fragmentation that emphasizes the portrayal of a collective enemy, such a creation of a common evil to a certain group as named by Thompson makes this group comes around and tries to resist as one unit having the same objective and enemy.

In addition to the previous mentioned modes of operation of ideology proposed by Thompson is Reification that is the representation of a historical event or situation as being natural and ordinary so as to seem permanent, usual and everlasting; to circulate ideology through Reification in discourse historical events are either suppressed, eliminated or obfuscated. Distinctions between men and women and the use of natural differences in certain characteristics as well are the corps parts in Naturalization which is a linguistic strategy included in Reification.

Externalization, is another strategy under the umbrella of Reification, it is a way to portray social norms, traditions customs and beliefs in a given society as being firm, unchangeable and valid for all times thanks to their historical background and nature. Nominalization and Passivization are two grammatical and syntactic apparatus; Nominalization is reached through turning sentences, parts of them, actions or agents into nouns in sentences as an illustration Thompson suggested the following “E.g. ’The King has decided to ban imports’ becomes ’the banning of imports’”. Passivisation is a means to perpetuate ideology and to circulate certain beliefs and ideas. Both Nominalization and Passivization focal point is the process or the event and not the agents or the other parts of a sentence, the actors are suppressed or not spotted to highlight the process.

3. Discussion

• Rationalization: through discourse delivered in the Algerian newspapers discourse regarding women who convert to Islam from various parts of the world, the relation between these women and their patriarchs is naturalized and the need to be surrounded by the male authority is represented in different ways for example the relation between the convert woman and her father even after his rejection of the act of converting.

Eg1 : a daughter of a very known politician in Italy converts to Islam.

In the example above the father who is the patriarch is strongly emphasized “very known” and the girl is referred to using this relation of fatherhood instead of being clearly mentioned as an independent social actor.

Eg2 : An Italian parliaments daughter embrace Islam.

The same relation of fatherhood is emphasized without revealing even the name of the girl, although the article is supposed to present her as the main person who did the conversion.

• Universalization: The readers of the articles that narrate the stories of women converting to Islam find that born Muslims are extremely supportive, helpful and appreciative towards these women who come from different parts of the world to join them looking for support and aid. Yet; written certificates are required for “the new muslims” as said in one of the articles to prove their Islam, even more many of converts do not get this certificate easily. Another way to measure the truth of the absolute acceptance of women converts is the comments that are written just below the articles. The comments left by readers divide the born muslim community into the ones who fully accept and celebrate the conversion to Islam and the other ones who refuse to believe their conversion, provide ironical comments and describe them as liars or spies.

Eg1 : when a person reveals his/her Islam , he/she does it in the form of the singular (saying shahada) after that he/she becomes part of every Muslim, because believers are like parts of the same body [….believers are brothers and sisters , they are one nation (ummah) ]
Eg2 : one of the comments describing the Italian convert to Islam : “When she finishes the mission, she will clean her shoe with it (niqab) and leave it for you to put around your waist and dance.”
Eg3: “another comment about an American woman converting to Islam and trying to write a book on Hallal food: “started to doubt these westerners, who convert to Islam since Arabs are known about their stupidity and silliness, they glorify all what is fair hair and colored eyes, then these people (converts) take money and facilities that they did not have in their countries.”

• Narrativization: The Algerian newspapers’ articles state that women convert to Islam are all wearing Hijab or they put it just after their conversion, whereas it is not the case for all women who convert to Islam. Discourse of these articles tries to generalize ideas about all muslim women.

Eg: “yasmina decided to convert to Islam and put hijab”
Eg: “miss Moscow converts to Islam, puts Hijab and marries the king of Malaysia”
Eg: “….. the girl after converting to islam and putting Hijab”

• Dissimilation: the patriarch and his authority over Muslim women converts are omnipresent in the discourse of Algerian newspapers, domination, submission or support by convert women to their patriarch even in cases of the rejection of the patriarch to accept the choice of women to convert to Islam are all elements that appear clearly in the same discourse to emphasize the status -quo of between men and women converting to Islam.

Eg: ….. and Mr kamel Belasel Director of Islamic Matters in the city of Blida who gave a breath to her religious activity.
Eg: this event was attended by a group of muslims and muslimahs; first Mr abd alkareem, Mr kamel beasel, and Mr ahmed hamadouch, and the writer of thes words too.
Eg: despite her Hijab she still provides support to her father.

• Trope: the use of metonymy in describing Muslim women converts.

Eg: this senior girl young in age, old in her way of thinking

• Unification: symbolization of unity: the discursive relations created by the Algerian newspapers tries to depict Muslim omen converts and born Muslims as one unity, neglecting that their conversion is not convincing to certain born Muslims or not accepted for them. This kind of discourse that speaks about the absolute acceptance of the conversion of western or non-muslim women is hiding the difficulties that convert women are facing from born Muslims.

Eg: when a person reveals his/her Islam, he/she does it in the form of the singular (saying shahada) after that he/she becomes part of every Muslim, because believers are like parts of the same body […. believers are brothers and sisters, they are one nation (ummah)]
Eg: and she decided to be part of Muslims and convert to Islam

• Fragmentation: on the other hand the same discourse that symbolizes Muslim women converts and born Muslims as belonging to the same community and as the same parts of the same body that is the Muslim nation is providing another angle of discursive ideologies, this angle is represented in emphasizes differences between born Muslims and women converting to Islam and focusing on their non – muslim identity even after conversion to Islam, for instance; maintaining their western names, emphasizing their western nationalities, ignoring the women who committed the conversion to Islam and focusing on people who attended or oriented her and mentioning their system of belief or religion before becoming a muslim.

Eg1: her name is Elisabeth didam
Eg2: The polish young girl Monika Ana Kuselak
Eg3: A young French women converts to Islam
Eg4: A girl called polina Kushina Petrova is 21 years old.
Eg5: she was an atheist before.

Conclusion

The relation between media and Muslim women converts is clearly seen as ideological since they are represented in different discourses that is illusive for readers. In Algeria narrations about Muslim women converts vary through discourse in media in which a variety of ideologies and falsified ideas spread to determine behaviors and attitudes of either born Muslims or non-muslims towards women who come to embrace Islam. Women in this case are seen as a prototype of the traditional dependent ones, patriarchal ideologies still appear in the Algerian newspapers’ discourse that maintains the role of women in cooking like the cas of the American convert Mafi or the caring and the devoting daughter “the Italian convert”, no reference for them as active social members in public and professional sphere the reader cannot find any information about women converts’ occupations, this exclusion reinforces the limited role of women in patriarchal societies, the fact that conform the Algerian beliefs about women.. newspapers represent women who embraced Islam discursively in a manner that is not different from the traditional image of women in the different patriarchal societies. Inconsistency is another element that shapes the Algerian newspapers’ discourse regarding women converting to Islam where readers fined lines speaking about these Muslim women as strangers referring to their previous religions, nationalities, previous names, aiming at naturalizing and reproducing ideologically this difference that is one of the main characteristics of newspapers’ discourse. The ideological categorization and the classification of women, their ignorance as separated and independent identities and their misrepresentation in media discourse maintain androcentric principles. The emphasis on differences and origins is an ideological attitude towards Muslim women converts in which there is an implied objective enlarging the gap among Muslims themselves. The patriarch is an omnipresent feature in the discursive portrayal of women converting to Islam; it is a clear sign of the limited space allowed to women in the Algerian society, dependence to men, male surveillance and the importance of having a male member in a women’s life are recurrent ideas and beliefs in Algerian news paper’s discourse. Discourse of media in the Algerian context reproduces the same ideologies about women and applies them to Muslim women converts to reinforce the traditional roles and generalize patriarchal beliefs about women in general, considering all the previously mentioned portrayals provided about women embracing Islam the trial to maintain misrepresentation and discursive abuse is obviously seen through Algerian media discourse. As a result; the picturing of Muslim women converts in reality is another angle of seeing women no matter what is the occupation, the educational level, the nationality or the religion, patriarchal standards applies to all women for discourse delivered ideologically in the Algerian newspapers.