The trio of evils: How and why the United States failed in winning the hearts and minds of Muslim people

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to investigate the apparent failure of the U.S. government to "win the hearts and minds" of Muslims in the post 9/11 world. Using critical discourse analysis of counter Muslim media and audience discourses (discourses criticizing and opposing U.S. policies in the Muslim world), four factors are identified as being central to this failure. They are: (1) The United States government's lack of historical, religious, social and cultural knowledge of Muslim people, (2) its foreign policies toward Muslim people, (3) U.S. media strategies, and (4) the proliferation of new communication technologies in the Middle East. The findings demonstrate that, contrary to the claims of cultural imperialism theory, local contexts influence how Muslim media and Muslim audience interpret and respond to U.S.-rooted media messages and that new communication technologies have opened up greater opportunity for participation in the public sphere. This has implications for understanding the failure to win hearts and minds of Muslims because it suggests that, the active nature of Muslim media and audiences has actually served to increase distrust of the U.S. government and, more generally, the West throughout the Muslim world.