Since the conspicuously broad and vague definition of terrorism in the USA PATRIOT Act, signed into legislation on October 26, 2001 to increase governmental power in domestic security procedures, legal doctrine and normative practices of free speech have become sites of struggle over the meaning of both terrorism and freedom of expression. In 2005, twelve cartoonists drew the Prophet Muhammad for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The subsequent reprints and republications led to boycotts, protests, and riots in over 27 countries culminating in at least 139 deaths. Now known as the Danish cartoons controversy, news and entertainment sources alike narrate a story about protecting a fundamental characteristic of American identity—free speech—in the face of a terrorist threat. In American universities, David Horowitz’s proposed legislation, the Academic Bill of Rights, targets Left academics, who, according to Horowitz, “influence, in a negative way, America’s war on terror.” In August 2008, protesters at the Republican National Convention were formally charged with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism. In this dissertation, I explore how the rhetoric of free speech is a naturalizing and legitimating ideology employed to organize people around particular interests and mobilize them toward particular political ends. My research is guided by the question: How has the ideological terrain of the First Amendment—specifically, the right to free speech—changed since September 11, 2001, and why? I argue that rhetoricians should approach the traditional free speech narrative as part of an instrumental political act, as opposed to a universal principle. Cast as a discursive tool in a hegemonic struggle, the traditional free speech narrative offers the potential to open up spaces of protest and infuse ordinary citizens with political agency. Using the method of ideology critique, I develop and test these arguments through three case studies of free speech since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: the Danish cartoons controversy, David Horowitz’s Academic Freedom Campaign, and protests during the 2008 Republican National Convention. / text

Thesis (MPhil (Journalism))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / The media plays a fundamental role in shaping societies’ opinions about topical issues. Most human beings depend upon either the print media (newspapers/magazines), television or radio as their sources of news. The advent of the internet since the 1990s revolutionised the media world and created an immediacy on the impact of news like no other previous medium could provide, as it had a combination of audio and visual material. The most effective demonstration of such immediacy would be that of the impact of the September 11 attacks in the USA in 2001. The aftermath of the media’s impact still resonates throughout the world today, especially its impact on those who follow the Islamic faith. This paper aims to explore the impact of the media on this newly derived concept of Islamophobia, especially post 9/11. It includes a case study of the Islamophobic Danish cartoon controversy that occurred in February 2006. This paper discusses the concept of Islamophobia and anti-Islamism, as well as how the events of 9/11 and its media coverage contributed towards the worsening of this sentiment across the globe. The conclusion reached is that instead of the media acting as a mediator between Western society and the global Muslim community and creating an atmosphere of each understanding the other, it acted negatively against Islam, the world’s fastest growing religion.