In the current debate on Islam and Muslims in Western Europe, it is often claimed that the main interested party, i.e. the Muslim organizations, has almost no saying in the public media discourse.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the discursive networks of actors in the current public media debate on Islam and Muslims in five Western European countries. Adopting a comparative perspective, we want to assess how different national citizenship models impact Muslim organizations’ importance and their interaction with institutions and civil society in the public media discourse.
By combining quantitative media content analysis and social network analysis, we want to show how social network analysis tools can broaden the interpretative perspective on data obtained through quantitative content analysis and highlight the importance of civil society actors in public discourse. The original database stems from the EURISLAM project (Finding a Place for Islam in Europe: eurislam.com).
