Transnational media events : the Mohammed cartoons and the imagined clash of civilizations

The publication of the now famous twelve cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in Denmark in 2005 was followed by a heated controversy in the spring of 2006 that become a dramatic high point in (recent mediated) tensions between what has often been defined as the Islamic world versus the West. Although the actual news events provoked by the conflict during the spring of 2006 have now largely died down, it has become clear that the event has left an enduring residue in the form of a repertoire of images and assumptions. To a considerable extent, and from both sides, this residue has to do with modes of portraying each other as well reinforcing existing clichés that have been used to make sense of later news. At least on the short term the controversy seems to have become a defining moment, a landmark event. This volume is a selection of readings that exhibit many of the ways in which the controversy has illuminated important trends and developments in the current transnationally-mediated world of politics and social values. These interpretations are based on a two-year long transnational media research cooperation which began by examining the coverage or reception of the controversy over the Mohammed cartoons, as it played out in fourteen countries; then, in this second phase, this collaboration has tried to take stock of wider, transnational issues and questions.