Global Populism: Its Roots in Media and Religion| Mediating Muslim Victimhood: An Analysis of Religion and Populism in International Communication

Abstract

This article examines the mediation of Muslim victimhood and its articulation with religiously inflected populist tropes through the lens of Turkey’s first international news channel, TRT World (Turkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu—Turkish Radio and Television Corporation). Through a discourse-historical analysis, this article sheds light on the thematic frameworks embodied in TRT World documentaries that tackle Muslim suffering and Islamophobia while contextualizing them within the AKP’s ideational framework. In doing so, it contributes to the scholarly literature on the nexus of populism and religion, which has been dominated by analyses of right-wing populist parties and movements in contemporary Europe and the United States.