Colors and Orientalism as associations: Exploring the semiotic (re)presentation of Saudi women in British and Saudi newspapers

Abstract

Media representations can have significant influence in shaping opinions and influence public response to certain communities or gender and ethnic representations around the world. Investigating semiotic representation in linguistic discourse as vehicles for meaning in culture has been a fruitful area of research over the past decades. This study explores how stereotypes of women feed into the representations of Saudi women in contemporary press in Britain and Saudi Arabia. The focus is on the newspaper genre. Data for this study have been gleaned from a particular set of British and Saudi newspapers. Using the Color Image Scale (CIS) as a research tool, this study yielded a number of findings, the main one of which is the discrepancy in Saudi women's representation in the journalistic discourse under study. In addition, variances in color choice and usage between the newspapers in the present study were apparent. The study provides an important opportunity to advance our understanding of Saudi women's representation in British versus Saudi newspapers. The present study also makes a major contribution to research on critical discourse analysis by demonstrating how power as well as orientalism impact Saudi women's representation. The findings of this study are important for scholars of gender, religion, media, and cultural diversity.