Palestine-Israel in the Print News Media: Contending Discourses by Luke Peterson

Author:Luke Peterson [Peterson, Luke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Political Science, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781317670360
Google: nrsbBQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 28025220
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

Frames of representation in coverage of the war on Gaza (US and UK)

Upon reading and reviewing a substantial sample of print news articles covering the December 2008–January 2009 Gaza War from both the US and British national news media communities, a number of frames of representation embedded within the coverage become evident. The frames of representation to be discussed were identified after a close reading of the news articles themselves and without any specific predetermination before the fact. Those considered here are some of the more statistically significant frames, appearing most often in the article samplings from both national news media communities considered. They are also among those frames whose discursive impact was, in the opinion of this author, potentially greatest in the development of knowledge about the events considered. That is, the frames discussed below each had the potential to significantly influence readers’ development of knowledge about the bombardment of Gaza and about the broader Palestinian–Israeli conflict in late 2008 and early 2009.

Palestinian culpability: Crucial to the assessment of culpability, whether identifying Palestinian, Israeli, or joint culpability for the fighting in 2008–2009, is the concept of historicization: the provision of reasonable historical context in the framing of news stories and the reporting of contemporary events. This is not to say that every news article emanating from this coverage should have a historical treatise attached to it in order to situate the scenario being discussed for the reader. Instead the concept of historicization indicates the provision of a small amount of historical context within certain news items can be used to clarify events and identify regional and international actors in theatres of conflict such as Palestine–Israel. In the majority of examples from US and UK sources, however, political context and/or historical background of Israeli civil and military control of all areas of historic Palestine, including the ongoing Israeli military occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip are unmentioned. At first approach, criticism of news media contending a lack of historical context may seem unreasonable given that “Journalists are [inevitably] fixated on the present.”20 Still, even allowing the “audience-attracting purposes of the press, [and] the need for daily grist”21 inherent to this process, it is feasible to include historical context especially when covering this region of conflict. Examples of coverage that includes relevant historical information impacting the development of understanding about current events is present within the article sampling analyzed here.22 These examples from the print news media include a measure of historical background serving to provide the consumer with vital material for the interpretation of events being relayed. This existence of these examples of contextualized coverage indicates the possibility of avoiding the journalistic tendency to “define events from a short-term anti-historical perspective.”23

Within the article sampling analyzed, the issue of culpability for regional violence was often central in the presentation of events. The assertion of one or the other side of the conflict as culpable for the recent round of violence made its way into most of the publications here examined.

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