Israel/Palestine Conflict: Strategic Narratives and the Battle of Frames (original) (raw)
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The International Journal of Press/Politics, 2016
Current studies focusing on the media's coverage of international conflicts have largely overlooked the important role that intergovernmental bodies may play in their framing. Still missing is an examination of how and to what degree do actions performed by such bodies help define the way journalists report on ongoing conflicts. We claim that in the absence of credible state actors to rely on for information during conflict, journalists will turn to statements made by international bodies as alternative sources of authority to shape their reporting. This study uses framing theory to examine how the United Nations General Assembly and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) became the primary definers for the international media during its coverage of the Israeli–West Bank separation barrier. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative content analysis, we examine the major news items related to the barrier that appeared between the years 2002 and 2011 in four leading newspapers in the United States and the United Kingdom (New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, and the Times). We determine what main media frames were being used during coverage of the barrier and point to the drastic change that occurred in their dominance following actions performed by the ICJ.
Two Stories for Two Nations: Public Diplomacy in the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2017
Communications, and the Co-head of the Public Diplomacy program at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel. Her main fields of research are political communication, public diplomacy, media coverage of conflicts and terrorism, and new media. A substantial part of asymmetric conflicts is the 'image war' that takes place in the foreign media. This study examines the circumstances that explain the degree to which political actors successfully promote their preferred frames regarding the conflict in which they are involved to the foreign press. The study examines Israel and the Palestinians' ability to promote their messages in various events over the last decade. Seven factors were examined, divided into three groups: focal event factors, political context factors, and message context factors. Separate examination of each predictor, followed by analysis of their shared effect, reveals that most factors have an impact on how successful political actors are at promoting their preferred frames to the foreign press. Our findings suggests that the media place greater
israel studies, 2010
Israeli public diplomacy surrounding the disengagement from Gaza and the general elections in the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2005 reflects a problematic misconstruction of Israel’s messages in English regarding its relations with the Palestinians. Based on content analysis of official documents, such as official announcements, press releases, and speeches by Israeli government officials (the PM and the foreign ministry), we point to the incompleteness of Israeli public messages aimed at non-Hebrew speakers in terms of major framing functions. Incorporating narrative analysis, we further claim that the problem of missing framing functions is part of a larger problem of misconstruction of the state’s foreign policy narrative. At the core of this problem lies a discontinuity between the definition of the problem faced by Israel, the characterization of those who are responsible for the problem, and the proposed solutions to the problem. While the definition of the problem tends to rest quite heavily on internal disputes within Israel, namely the dispute between the government and the settlers, the Palestinians are those who are held responsible for the problem, and the solution is defined as a confrontation with the Palestinians. This incoherence between the definition of the problems and the solutions offered has damaged the internal logic of Israeli public diplomacy. The article discusses these findings against the backdrop of the traditional Israeli approach toward public diplomacy as reflected by the concept of “explanation” (hasbara). It suggests that these incoherencies played a key role in the explanation of why Israel failed to achieve significant improvement in its international image following the disengagement.
Mediated Public Diplomacy: A Strategic Contest over International Agenda Building and Frame Building
Political Communication, 2009
This study focuses on the competition over international agenda building and frame building as the main step within the public diplomacy process. It is the first analysis of a multi-actor contest over agenda and frame building in foreign media, focusing on two strategic acts of public diplomacy, (1) Israel's disengagement from Gaza, and (2) the 2006 general elections in the Palestinian Authority. We examine the success of the actors in promoting their agenda or and frames to a sample of media in the US and Britain. We find a complex media arena, which includes antagonist actors, foreign governments, and the media as additional actors, each trying to promote its own agenda and frames. Cultural and political congruence between a foreign country and an antagonist who launches a dramatic event gives that antagonist an advantage over its rival actor. However, the antagonist actor still needs to compete with the agenda and frames of foreign governments and media organizations.
Thiel On the interaction between media frames and individual frames of the Israeli-Palestinian con
2012
The present paper reports on a media effects research experiment in which six groups of participants were asked to read and evaluate differently framed news articles about two scenarios: a Palestinian attack on Israel and an Israeli military operation against Palestinians. The experimental results show that media peace frames of violent events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are generally regarded by the German public as more comprehensible, less biased, more balanced and less partisan than media war frames of the same events. The specific ways in which recipients respond to the frames, however, depend on their prior knowledge of the conflict, on their positioning to the conflict and on their sensitivity to the ambivalence of war and peace for both Israel and the Palestinians. This supports the hypothesis that neither news selection nor framing have uniform effects on public opinion.
2016
This study is an attempt to comprehend how Palestinians and Israelis perceive the conflict and the peace process. It identifies the channels and dynamics related to the shaping of their perceptions on the individual, community, and political levels. The main objectives of this study are to probe the degree of homogeneity between these levels for both Palestinians and Israelis as well as the degree of discord between them on the same levels and to pinpoint intervening factors that contribute to carving out the ultimate perceptions that individuals hold. Unlike previous work, this study employs a multi-method approach to measure and benchmark of the topic at hand. To bridge further gaps, a developed matrix extends the analyses on temporalspatial dimensions of individuals’ cognitions, affections, and behaviors pertaining to the conflict. This study falls within the descriptive research that seeks probing the effect of macro-level factors (the media, and political parties/leaders) on mi...
On the Interaction Between Media Frames and Individual Frames of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
conflict & communication online, 2012
The present paper reports on a media effects research experiment in which six groups of participants were asked to read and evaluate differently framed news articles about two scenarios: a Palestinian attack on Israel and an Israeli military operation against Palestinians. The experimental results show that media peace frames of violent events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are generally regarded by the German public as more comprehensible, less biased, more balanced and less partisan than media war frames of the same events. The specific ways in which recipients respond to the frames, however, depend on their prior knowledge of the conflict, on their positioning to the conflict and on their sensitivity to the ambivalence of war and peace for both Israel and the Palestinians. This supports the hypothesis that neither news selection nor framing have uniform effects on public opinion.
2001
The Arabs and Israelis have been negotiating peace for the past ten years; however, the conflict sill ignites with no apparent hope for any near resolution. Understanding the rhetorical construction of the peace reality may help in managing this conflict. This study examines the symbolic construction of the peace process in the Arab and Israeli press. It comparatively studies how the Arab and Israeli press, through language choice, define peace, elucidate its implications, and judge actors and actions involved in the peace process. This study identifies the metaphors used and the dominant rival frames constructed in two conflicting newspapers, Assafir (Lebanese newspaper) and The Jerusalem Post (Israeli newspaper) in their coverage of the peace process in 1993 and 1996. Then the study contrasts the different perspectives of the two papers in order to specify the point of conflict and check if any basis o f “shared values” exists across the perspectives that might be useful as a basi...