Media Coverage of Palestinian Children and the Intifada

Abstract

Using qualitative and quantitative research tools, this article attempts to examine the media coverage of Palestinian children in relation to the current Palestinian uprising. The criteria for the selection of the news outlets and indicator categories were agreed upon by Birzeit University Media Institute and the UNICEF representative. The regional and international outlets selected were as follows: NBC TV (US), BBC World Service radio station (UK), The Guardian (UK), Aljazeera TV (Qatar), The New York Times and The Jerusalem Post. All the outlets are representative of regional and international categories and are leaders in terms of news-making or represent contrasting political views. The results of this particular study seem to confirm assumptions that Palestinian children have very little media access and issues relating to them rarely feature in the dominant news narrative despite the privileged position of the Middle East crisis in these international news agendas.

Proactive crisis communication? News coverage of international conflicts in German print and broadcasting media

“…Furthermore, the high relevance of the news factors damage and aggression in the phase of escalation, while being only minimally relevant in the other phases, is noteworthy. In accordance with previous studies, which also stress the importance of these news factors in escalated conflicts (Aqtash et al, 2004;Hawkins, 2009), this strongly indicates that conflict coverage in the German news media is hardly solution-oriented or de-escalating. The fact that benefit as a news factor is almost irrelevant in all phases and media outlets additionally shows that peace journalistic reports in our sample are very rare.…”

“…The results show that the status of the event nation is one of the decisive characteristics that are relevant for covering an international conflict (Galtung and Ruge, 1965;Ismail, 2008). Crises, in particular, encompass battles, capitulations and deaths; thus, journalists and recipients perceive them as representing aggression and damage (Aqtash et al, 2004;Hawkins, 2009). Furthermore, international conflicts are usually very relevant to the potentially high number of people concerned (news factor reach), often with far-reaching consequences for their physical and financial security (Eilders and Hagen, 2005;Stengel and Maier, 2009).…”

Understanding the ideological construction of the Gulf crisis in Arab media discourse: A critical discourse analytic study of the headlines of Al Arabiya English and Al Jazeera English

“…Al Jazeera network, in particular, has been the focus of several comparative studies where its media output has been compared to the output of other international media outlets. This set of comparative studies is more concerned with comparing the media coverage of Al Jazeera network with other international news channels especially in regards to topics such as Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Aqtash et al, 2004; Barkho, 2007; Damanhoury and Saleh, 2017), Arab Spring (Al Nahed, 2016; Bosio, 2013), terrorism (Gerhards and Schäfer, 2014), among others. For instance, Damanhoury and Saleh (2017) analyzed how Al Jazeera America (AJAM) and CNN framed the 2014 Gaza war and found out that the two channels use different journalistic practices in their news coverage.…”

Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya framing of the Israel–Palestine conflict during war and calm periods

“…There is a vast body of literature on western coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. A possible break in US coverage notwithstanding (see Roy, 2010), most studies point to biased coverage which gives prominence to Israeli perspectives and marginalizes Palestine perspectives (see Aqtash et al, 2004;Deprez and Raeymaeckers, 2010;Dunsky, 2008;Elmasry, 2009;Friel and Falk, 2007;Handley and Ismail, 2010;Ismail, 2010;Kandil, 2009;Manning, 2003;Noakes and Wilkins, 2002;Philo, 2012;Philo and Berry, 2004;Richardson and Barkho, 2009;Thomas, 2011;Viser, 2003).…”