Professional or personal framing? International media coverage of the Israel–Hamas prisoner exchange deal

Abstract

This article explores whether national political agendas influenced the content of domestic and foreign television news media coverage of the 2011 Israel–Hamas Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal. The deal, which released Israeli soldier Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners, is the largest prisoner exchange agreement in Israeli history for a single live soldier, but the third largest prisoner exchange agreement as a whole. A quantitative content analysis was conducted on 2,162 news reports from five international and national news networks – BBC, CNN, Fox and Israel’s Channels 1 and 2. The findings suggest important differences in the way foreign and national news networks cover controversial political events. Findings reveal that Israeli networks strongly aligned themselves with the government’s position, while the BBC provided the most balanced coverage. Prominent differences were found between the two US channels – CNN and Fox News. This work builds on a growing body of research on media framing of political events.