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This item was submitted to Loughborough’s Institutional Repository (https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/) by the author and is made available under the following Creative Commons Licence conditions. For the full text of this licence, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ War in Gaza A Cross-Cultural Analysis of News Reporting and Reception The case of BBC and Al-Jazeera Nour Shreim A Doctoral Thesis Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University April 2012 © Nour Shreim 2012 i CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY This is to certify that I am responsible for the work submitted in this thesis, that the original work is my own except as specified in acknowledgments or in footnotes, and that neither the thesis nor the original work contained therein has been submitted to this or any other institution for a degree. ……………………………………………. ( Signed ) ……………………………………………. ( Date) ii Abstract One of the most controversial wars in contemporary history, both in terms of the ideological powers behind it and its continued struggle for over 60 years, is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The most recent outburst of the conflict, commonly known as the Gaza War, has attracted extensive global media coverage. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, the thesis incorporates an extensive content analysis, to chart patterns and regularities within a large corpus of four broadcast media (namely BBC Arabic, BBC World, Al-Jazeera Arabic and Al-Jazeera English). It then integrates a more interpretative discourse analysis, to investigate the cultural ideas evoked linguistically and, to a lesser extent, visually throughout the coverage. Assuming a qualitative stance, it also draws upon focus groups conducted in Jordan and England to examine the public’s knowledge and understandings of the events on the ground, in addition to their evaluation of both organisations’ levels of objectivity and impartiality. To allow for a comparative dimension, the thesis develops two ‘frames’ of analysis that systematically looks at two recurring themes and scrutinises their discursive strategies and functions in the construction of meaning and ideology. These include Provocation, which examines questions of responsibility and culpability; and Proportionality which embraces matters of legitimacy and authority in relation to the humanitarian aspect of the war. The findings indicate that the actions of a protagonist may be deemed legitimate with regard to provocation, but illegitimate with regard to their proportionality. The peculiar circumstances of the war pushed the media in the direction of greater separation from the predominant ideologies ensued by the Israeli Army. It suggests that both networks lack a coherent discursive strategy at the level of the lexical in their reporting of Gaza. The empirical findings also confirm that meanings devised by viewers are pertinent to their behaviours, attitudes and beliefs. This conceptualisation formulated three ‘readings’ shaped by political, cultural and social formations: an oppositional (counter-hegemonic) reading, a dominant reading and a subliminal (sub-conscious) reading. Key Words: Gaza War • Palestinian-Israeli Conflict • Global Journalism • Foreign Correspondence • Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) • International and Transnational Communication iii Table of Contents Certificate of Originality ii Abstract iii Table of Contents iv List of Tables, Figures and Images vi Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 – The Sociology of News: a brief introduction to the culture of war 17 Introduction 17 Journalistic Impartiality –Journalistic values and norms 18 Ideology –theorising five influential models in the production of news 23 Foreign Correspondence 27 Photojournalism: television reporting and graphic representation of war imagery 36 Media Reception 40 Conclusions: States of Denial 44 Chapter 2 – Putting the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in Context 48 Introduction 48 Part I: History 48 Part II: Media Coverage of the Arab Israeli Conflict 64 Chapter 3 – Research Methodology: putting research questions and coding 75 practice in frame Introduction 75 Research Questions 76 Methodological Framework and Sample 78 The Methods 85 Chapter 4 – Analysing Media Messages: a content analysis 102 General Reporting 102 Reporting Locations 108 The Presence and Access of News Sources 110 Themes 122 Use of Language 130 Contextual Framework and Historical Background 135 Deaths and Casualties 138 Conclusions 139 Chapter 5 – Provocation: who started it, who is to blame and why are they 144 iv fighting? Introduction 144 Characterisation of the actors, their actions and the events that make up the 145 conflict Was it a war against Hamas or the Palestinian population? Was it to secure Israeli 153 security or to maintain Palestinian suffering? To whom is agency for these actions and events attributed and how? 163 Ideologies underlying Provocation 170 Conclusions 172 Chapter 6 – Proportionality –War Crimes, Causalities and Humanitarian Suffering: 174 a discursive and visual analysis Introduction 174 Commission: 5th January 2009 –bombing the house of the al-Samouni family 175 Omission: 6th January 2009 –UNRWA school attacks 190 ‘Rain on Fire’: the use of illegal weapons against civilian populations 212 Conclusions 231 Chapter 7 – ‘Public Recollections of Gaza’: a comparative study of Jordanian and 234 British audiences Introduction 234 Oppositional (Counter-Hegemonic) Reading: participants with pre-existing beliefs or 236 political biases Subliminal (Sub-Conscious) Reading: participants with no prior knowledge to the 244 conflict Dominant (Hegemonic) Reading: participants with cultural awareness of the 249 conflict The Israeli Attacks on the UNRWA School: a news practice 254 Conclusions 261 Conclusion: Towards a new form of mediated conflict 264 Bibliography 275 Appendix A 296 Appendix B 299 Appendix C 320 Appendix D 322 Appendix E 325 v List of Tables, Figures and Images List of Tables Table 4.1 Average number of items per day, by broadcaster 103 Table 4.2 Average length time of news items in seconds 104 Table 4.3 BBC and Al-Jazeera reporting locations 109-10 Table 4.4 First 5 sources mentioned by broadcaster 112 Table 4.5 News presence and news access by broadcaster 114 Table 4.6 Breakdown of Israeli and Palestinian sources, by broadcaster 115 Table 4.7 Breakdown of all actors by broadcaster 118-9 Table 4.8 Breakdown of all actors by broadcaster 120 Table 4.9 Chi-square testing of sources by broadcaster 121 Table 4.10 Chi-square testing by broadcaster (actors) 122 Table 4.11 Summary of themes/news frames by broadcaster 123 Table 4.12 First 3 themes mentioned by broadcaster 125 Table 4.13 The 3 P’s: Provocation, Proportionality and Peace by broadcaster 125 Table 4.14 Breakdown of all news frames by broadcaster 128-9 Table 4.15 Chi-square testing by broadcaster (themes) 130 Table 4.16 Use of lexicon by broadcaster (%) 131-2 Table 4.17 Use of lexicon by broadcaster (%) 133 Table 4.18 Use of lexicon by broadcaster (%) 134 Table 4.19 Use of lexicon by broadcaster (%) 135 Table 4.20 Contextual framework and background of the Middle East conflict 136-7 by broadcaster Table 4.21 References to death and casualties by broadcaster 139 List of Figures Figure 2.1 United Nations Partition Plan (UN resolution 181) 50 Figure 3.1 Theoretical sampling of focus group participants 83 vi Figure 4.1 Number of news items related to the Gaza Conflict/ broadcaster 103 Figure 4.2 Average length of news items by broadcaster 104 Figure 4.3 Length of news items per broadcaster 105 Figure 4.4 Number of News items by date 106 Figure 4.5 Number of items per day per broadcaster 107 Figure 4.6 Top 5 actors referenced by broadcasters 118 Figure 5.1 Headlines from selected news networks 146 Figure 5.2 Lexicon used to refer to the war 152 Figure 5.3 AJE Interview with Ofer Gendelman 157 Figure 6.1 Interview with Marc Garlasco 220-1 Figure 6.2 Interview with Yigal Palmor 222 Figure 7.1 Summary of the participants readings of the Gaza Conflict 236 Figure 7.2 Participants’ readings of the Gaza War media messages by shared 262 cultural and political formations and practices Figure 8.1 Theoretical conceptualisation determining the shift in media tone 274 throughout the war List of Images Image 2.1 The separation wall 55 Image 2.2 Gazan’s daily life 59 Image 6.1 White phosphorus shells 230 Image 6.2 White phosphorus shells falling on built-up areas in the Gaza Strip 230 Image 6.3 Palestinian victims of WP shells 231 vii Acknowledgements It is a pleasure to thank those who made this thesis possible, from my supervisors and fellow PhD students to my friends and family… I could not have done it without you! First and foremost, I owe a debt of profound gratitude to my supervisors, Prof. David Deacon and Dr. John E. Richardson. To John, thank you for continuing to supervise me despite having moved on from Loughborough University, and for your unwavering guidance and support in providing me with invaluable insight, advice and direction. Most of all thank you for guiding me on the path I followed since our first meeting in October 2005. To David, I am deeply indebted for your willingness to take over my supervision in the third year of the PhD, for engaging so thoroughly with my data, and for providing me with strength, encouragement and the benefit of your wisdom. The depth of your knowledge and expertise has been a great inspiration. I would like to acknowledge the financial, academic and technical support of the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University, particularly in the award of a Postgraduate Research Studentship that made this pursuit possible. I would also like to express my deepest appreciation to Ms. Mona Husseini, from UNRWA, for her kindness in granting me access to the Gaza Refugee Camp. This thesis would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of my dearest friends.