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Critical Language Analysis of Palestinian and Israeli Online Newspapers Critical Language Analysis of Palestinian and Israeli Online Newspapers and News Websites during the 2014 Gaza War RAMI QAWARIQ A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE LANCASTER UNIVERSITY UNITED KINGDOM October 2016 i Declaration I declare that the thesis is my own work, and has not been submitted in substantially the same form for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. Rami Qawariq October 2016 ii Abstract It is widely accepted that the struggle over media representation within the Palestinian-Israeli struggle is no less important than the struggle on the ground (Wolfsfeld, 1997). Although the role of the media in this struggle has been a focal interest for researchers, the vast majority of studies are based on content analyses (see Kempf & Shinar, 2014). They mostly adopt top-down approaches with macro-level tools of analysis which lead to a dichotomous positive ‘Self’ and negative ‘Other’ representation. This study, in contrast, is a qualitative language-based analysis of three Israeli and three Palestinian online newspapers and news websites during the 2014 Gaza war. The study analyses a limited number of news articles from newspapers and news websites that are indicative of the media landscape on each side. The choice of these outlets is intended to present a range of possible views. The study adds to the effort which approaches media discourse to detect fissures and dissonances rather than identifying stabilities and symmetries. To achieve its aims, the study adopts Critical Discourse Analysis as a general framework and adheres to the dialectical-relational approach (Fairclough, 1995a, b, 2000, 2003) as an overarching approach. It takes account of transitivity (Halliday, 1985; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), the social actor model (van Leeuwen, 2008) and referential strategies (Reisigl & Wodak, 2009) to conduct its bottom-up analysis. The results of this study reveal that marginal ideologies at both ends of the ideological spectrum in Israel compete with a hegemonic Zionist discourse. The study also shows that Palestinian news websites subtly exploit representations of actions and actors in their struggle for power, representativeness and legitimacy. More interestingly, the study reveals some similarities between hegemonic ideologies on the one hand and marginal ideologies on the other, in both societies. While the former iii depend on common public knowledge, thus backgrounding much contextual information, the latter mainly function via the extensive contextualization of events. iv Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgement ......................................................................................................... 5 Dedication ...................................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER 1: Introduction ............................................................................................ 7 1.1 Overview .............................................................................................................. 7 1.2 Scope of the study and methodological motivation ............................................. 9 1.3 Position of the analyst ........................................................................................ 10 1.4 Research questions ............................................................................................. 10 1.5 Thesis structure .................................................................................................. 12 1.6 Historical background ........................................................................................ 12 1.6.1 The establishment of Israel in 1948 ............................................................. 13 1.6.2 The 1967 war: Occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ............... 16 1.6.3 The first Intifada and the Oslo Peace Process ............................................. 18 1.7 Present-day political and ideological background ............................................. 20 1.7.1 The political and ideological landscape in Israel ......................................... 20 1.7.1.1 Zionism ................................................................................................. 20 1.7.1.2 Post-Zionism ......................................................................................... 22 1.7.1.3 Neo-Zionism ......................................................................................... 24 1.7.2 Political and ideological landscape in Palestine .......................................... 26 1.7.2.1 Palestinian National Liberation Movement – Fatah ............................. 27 1.7.2.2 Movement of Islamic Resistance – Hamas ........................................... 29 1.8 The Gaza Strip .................................................................................................... 31 1.8.1 Socio- and geopolitical realities................................................................... 32 1.8.2 Siege of Gaza ............................................................................................... 33 1.8.3 Hamas-Fatah conflict ................................................................................... 34 1.8.4 Cast Lead and Pillar of Defence: Israel’s wars against the Strip in 2008/9 and 2012................................................................................................................ 35 1.8.5 2014 Gaza War ............................................................................................ 38 1.8.6 Ground invasion: the battle of Shejaiyeh..................................................... 40 CHAPTER 2: Journalism and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict ..................................... 43 2.1 Overview ............................................................................................................ 43 2.2 Historical background ........................................................................................ 44 2.3 Journalism and the ethno-national agenda ......................................................... 45 2.3.1 ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in Israeli newspapers ...................................................... 47 2.3.2 ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in Palestinian newspapers .............................................. 49 2.4 Online journalism ............................................................................................... 53 2.5 Critical discourse analysis .................................................................................. 58 2.5.1 Discourse as a social practice ...................................................................... 60 2.5.1.1 Context .................................................................................................. 61 2.5.1.2 Ideology ................................................................................................ 62 2.5.2 CDA, journalism discourse and the analysis of ideology ............................ 64 1 2.5.3 Dialectical-relational approach .................................................................... 70 2.5.4 Critique of CDA and Fairclough’s discursive functions ............................. 78 CHAPTER 3: Methods of analysis and data collection ............................................... 84 3.1 A bottom-up critical linguistic analysis ............................................................. 84 3.2 Analytical methods at the clause level ............................................................... 88 3.2.1 Transitivity ................................................................................................... 89 3.2.1.1 Material processes ................................................................................. 94 3.2.1.2 Relational Processes .............................................................................. 99 3.2.1.3 Verbal Processes ................................................................................. 102 3.2.1.4 Mental Processes ................................................................................. 103 3.2.1.5 Other process types ............................................................................. 104 3.2.2 Reference to Social Actors ........................................................................ 108 3.2.2.1 Social-actor Model .............................................................................. 109 3.2.2.2 Referential Strategies .......................................................................... 115 3.3 Frameworks of Systematization and Interpretation ......................................... 117 3.3.1 Indexing hypothesis and cascading activation ........................................... 117 3.3.2 Aspects of representation and macro-strategies of representation ............ 119 3.4 Israeli and Palestinian online newspapers and news websites: background and position in political and media landscapes ............................................................. 121 3.4.1 Israeli online newspapers ........................................................................... 121 3.4.1.1 Haaretz ................................................................................................ 121 3.4.1.2 Yediot Aharonot .................................................................................. 122 3.4.1.3 Jerusalem Post ....................................................................................
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