Publication Date

Fall 2009

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Journalism and Mass Communications

Advisor

Bill Tillinghast

Subject Areas

Journalism.; Middle Eastern Studies.; Mass Communications.

Abstract

By utilizing both framing and descriptive analysis, this study examined how an Arab media outlet, Al-Jazeera, with an increasingly global reach framed the Palestinian-Palestinian conflict. The 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and the 2007 fall-of-Gaza under the control of Hamas were two critical Palestinian events that warranted an examination of how coverage of these two periods was framed. Thirty frames were found in Al-Jazeera's coverage of the two mentioned critical events. These frames were categorized into seven major sets of frames. The civil war and the politics' sets of frames dominated Al-Jazeera's coverage in the fall-of-Gaza period, and the elections and politics' sets of frames dominated Al-Jazeera's coverage in the elections' period. The study tested the tone of the coverage to determine whether there was favoritism shown to Hamas. Overall, the channel's presentation of the news related to Palestinian coverage was neutral with significant favoritism to Hamas especially in the fall-of-Gaza period. Another finding of this study was that Al-Jazeera's coverage of both time periods was heavily episodic. Two compositional elements, camera angle and proximity of subject to viewer, were analyzed for this study, and Al-Jazeera conveyed a sense of credibility and objectivity by using images that act as records of events. Therefore, visual elements were not used as framing devices that would result in favoritism to Hamas.

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