Palestine and Israel Representation in the National and International News Media: A Critical Discourse Study

https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.52911

Suwarno Suwarno(1*), Wening Sahayu(2)

(1) Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta
(2) Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract


Despite a myriad of studies that have been reported in analysing media discourse, few works take into account media bias. In response to this empirical gap, the present critical discourse study (CDS) aims to expose how the biggest national and international news media, The Jakarta Post and The New York Times construct the media bias in depicting Palestine and Israel regarding the latest conflicts in 2019 and 2020. The transitivity system of Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (SFL) was adopted to examine the textual features or choice of words in the clauses of 4 news articles from each news media. The findings show that both mainstream media have similarities, as if more favors to Palestine as the victim of the conflicts rather than Israel as a war criminal nation.  However, The Jakarta Post and The New York Times have different sensitivities in constructing media bias. This empirical evidence suggests that critical discourse analysis (CDA) has a pivotal role in comprehending language used in media discourses. The last but not least, combining CDA and another theoretical approach is suggested for future studies.

Keywords


critical discourse analysis; media bias; systemic functional linguistics; transitivity

Full Text:

PDF


References

Abuheweila, I. & Halbfinger, D. M. (2019, November 15). In Strike That Killed 5 Children, Israel Said It Took Out Gaza Militant. Now It Isn’t Sure. The New York Times, Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-civilian-casualties.html?searchResultPosition=2

Agence France-Presse. (2019, August 1). Exchange of fire on Gaza border kills Palestinian, wounds 3 Israel soldiers. The Jakarta Post, Retrieved from https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/08/01/exchange-of-fire-on-gaza-border-kills-palestinian-wounds-3-israel-soldiers.html

Agence France-Presse. (2019, June 30). Israel arrests Palestinian minister in Jerusalem. The Jakarta Post, Retrieved from https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/06/30/israel-arrests-palestinian-minister-in-jerusalem.html

Agence France-Presse. (2020, February 24). Israeli warplanes hit Gaza, Syria after Palestinian rocket barrage. The Jakarta Post, Retrieved from https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/02/24/israeli-warplanes-hit-gaza-syria-after-palestinian-rocket-barrage-.html

Agence France-Presse. (2019, February 28). UN probe accuses Israel of possible crimes against humanity. The Jakarta Post, Retrieved from https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/02/28/un-probe-accuses-israel-of-possible-crimes-against-humanity.html

Cheng, W. (2013). Corpus-Based Linguistic Approaches to Critical Discourse Analysis. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (pp. 1353–1360). Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0262

Eberl, J.-M., Wagner, M., & Boomgaarden, H. G. (2016). Party Advertising in Newspapers. Journalism Studies, 19(6), 782–802. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670x.2016.1234356

Fairclough, N. (1995). Media Discourse. London: Arnold.

Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. New York: Routledge.

Fairclough, N. (2015). Language and Power (3rd edn.). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Firmonasari, A., Udasmoro, W., & Mastoyo, Y. T. (2020). Understanding Secularism and National Identity in French Political Discourses. Humaniora, 32(2), 135–150. https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.v32i2.55450

Hahn, K. S., Lee, H.-Y., & Lee, J. (2016). Media Bias. The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118541555.wbiepc057

Halbfinger, D.M. (2019, October 30). Israeli Soldier Gets One-Month Sentence Over Killing of Gaza Teenager. The New York Times, Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/world/middleeast/othman-helles-killing-israel-soldier.html?searchResultPosition=5

Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar (2nd edn.). London: E. Arnold.

Halliday, M.A.K. & Matthiessen, C. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd edn.). London: Arnold.

Hidayah, S. N. (2020). Image Construction of Islamic Defenders Front in the Jakarta Post Online News. Humaniora, 32(2), 163–169. https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.v32i2.37626

Kershner, I. & Abuheweila, I. (2019, November 13). Exchanges of Fire Continue Across Israel-Gaza Border. The New York Times, Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-islamic-jihad.html?searchResultPosition=1

Li, J. (2011). Collision of language in news discourse: a functional–cognitive perspective on transitivity. Critical Discourse Studies, 8(3), 203–219. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2011.586231

Martin, J.R., Matthiessen, C.M.I.M., & Painter, C. (1997). Working with Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.

Mullainathan, S., & Shleifer, A. (2005). The Market for News. American Economic Review, 95(4), 1031–1053. https://doi.org/10.1257/0002828054825619

O’Grady, G. (2019). SFL and Critical Discourse Analysis. The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics, 462–484. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316337936.020

Osisanwo, A., & Iyoha, O. (2020). “We are not terrorist, we are freedom fighters”: Discourse representation of the pro-Biafra protest in selected Nigerian newspapers. Discourse & Society. Advance online publication (pp. 1-17). https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926520939687

Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2006). The Thinker’s Guide for Conscientious Citizens on How to Detect Media Bias & Propaganda in National and World News (3rd edn.). California: Foundation for Critical Thinking press.

Rachmianto, A. (2019, June 26). Indonesia will always stand with Palestine. The Jakarta Post, Retrieved from https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2019/06/26/indonesia-will-always-stand-with-palestine.html

Rasgon, A., & Najib, M. (2020, May 9). Israel Cracks Down on Banks over Payments to Palestinian Inmates. The New York Times, Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/world/middleeast/israel-palestinian-inmates-banks.html?searchResultPosition=36

Seo, S. (2013). Hallidayean transitivity analysis: The Battle for Tripoli in the contrasting headlines of two national newspapers. Discourse & Society, 24(6), 774–791. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926513503267

Sofyan, A. N., & Zifana, M. (2019). Representing social action in Indonesian: A case of Indonesian presidential race. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(2), 252-262. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v9i2.20216

Tang, L. (2018). Transitive representations of China’s image in the US mainstream newspapers: A corpus-based critical discourse analysis. Journalism. Advance online publication (pp. 1-17). https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918801116

Van Dijk, T. A. (2015). Critical Discourse Analysis. In D. Tannen., H. E. Hamilton., & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd edn.) (pp. 466-485). Chicester, West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons. Inc.

Wodak, R. (2001). What CDA Is About- a Summary of Its History, Important Concepts and Its Development. In R. Wodak and M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (pp. 1–13). London: Sage.



DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.52911

Article Metrics

Abstract views : 12342 | views : 9250

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




Copyright (c) 2020 Humaniora

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.