Killing Shireen Abu Akleh : (Post)colonial news frames in colonial spaces
(2023) MKVM13 20231Media and Communication Studies
Department of Communication and Media
- Abstract
- When Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2022, news of her death made headlines worldwide. She was a prominent broadcast journalist for Al Jazeera, who was covering an Israeli military raid when she was shot in the head and killed. Palestinians and Al Jazeera were quick to hold the Israeli military responsible for her killing, but in Western news media, and notably in the New York Times, ambiguities around the shooter’s identity were emphasised.
This thesis is positioned in a wide field of research problematising coverage of Palestine and Israel in Western news media. Repeatedly, scholars find the Western news media guilty of a pro-Israel bias; in an American context, this... (More) - When Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2022, news of her death made headlines worldwide. She was a prominent broadcast journalist for Al Jazeera, who was covering an Israeli military raid when she was shot in the head and killed. Palestinians and Al Jazeera were quick to hold the Israeli military responsible for her killing, but in Western news media, and notably in the New York Times, ambiguities around the shooter’s identity were emphasised.
This thesis is positioned in a wide field of research problematising coverage of Palestine and Israel in Western news media. Repeatedly, scholars find the Western news media guilty of a pro-Israel bias; in an American context, this bias is traced to the U.S. government’s relationship with Israel. This thesis contributes to existing scholarship by addressing a lack of research into how leading non-Western news media outlets cover the same stories. With the inclusion of the Times and Al Jazeera, this thesis accounts for how one event is represented in two journalistic traditions: the leading Western one, and a newer, alternative one from the Global South, respectively. It also examines the extent to which Al Jazeera can be positioned as a contra-flow to Western news coverage of Palestine and Israel, of which the Times is a prominent example.
Questions about the viability of journalism’s pursuit of objectivity and the inevitability of bias are implicated here. The theoretical grounding of this thesis is in postcolonialism, a movement designed to dismantle the colonialism – both discursive and material – that persists in the contemporary world. Postcolonial theory is used to guide the frame analysis of 11 news articles from the Times and 45 from Al Jazeera. Two news frames are identified: Shireen Abu Akleh: A Worthy Victim and Power (Im)Balances: Framing Palestine and Israel. The frames are determined to shape the coverage of both news outlets, but are manifested differently by each.
The findings suggest that while the New York Times’ coverage does include some complexity, it obscures Israel’s colonial power and ultimately aligns with American and Israeli government narratives around Abu Akleh’s killing. Calls for accountability and justice are pervasive throughout Al Jazeera’s coverage, which is committed to revealing the nature of Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine, and how that is entwined with Abu Akleh’s killing. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9114414
- author
- Mufti, Malika Shandana LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MKVM13 20231
- year
- 2023
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- journalism, postcolonialism, colonialism, power, Palestine, Shireen Abu Akleh
- language
- English
- id
- 9114414
- date added to LUP
- 2023-06-09 15:33:19
- date last changed
- 2023-06-09 15:33:19
@misc{9114414,
abstract = {{When Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2022, news of her death made headlines worldwide. She was a prominent broadcast journalist for Al Jazeera, who was covering an Israeli military raid when she was shot in the head and killed. Palestinians and Al Jazeera were quick to hold the Israeli military responsible for her killing, but in Western news media, and notably in the New York Times, ambiguities around the shooter’s identity were emphasised.
This thesis is positioned in a wide field of research problematising coverage of Palestine and Israel in Western news media. Repeatedly, scholars find the Western news media guilty of a pro-Israel bias; in an American context, this bias is traced to the U.S. government’s relationship with Israel. This thesis contributes to existing scholarship by addressing a lack of research into how leading non-Western news media outlets cover the same stories. With the inclusion of the Times and Al Jazeera, this thesis accounts for how one event is represented in two journalistic traditions: the leading Western one, and a newer, alternative one from the Global South, respectively. It also examines the extent to which Al Jazeera can be positioned as a contra-flow to Western news coverage of Palestine and Israel, of which the Times is a prominent example.
Questions about the viability of journalism’s pursuit of objectivity and the inevitability of bias are implicated here. The theoretical grounding of this thesis is in postcolonialism, a movement designed to dismantle the colonialism – both discursive and material – that persists in the contemporary world. Postcolonial theory is used to guide the frame analysis of 11 news articles from the Times and 45 from Al Jazeera. Two news frames are identified: Shireen Abu Akleh: A Worthy Victim and Power (Im)Balances: Framing Palestine and Israel. The frames are determined to shape the coverage of both news outlets, but are manifested differently by each.
The findings suggest that while the New York Times’ coverage does include some complexity, it obscures Israel’s colonial power and ultimately aligns with American and Israeli government narratives around Abu Akleh’s killing. Calls for accountability and justice are pervasive throughout Al Jazeera’s coverage, which is committed to revealing the nature of Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine, and how that is entwined with Abu Akleh’s killing.}},
author = {{Mufti, Malika Shandana}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Killing Shireen Abu Akleh : (Post)colonial news frames in colonial spaces}},
year = {{2023}},
}