analysis of framing language and source use in the International Herald Tribune and the Jordan Times
Manaka Sajnani 1/12/03 Asian Media Final Paper The case study presented here compares the coverage of International Herald Tribune to that of the Jordan Times in addressing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. ... The International Herald Tribune tended to be more supportive of Israeli actions by employing strategies such as selective politicization, humanization and pegging when dealing with the events. ... The Jordan Times tended to be more sympathetic towards the Palestinian position even though there was a relative balance in terms of sources. ... The Jordan Times applied transitivity on a recurrent basis in reference the Israelis, thus, heightening blame on Israel’s actions. ... Furthermore, language and sources are not independent of framing. It is also necessary to understand how different approaches to uses of language and sources guide the representation of events. The first phase of this research attempted to examine framing in total of ten articles published between September 9th and September 26th. Five of those articles appeared in the Jordan Times; a non-western newspaper based in Jordan, while the other five were taken from the International Herald Tribune, a western newspaper based in France. There were some key differences in the frames adopted by the IHT and the Jordan Times when addressing Israeli and/or Palestinian deaths and injuries arising from military intervention or suicide bombings articles. ... The articles in the Jordan Times also used the same strategy of politicization as the IHT, but instigated a certain level of sympathy towards the Palestinian point of view. The International Herald Tribune’s website states that the newspaper combines “extensive resources of its own correspondents with those of the New York Times.” In the case of their coverage related to Palestinian Israeli conflict, the key source of articles in the IHT is in fact the NYT. ... This type of reporting depicts an orderly use of force by Israel against the Palestinians only for the purpose of legitimate self-defense. ... The articles in the Jordan Times tended to be more supportive of the Palestinian point of view. ... In another Jordan Times article on a suicide bombing dated 9. ... Second, the pegging of the suicide bombing to Israeli military raids clearly illustrated Jordan Time’s attempt not to limit sympathy to the Israeli side, but to include the Palestinians as well. In this way, the Jordan Times demonstrated its attempt to encourage identification with the Palestinian side of the conflict. In order to gain an insight into the Jordan’s Times coverage of the conflict, it is important to understand the background of Jordan’s relationship to Palestine. According to Brand’s journal, Palestinians and Jordanians: A Crisis of Identity, Palestinians comprise of about half the population of Jordan. The Palestinians in Jordan consist of refugees, affluent businessmen and government officials, all of whom maintain a strong Palestinian identity. In Jordan, “What underlines Palestinian identity in general is attachment to the village or town of origin, a sense of loss of homeland and of gross injustice at the hands of the international community, and the centrality of the notion of return.” (Brand, 48) The presence of PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) sponsored activities in Jordan’s domestic politics is also widespread. ... (Brand, 51) During the peace talks, Jordan served as a representative for the Palestinians, as they were denied the right to have a separate team by the Israelis and Americans. Jordan’s close ties to Palestinian can perhaps, to some degree, reflect the approach its media takes when addressing the issue of Palestine Moving on to analyze language use, the disparity between the two newspapers on Israeli military raids was made explicit in the headlines of both newspapers on 26.