Ethnocentrism in Conflict News Coverage: A Multimodal Framing Analysis of the 2018 Gaza Protests in The Times of Israel and Al Jazeera

Abstract

This study is based on a multimodal content analysis of the news coverage of the 2018 Palestinian protests at Gaza’s borders with Israel. In particular, two regionally based transnational English language news websites were studied, The Times of Israel (TOI) and Al Jazeera (AJE), to examine whether ethnocentrism affects their coverage, and if so, how. A multimodal analysis was undertaken, with emphasis on news headlines and press photos as textual and visual framing devices. Results clearly demonstrated that the two transnational news media were indeed ethnocentric in their news coverage: one framed protesters as violent and responsible for casualties and attempts to dehumanize them; the other framed protesters as peaceful and Israeli soldiers as responsible for casualties, and tended to humanize protesters more in its textual and visual framing.