Abstract
A review of the literature indicates a plethora of studies examining the coverage of Middle Eastern conflicts, but hardly any research has been explicitly framed as being developed from a peace/war journalism perspective. The current study, therefore, represents a substantive effort to remedy this deficiency. It examines the extent to which the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident is framed based on Johan Galtung’s classification of peace/war journalism. A content analysis of 156 online stories from Haaretz, The Guardian, and The New York Times suggests that overall differences exist among the war/peace narratives published in the three newspapers. The validity of few peace indicators used also was noted. The authors strongly advocate for the need to redefine indicators for peace journalism to reflect the concept as distinct from objective, and factual reporting.
Keywords
On 31 May 2010, commandos from the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) intercepted and boarded a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, in international waters killing nine passengers and wounding many more. Several of the Israeli commandos were also injured in the clashes that ensued between the commandos and some of the ship’s passengers. The Turkish ship was part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and the Free Gaza movement, carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, which has been under a blockade since 2006 after Hamas won the Palestinian election. The flotilla initially consisted of six ships and set out ‘to draw international public attention to the situation in the Gaza Strip… to break the (Israeli and Egyptian) blockade; and to deliver humanitarian assistance and supplies to Gaza’ (Human Rights Council, 2010: 20).
This study focuses on the coverage of an Israeli/Palestinian-related incident, specifically the 2010 Mavi Marmara event. We use the revolutionary concept peace journalism to analyze the extent to which media coverage of the Mavi Marmara case relied on peace versus war frames − that are viewed as two competing frames in covering conflicts and wars (see Galtung, 1986). We examine the coverage of online stories in three international newspapers: Haaretz, The Guardian, and The New York Times. We analyze news coverage from three timeperiods during eight months (29 May 2010 to 31 January 2011). Each time-period represents a significant stage during the Mavi Marmara incident. For example, the start date was two days before the incident. The end date was chosen for two reasons. First, it included media coverage of the Human Rights Council Report about the incident. Second, it included the report from the Israeli Turkel Commission, which also investigated the incident.
From a theoretical perspective, this research expands the study of peace journalism for two main reasons. First, this project attempts to enrich the current scholarship on media coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict in terms of war versus peace journalism. A review of past literature indicates a plethora of studies examining the coverage of Middle Eastern conflicts, but hardly any of these studies have been explicitly framed as being developed from a peace/war journalism perspective. In other words, little of the empirical work examining war versus peace frames primarily focused on events related to the Middle East. Second, because of the controversial nature of this incident in the international arena, the way different media covered the event online provides a great opportunity to examine the use of war/peace frames particularly in the context of the long-lasting Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Background: The road to the Mavi Marmara controversy
Following the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007, Israel declared Gaza a “hostile territory” and imposed a more severe blockade of the Gaza Strip (Human Rights Council, 2010: 8). The blockade was exhaustive, and had produced a humanitarian crisis according to many human rights organizations and UN investigations. The blockade included severe restriction of movement via closure of the border crossings; sweeping restrictions on the import of industrial, agricultural, and construction materials; the suspension of almost all exports; a reduction in the amounts of industrial fuel, benzene, diesel, and cooking gas allowed entry; and a significant reduction in the fishing areas and farming land accessible to Palestinians (OCHA, 2009). The humanitarian crisis was further exacerbated by Israel’s 2008–2009 assault on the Gaza Strip.
During the blockade, the Free Gaza Movement – a human rights group grounded in citizen nonviolent direct action – has attempted to travel to Gaza by sea 10 times since August 2008 (see Free Gaza Movement, 2012). They entered Gaza successfully on five separate occasions; on four other occasions they were stopped by the Israeli military, including during the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010. Their last effort was stopped in Greece by Greek authorities before they could set sail.
That the Mavi Marmara incident resulted in the deaths of nine passengers could indicate that the Israeli government perceives the Free Gaza Movement, 1 and the larger global Palestinian solidarity movement, as a threat. Indeed, this perceived threat eventually led to controversial narratives, making the analysis of media coverage of this particular event a worthwhile endeavor.
During Operation Cast Lead, Israel was able to tightly control what information international media could access during and immediately following the incident. Similarly, Israeli commandos confiscated all video footage and recording equipment from the passengers of the Mavi Marmara, including from international media, once they boarded the ship. Prior to the takeover of the vessel, Israeli forces scrambled the signals of Al-Jazeera English and Press TV, which were producing live satellite reports from the Mavi Marmara. Once these live feeds were cut, Israel was able to maintain an almost complete media blackout for nearly three days until the ship’s passengers were released from Israeli custody. During this time, the Israeli military released video footage, which was edited and produced by the IDF’s public relations body. Within hours of the attack, it was uploaded to YouTube and made available to international media (see Allan and Brown, 2010; Blumenthal, 2010). The footage showed the Israeli commandos being attacked by some of the ship’s passengers as they descended down ropes onto the top deck of the ship. Israeli government and military officials asserted that Israeli forces only shot to kill after being attacked by the passengers. Thus, they argued that although the deaths of the nine passengers killed were tragic, the commandos had to defend themselves. This justification became the dominant official Israeli narrative.
However, the accounts given by the passengers on board the Mavi Marmara told a very different story. Many of the passengers said that the use of force by the Israeli commandos was excessive, and that the commandos had opened fire before they boarded the ship with a perceived intent to kill, and not in self-defense as the Israeli military claimed. According to the autopsy results obtained by The Guardian (Booth, 2010), the nine deceased men aboard the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times from 9 mm bullets, many of which were shot at close range. Five died from gunshot wounds to the head; five of the victims were also shot through the backside of their bodies, Additionally, the report about the incident produced by the Human Rights Council corroborates the autopsy report and also determined “that live ammunition was used from the helicopter onto the top deck prior to the descent of the soldiers,” thereby offering a counter claim to the official Israeli assertion that its commandos shot to kill only in self-defense (Human Rights Council, 2010: 27). 2
The birth of peace journalism
Galtung and Ruge (1965) first articulated contours of the peace journalism concept without explicitly referring to it in an essay in the mid 1960s. The ground-braking concept later entered journalistic discourse in the 1970s (see Galtung, 1986). The goal of peace journalism since it emerged has been to shy away from a form of rather one-dimensional reporting of conflicts by promoting the idea of peace and providing a more balanced form of coverage (Galtung, 1986). In other words, peace journalism proposed a viable alternative to the more conventional war reporting − a concept, however, that has created much controversy among numerous scholars and media professionals.
According to Norwegian scholar Johan Galtung (2005) war journalism waits for violence to occur before reporting and lacks historical context. In his view it is violence/war, propaganda, elite and victory-oriented; it utilizes a dichotomized “us versus them” framework whereby it dehumanizes “them” and views “them” as the source of the problem; it exposes “their” untruths and helps “our” cover-ups and lies through propaganda efforts; it caters to elite sources and focuses on “their” violence and “our” suffering; peace means victory through a cease-fire (see Galtung, 2005).
Peace journalism on the other hand possesses strikingly different characteristics. It explores the formations of conflicts, humanizes all parties, and gives voice to all parties with empathy and understanding; it exposes untruths and cover-ups from all parties; it gives voice to the voiceless (i.e., civilians) and covers violence and suffering endured by all parties, particularly among women and children; peace is achieved through nonviolent and creative means (see Galtung, 2005). The goal of peace journalism according to Lynch and McGoldrick (2005) is to promote the idea of peace and to provide a more balanced coverage concerning all involved conflict parties by avoiding a one-dimensional style of reporting.
As mentioned earlier, much criticism has been leveled against the concept of peace journalism, primarily that it crosses the line into advocacy journalism and violates the journalistic tenet of objectivity. In terms of its implementation, it has been further criticized for its conceptual and practical weaknesses; it has been suggested, therefore, that it should strengthen its conceptual framework and empirical rationale (see Shinar, 2009). Overall, some of the literature seemed to have lumped peace journalism with development journalism and public journalism suggesting that peace journalism might represent an oversimplification of the complexities, interactions and wider determinants of news values (Cottle, 2006). Further, some opponents have even argued that a conflict frame works better than a conciliation frame, specifically because a story will be less interesting when presenting in depth explanation, background and analysis (see Fawcett, 2002).
On the other hand, other literature also highlights the opportunities to develop professional practices that could advance peace journalism. Some supporters, for example, have shown that peace journalism has been developing both conceptually and professionally (Blasi, 2004; Hoijer et al., 2002). This growth has led to a greater consideration of context, and identification of stakeholders beyond the parties directly involved in violent confrontation. Moreover, peace journalism “has raised awareness of underlying structural and cultural violence and conflict beyond the direct physical violence typical of war journalism coverage’ (Shinar, 2009). Thomas Hanitzsch (2007), for example, argues that peace journalism in fact emphasizes accepted practices of so-called “good journalism”:
Many of the principles of peace journalism are the very essence of excellence in journalism and are deeply embedded in good and many-sided journalism: to make conflicts appear transparent through background information, to give voice to the views of all rivaling parties, to expose lies, cover-up attempts and culprits on all sides and to report on the atrocities of war and the suffering of civilians. It seems that peace journalism oftentimes reinvents the wheel to the extent that it repeats a ‘classic’ debate on quality in journalism that has a long tradition in communication and media research. (2007: 7)
A closer look though at the existing empirical and quantitative studies (e.g. Chung et al., 2007; Lance et al., 2011; Lee, 2010; Lee and Maslog, 2005; Maslog et al., 2006; Neumann and Fahmy, 2012) shows a clear deficiency in examining media framing of events within the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in terms of peace/war journalism.
Focusing on text, Lance et al. (2011), for example, examined the coverage of The New York Times with regard to conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia-Ethiopia and Chad-Sudan. Other studies focused on content analysis of Asian newspaper stories covering Asian regional conflicts (e.g. Lee and Maslog, 2005; Maslog et al., 2006).
Only recently, Fahmy and Neumann (2012a) examined an event related to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict – the Gaza War (2008–2009) – in terms of war versus peace journalism in the three leading Western newswires (AP, Reuters, and Getty/AFP). Their study, however, analyzed only photographs (not text). Findings showed all three wires combined provided a complimentary role to communicate a comprehensive coverage. The authors thus emphasized the role of gate keeping and the importance of decisions that news professionals make in providing a broad-based understanding of conflicts.
Framing peace versus framing war: The Israeli/Palestinian conflict
Framing theory is a relevant theory for examining peace versus war journalism because it demonstrates how frames, and thus certain understandings, become embedded within media coverage. Entman explained:
to frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described. (1993: 52)
In reviewing the literature, we noted that war journalism has been criticized for the lack of historical context in covering conflicts and wars. While not many studies exist that examine war and peace frames in the context of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict specifically, numerous studies have looked at how media coverage of that conflict has been framed – supporting many of Galtung’s assertions (e.g. Ackerman, 2001; Dunsky, 2008; Ismail, 2008; Rinnawi, 2007).
Past studies, for example, have found that in the case of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, context is often missing from how events within this conflict are framed and reported. In this regard, Shanto Iyengar’s (1991) analysis concerning episodic framing versus thematic framing is useful.
Iyengar (1991) says that focusing on the here and now, or the more acute aspects of a conflict is indicative of episodic framing, which provides more superficial coverage of news events. Thematic framing, on the other hand, places issues and events within a broader context. According to Iyengar (1991), episodic framing tends to dominate print and broadcast coverage because it is perceived to help condense and simplify complex issues for easier public consumption. A problematic consequence, however, is that valuable background information and context that would help explain underlying conflict dynamics, gets lost.
In the context of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Dunsky (2008) noted that in reporting on the Palestinian refugee issue the history of how Palestinians became refugees is rarely incorporated into the reporting. However, the refugee issue is one of the core issues of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. That over 700,000 Palestinians became refugees in recent decades is absent from most reporting about Palestinian refugees reveals a large gap in news media to provide vital information and context about a critical aspect of this conflict that could increase how the public understands its root causes and underlying dynamics.
Rinnawi examined media coverage of the Second Palestinian Intifada 3 in two Israeli newspapers, Haaretz and Yediot, and also found a lack of context in reporting on this event. Rinnawi found that “during the first two weeks of October 2000 not one article appeared in either newspaper that addressed the severe socioeconomic conditions, such as high levels of unemployment and poverty” (2007: 162) faced by Palestinians in the wake of the failed Oslo peace process. Situating the Second Intifada within this context could have provided readers with a greater understanding of some of the underlying dynamics of this particular manifestation of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and could have better contextualized the violence that emerged from it.
Additionally, other studies have found that the context of Israeli occupation and control of Palestinian land is often missing from media coverage of events within the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and that this trend has grown over time. For example, Seth Ackerman found that during the First Palestinian Intifada, 156 out of 199 broadcast stories on ABC and CBS about the West Bank or Gaza used the word “occupied” to explain that Israel actively occupies Palestinian territory, however, upon analysis of broadcast media coverage of the Second Palestinian Intifada, only 4 out of 99 stories provided this important context (2001: 62).
Similarly, Ismail (2008) found that the context of occupation was largely missing from media coverage of the Second Intifada in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ismail further concluded that media coverage ignored important complexities that “largely rendered distant the possibility of genuinely understanding conflict dynamics, as opposed to facilitating them” (2008: 196)
Another major criticism of war-oriented journalism is its reliance on official sources. This aspect holds great relevance on reporting on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in general, and the Mavi Marmara incident in particular. The framing of whose voices have legitimacy in the news media also plays a significant role in shaping the conflict.
Korn (2004), for example, researched how Palestinian casualties were reported in Haaretz during the Second Intifada. Results revealed a clear preference was given to official sources. Korn (2004) wrote, “Palestinian accounts of events, which usually contradicted the military version, did not receive the same factual newsworthiness attributed to the reports stemming from Israeli security sources” (2004: 259). These results suggest that even if Palestinians have legitimate grievances, they might not be adequately represented or framed as such in the media.
Similarly, Rinnawi’s (2007) study found a significant overreliance and preference for elite sources, which he says, “prompts the press to accept a security paradigm for understanding events, thus freeing the government from addressing any underlying societal factors” (2007: 155). In this regard, root causes and underlying conflict dynamics can be ignored, along with “addressing the Palestinians’ problems as an occupied people” (2007: 161).
Research questions
For the purpose of this study, peace/war journalism frames refer to the frames used in the media to communicate the Mavi Marmara incident. Based on previous literature and Galtung’s (1986, 1998) conceptualization of peace/war journalism the following research questions are posed:
Method
This work investigates the use of peace/war journalism frames in covering the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident. With this goal, we content-analyzed online newspaper reports from three English-Language dailies spanning three countries:
Israel: Haaretz
The United Kingdom: The Guardian (London)
The United States: The New York Times
These papers were selected for a multitude of reasons. First, each paper was chosen because of its government’s direct or indirect involvement with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. For example, in the case of Haaretz, Israel was directly involved in the Mavi Marmara incident. The New York Times was selected because the United States has been and continues to be a major player in the conflict in general in terms of the role it plays in the peace process and its support of Israel’s security. The Guardian was specifically chosen because of its perceived bias toward Palestinians and the United Kingdom’s historical connection to the conflict in general. Second, these three papers were chosen because of their prestige, and national and international reputations both nationally and internationally. Third, these dailies are available in the English language which is considered the international lingua franca; making them accessible to English-language readers worldwide − including policy makers and elites in Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, and EU countries. Fourth, all papers selected are believed to express a multitude of viewpoints that are often liberal and critical of official government policies – including Haaretz. For example, the World Press indicated that Haaretz and The Guardian are liberal publications (World Newspapers and Magazines: Israel and Palestinian Territories, 2011). In regards to the United States, a 2007 Rasmussen survey found that forty percent of Americans believe The New York Times has a liberal bias ( New York Times, Washington Post, and Local Newspapers Seen as Having Liberal Bias, 2007). That said, previous research has shown that newspapers in general cannot separate their content from the social contexts they operate in (see Donohue et al., 1995; Fahmy, 2010). Thus, investigating the coverage of these three prestigious English-language newspapers from different countries − that are directly or indirectly involved with this specific conflict− could provide some interesting insights into the use of war/peace frames in the context of the Israeli/Palestinian crisis under study.
Data collection and the coding process
Our dataset included all articles reporting on the Mavi Marmara incident from 29 May 2010 to 31 January 2011. To be included in our dataset, all reports had to exceed a 100 word-limit and its content had to be entirely related to the incident.
All articles were obtained from each paper’s online archives from three time-periods during these eight months, with each time-period representing a significant stage during the Mavi Marmara incident. The first time-period, from 29 May to 22 June 2010, was chosen because it represented the most acute stage (not surprisingly, this time period included the greater number of reports covering the event under study). The second time-period, from 23 June to 21 September 2010, was selected because during this time-period, the United Nations Human Rights Council was conducting its international investigation of the Mavi Marmara incident to determine whether or not Israel had violated international law. Additionally, during this time period, Israel launched its own investigation under the Turkel Commission. The third time-period, from 22 September 2010 to 31 January 2011, was selected because the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Turkel Commission released their reports during that time.
All searches were initiated by key words, such as ‘Mavi Marmara;’ however, all articles were later assessed for direct relevance; articles that only partially covered or briefly mentioned the event were discarded. The unit of analysis was the individual article. Overall, a total of 156 articles (including editorials and news stories) were analyzed. Two coders (a journalism Master’s student and a communications PhD student) conducted the content analysis. Of the 156 reports analyzed, 26 were editorials or opinion pieces and 130 were news stories, including hard news, breaking news and feature stories. 4
To assess the relative use of peace/war framing in the three newspapers, the coding classifications of peace versus war frames were based on the work of Galtung (1986, 1998) as well as criteria used by Lee and Maslog (2005). These coding categories, involved several indicators of war journalism frames and several indicators of peace journalism frames that were used to elicit which frame dominated the narrative of the Mavi Marmara incident in each article.
Based on previous literature, eight indicators adapted from Lee and Maslog (2005) for peace frames were used, and were based on two themes also developed by Lee and Maslog: approach-based and language-based criteria.
The approach-based categorization for war journalism frames included the following indicators: reports primarily on the visible effects of war (i.e., casualties whether they were Israeli forces or passengers on board the Mavi Marmara), damage to property (including property of the Mavi Marmara passengers, Israeli forces, and political fallout – for example, between the Turkish and Israeli governments; elite-orientation (an overreliance upon elite military and government officials as actors and sources of information); primary focus on the here and now (covering only the acute, breaking news aspects of the conflict with very little background information or historical context); dichotomizing of good guys versus bad guys (i.e., the Israeli forces as the bad guys and the Mavi Marmara passengers as the good guys and vice versa); and partisan (showing bias toward one side by creating distinctive sharp divides between and among groups).
The approach-based categorization for peace journalism frames included the following indicators: reports on invisible effects of war (emotional trauma, whether suffered by the Mavi Marmara passengers or Israeli forces, damage to society and culture – for example, reports of increased animosity between Turkish citizens and Israelis); people-oriented (a focus on civilians and common people as primary actors and sources of information); reports on deeper causes and consequences of the conflict (providing valuable historical background and context); avoids dichotomization of good guys versus bad guys; and is nonpartisan (not biased toward one side in the conflict and/or does not identify good guys or bad guys).
The language-based categorization for war journalism frames included the following indicators: the use of victimizing language (i.e., defenseless, pathetic, etc., with a focus on “their” violence and “our” suffering, whether “their” violence was that of the Israeli forces or the passengers on board the Mavi Marmara and whether “our” suffering was that of Israeli forces or the passengers) that focused mostly on what has been done to the people; the use of demonizing language (i.e., terrorist, extremist, fundamentalist, brutal, etc., whether describing Israeli forces or those aboard the Mavi Marmara); and the use of emotive words (i.e., massacre, lynching, terrorist attack, etc. whether used to describe the Israeli forces or the Mavi Marmara passengers).
The language-based categorization for peace journalism frames included the following indicators: avoiding the use of victimizing language and reporting on how people are coping; avoiding the use of demonizing language by using more precise terms; objective and moderate terms (i.e., avoiding the use of emotive words and not exaggerating the gravity of situations).
In every instance where one of the eight indicators for war or peace journalism frames was present, a score of “yes” was assigned. In every instance where one of the eight indicators for war or peace journalism frames was not present, a score of “no” was assigned. Chi-squares were then computed to test whether Haaretz, The New York Times and The Guardian differed significantly in their coverage in terms of war versus peace journalism frames.
Intercoder reliability was checked for 16 stories covering the incident (10.2% of total). The data reflected an overall intercoder reliability of 92.4%, based on Holsti's formula. For war journalism frames reliability estimates for each category were also calculated by Scott's pi as follows: Visibility 100%; Elite Orientation 100%; Focus on here and now 100%; Dichotomizing 87.5%; Partisan 87.5%; Victimizing 100%; Demonizing 93.8%; and Emotive 93.8%. For peace journalism frames reliability estimates for each category were also calculated by Scott's pi as follows: Invisible Effects 93.8%; People Oriented 100%; Reports on causes 81.3%; Not dichotomizing 87.5%; Nonpartisan 93.8%; Not victimizing 100%; Not demonizing 87.5%; and Objective and moderate 87.5%.
Findings
Research question one asked whether the news coverage of the Mavi Marmara incident in Haaretz, The Guardian, and The New York Times differed significantly in using war journalism frames. As shown in Table 1, chi square tests revealed four of the eight indicators for war frames (elite orientation, focusing on the here and now, partisan and demonizing) were not significant among the three papers. Results showed, however, that in covering the Mavi Marmara incident, the other four indicators significantly differed among the three papers. These indicators were: the visible effects of war (.009, p<.05); dichotomization (.012, p<.05); use of victimizing language (a focus on “their” violence and “our” suffering) (.000, p<.05); and use of emotive language (e.g. massacre, lynching, murder) (.011, p<.05).
Frequency and percentages of war frames used in coverage of the Mavi Marmara incident in Haaretz, The New York Times and The Guardian Newspapers (N = 165).
a p < 0.05.
b p < 0.01.
c p < 0.001.
Research question two asked about the frequency of salient indicators for war journalism frames in each of the three publications. For all three papers the dominant salient indicators for war journalism frames were a focus on the here and now (125 indicators) followed by a focus on elite oriented sourcing (110 indicators), the visible effects of war (102 indicators) and use of dichotomizing coverage that focused on good versus bad (100 indicators). For more detailed results, see Table 1.
Figure 1 indicates that Haaretz had significantly the highest percentage of reporting that focused on the visible effects of war (53.0%), while both The New York Times and The Guardian had a lesser but equal percentage of reporting the visible effects of war (23.5%). Haaretz also significantly had the greatest percentage of stories that used a dichotomized frame (43.0%). The New York Times followed with (36.0%), while The Guardian had the lowest (21.0%). Haaretz also used significantly the highest percentage of using victimizing language (50.0%), while the use of victimizing language in The Guardian had the second highest percentage (42.1%). The New York Times used the lowest percentage of victimizing language (7.9%). Haaretz also had significantly the highest percentage of emotive language (54.2%) followed by The Guardian with the second highest percentage (29.2%), and The New York Times ranking lowest (16.7%).
Significant differences: war journalism indicators.
Research question three asked whether the news coverage of the Mavi Marmara incident in Haaretz, The Guardian, and The New York Times differed significantly in using peace journalism frames. As shown in Table 2, chi square tests revealed that four of the eight indicators (invisible effects of war, causes and consequences, nonpartisan and avoidance of demonization) were not significant among the three papers. The other four peace indicators however were significantly different among Haaretz, The Guardian and The New York Times. These indicators were: People-oriented sourcing (.037, p<.05); avoidance of dichotomization (.007, p<.05); avoidance of victimizing language (.000, p<.05); and framing the incident in an objective and moderate style (.045, p<.05).
Frequency and percentages of peace frames used in coverage of the Mavi Marmara incident in Haaretz, The New York Times and The Guardian Newspapers (N = 165).
a p < 0.05.
b p < 0.01.
c p < 0.001.
Research question four asked about the frequency of salient indicators for peace journalism framing in each of these publications. For all three papers the dominant salient indicators for peace journalism were avoidance of dehumanizing language (120 indicators) and avoidance of victimizing language (119 indicators) followed by nonpartisan coverage (102 indicators) and an objective and moderate style of reporting (101 indicators). These indicators were dominant in all three publications. For more detailed results see Table 2.
Further, as shown in Figure, 2 Haaretz had the highest percentage of people oriented sourcing (38.2%). The Guardian followed with the second highest percentage (32.4%), and The New York Times the lowest (29.4%). Haaretz also had the highest percentage of stories that avoided dichotomization (68.4%) followed by The New York Times with the second highest percentage (21.1%) and The Guardian with the lowest percentage (10.5%). Haaretz also had the highest percentage of stories that avoided the use of victimizing language (51.3%), followed by The New York Times (37.0%), and then The Guardian (11.8%). Further, Haaretz had the highest percentage of stories that were objective and moderate (48.5%), while The New York Times ranked second (36.6%) and The Guardian ranked last (14.9%).
Significant differences: peace journalism indicators.
Discussion
Based on Galtung’s (1986) classifications of peace/war journalism, this study sought to analyze how online media covered the Mavi Marmara incident in Haaretz, The Guardian, and The New York Times. More specifically, this study analyzed the peace/war framing in the coverage of the Mavi Marmara incident in these three news outlets as well as the frequency of salient indicators for war and peace journalism frames present in reporting the incident. In doing so, this study contributes to further development of peace journalism education and training and offers a quantitative contribution to an area of study that deserves more than the mostly anecdotal or normative attention it has thus far received specifcially within a Middle Eastern context. We hope that this study’s findings, and the exploration of using war versus peace reporting into a comparative narrative of an Israeli/Palestinian related conflict will be helpful in guiding similar research, and generating future studies to investigate framing within other media (such as social media including Twitter and blogs), and to assess the effects of peace versus war journalism regarding policy formation and public opinion, specifcially in relation to the Middle East. This is particulalry important considering that media coverage increased with the recent 2012 UN resolution that elevated Palestine’s status from “non-member observer entity” to “non-member observer state” despite intense opposition from the United States and Israel.
First, however, it is important to note whether the information regarding how events were framed and presented here largely influenced public opinion as well as foreign policy formation need further examination and are currently beyond the scope of this study. Overall, our results showed that the online coverage in Haaretz, The Guardian and The New York Times differed significantly in eight of the 16 indicators for both war and peace journalism frames. Haaretz significnatly used more war journalism indicators (visibility of effects of war, dichotomization, use of victimizing language, and emotive language) than both The New York Times and The Guardian.
Although it would be difficult to assess exactly why the Haaretz’s narrative was significantly more dominated by a war journalism frame than the other two papers, there are a few considerations worth noting. Israel was directly involved in the Mavi Marmara incident, and also came under intense international scrutiny and condemnation in the wake of the incident. Given these factors, it is not unreasonable to posit that an Israeli newspaper would use a significantly more war journalism narrative than the other two non-Israeli papers in an attempt to advance the official Israeli government perspective about the incident, particularly given that previous research found that newspapers cannot separate their content from their contexts in which they operate (Donohue et al., 1995; Fahmy, 2010).
Interestingly, overall Haaretz also significnatly used more peace journalism indicators (people orientated reporting, avoiding dichotomization, avoiding victimization language, and using objective, and non-biased language) than both The New York Times and The Guardian.
While the above results at first might appear contradictory, they might not be as conflicting as they seem.
Our results show Haaretz used four more peace journalism indicators than the other two papers analyzed. These results support previous findings by Lee and Maslog specifically regarding these specific four peace indicators. The authors noted:
These four (peace) indicators, although important in the overall scheme of peace journalism laid out by Galtung (1986, 1998), are mere extensions of the objectivity credo: reporting the facts as they are. These indicators do not truly exemplify a strong contributory, proactive role by journalists to seek and offer creative solutions and to pave a way for peace and conflict resolution. (Lee and Maslog, 2005: 324)
By and large results of our study showed the online coverage of the Mavi Marmara incident was dominated by similar war/peace narratives. For example, regarding the dominant salient indicators for peace journalism, the most dominant frames were avoidance of dehumanizing language and victimizing language, followed by nonpartisan coverage and objective and moderate style reporting. However, as mentioned already, these indicators are not the strongest indicators for peace journalism framing. Rather they tend to reflect the objectivity norm, and theoretically should already be present in most reporting. Because of this, the remaining discussion will be reserved for the more problematic war journalism narratives, primarily because they could counteract the benefit of the dominant peace journalism framing that strives for objectivity.
Our study showed the most dominant war journalism indicator was a focus on the here and now, followed by a focus on elite-oriented sourcing, the visible effects of war, and dichotomization of the parties involved. These results corroborate previous studies on war journalism, which found a focus on the here and now, elite orientation, and a dichotomy of good and bad to be the most salient indicators for war journalism framing (i.e., Lee and Maslog, 2005). The presence of such a reporting narrative has been also noted by findings of other studies that focused specifically on media coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (see Ackerman, 2001; Ismail, 2008; Korn, 2004; Rinnawi, 2007; Ross, 2003; Wolfsfeld, 2001), indicating perhaps a larger trend of general news routines in relation to reporting Middle Eastern conflicts.
Regarding the most dominant war journalism frame, the focus on the here and now emphasized only the acute aspects of the Mavi Marmara incident without placing it within a broader context of a conflict that spaned nearly a century – supporting recent literature that suggests journalists with major experience in the Middle East are more likely to report on the present situation and less likely to shed light on the roots of the conflict, than journalists who primarily covered other conflicts (see Fahmy and Neumann, 2012b). The dominance of the frame most likely limited the amount of contextual information provided to the reader to better understand the causes and consequences of the event under study by placing it within the larger context of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. For example, while some of the stories indicated that the flotilla was attempting to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, very few of the stories analyzed provided any background information to explain why Israel implemented the blockade, why the participants in the flotilla were attempting to break it, or the effects of the blockade upon the civilian population of Gaza. Additionally, as noted by Ackerman’s (2001) study, the context of Israeli occupation is rarely mentioned in reporting on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. In other words, without a greater understanding of the causes and consequences of conflicts, reconciliation and conflict resolutions become more difficult to achieve as audiences are continually presented with a very narrow slice of the conflict, and therefore a limited understanding of the conflict’s root causes and consequences.
The second most dominant war journalism frame was a focus on elite oriented sourcing. In analyzing the articles, very few of them included interviews with passengers on the Mavi Marmara, many of whom might have witnessed the incident as it unfolded. As a result, the perspectives of these witnesses were largely ignored in favor of official Israeli government and military sources. Again, previous literature can help to clarify the findings of this study in relation to identifying larger problematic trends with conventional war journalism framing. According to Rinnawi’s (2007) study, an overeliance on elite government and military sources encourages the media to employ a security paradigm or framing, thereby freeing a government from the burden of addressing underlying social issues, in this case the Israeli blockade of Gaza, that might have contributed to the incident. Moreover, the security paradigm tends to shift the blame away from the government. As noted by Rinnawi:
Reports of official state-sanctioned violence… are accompanied by information that attempts to justify the actions, such as details about the violence committed against the security forces, as well as allegations that the seemingly ‘innocent’ disadvantaged group member had actually intended the attack. (2007: 156)
However, that the flotilla passengers were largely ignored as sources and actors in the stories analyzed could be partly explained by their ongoing detention by the Israeli government for a number of days. Thus, it is likely that the passsengers did not have access to the media, particularly in the two days immediately following the incident. Nonetheless, even after they were deported from Israel and had returned to their home countries, their stories and perspectives remained largely absent from subsequent reports about the incident. Interestingly, we noted, The Guardian was the only publication of the three to incorporate autopsy results of the nine deceased passengers. 5 Our analysis showed that The Guardian placed a great emphasis on incorporating testimonies from the passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara and some of the other vessels in the flotilla, reflecting a people-oriented narrative.
The third most dominant war journalism frame was the visible effect of war. A heavy focus on only the visible effects meant that much of the reporting focused on the dead, the injured, and the political fallout of the incident without much exploration of some of the deeper and less visible effects of the incident, such as the emotional trauma and the long-term damage to society and culture, and the relationships between Israel and Palestine, and Israel and Turkey. 6
The fourth most dominant war journalism frame was the dichotomization of the parties involved. This use of a dichotomized frame of us versus them pitted one side against the other. For example, much of the coverage in Haaretz asserted that the passengers had “clear, long-standing ties to terrorism” and were connected to “terrorism networks, including Al-Qaida and Hamas” (Haaretz Service and the Associated Press, 2010, p. 1). In The New York Times the coverage mostly refrained from these assertions, though not entirely. It placed emphasis on the incident’s immediate impact on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and still framed the incident within a good versus bad dichotomy. However, some of the stories in all three publications cast the passengers aboard the flotilla as the “good guys” and the Israeli commandos as the “bad guys.” The casting of the Israeli commandos as the “bad guys” was more prevelant in The Guardian’s coverage. Indeed, this use of dichotomization in media coverage makes it more difficult for parties to find common ground, as legitimate perspectives and grievances of parties involved could be discredited depending on who is cast as the “good guy” and who is cast as the “bad guy.”
Finally, we acknowledge that the three papers examined do not provide a sufficient basis for determining whether peace/war frames are common to coverage of the long lasting Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Future studies should incorporate online local papers to see how they compare to coverage in online English-language newspapers that are geared for English-speaking audiences. Further this study shows that the coding categories, as adapted from Lee and Maslog (2005) and as originally conceived by Galtung (1986) need to be reformulated and adapted according to specific conflicts for future comparative content analyses.
With the Israeli/Palestinian peace process clearly faltering and unfruitful for nearly 20 years after the signing of the Declaration of Principles that kicked off the Oslo era, there appears to be now more than ever an urgent need to critically examine media coverage of events, such as the controversy of the Mavi Marmara incident in media of different countries. Clearly, the incident highlights the importance and necessity for international and local journalists to have access to a full range of sources and information to wade through conflicting narratives. It draws attention to seemingly increasing attempts to cut reporters off from covering events that occur within Israeli/Palestinian-related struggles.
In this regard, more empirical research on war versus peace framing in relation to Middle Eastern conflicts, especially the long-lasting Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is prudent. Indeed, very little empirical work on war versus peace framing has focused on conflicts in this region. This study therefore builds upon a small but growing body of literature on peace journalism. On a practical level, journalists covering the Middle East would be well served by additional studies that provide deeper insight into some of the problematic themes and trends with reporting on conflicts in this region.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
This article is based on an earlier version, which was presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) annual convention in Chicago, IL, in August 2012, where it received the Robert L. Stevenson Award (First Place) and The Ecquid Novi African Journalism Studies Award for the Best Journalism Research Paper in the International Communication Division. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Managing Editor Dr. Ester de Waal, for their valuable feedback and suggestions for improving this work.