The impact of political context on news coverage: Covering Qatar in the Israeli press

Abstract

Political environment is an important factor in news coverage, both in terms of the news items selected (the amount of coverage) and the tone of the coverage. Through an analysis of news coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press, the current study examines the impact of the political circumstances and the contextual cues in news stories on the framing of foreign news. The analysis includes 1,199 articles appearing in the mainstream online Israeli press in two time frames: summer 2013 and summer 2014 (during the war in Gaza). Findings indicate that, although both the circumstances and the contextual cues had a significant impact on the tone of coverage towards Qatar in the Israeli press, while controlling for the contextual cues in the news stories, coverage of Qatar did not change significantly during the war, which indicates that the framing process is less influenced by the immediate political circumstances than the political cues appearing in the coverage.

Keywords

conflict Israeli press political context cues political environment Qatar tone of coverage

Introduction

Understanding the ways in which the media covers foreign news (events, nations and other political actors) is extremely important as the media is the main source through which most individuals receive information on foreign affairs. As such, it has an impact on the shaping of public opinion regarding the issues at hand (Manheim, 1994; Soroka, 2003; Wolfsfeld, 1997). While past studies – due to the important role the media plays in the creation of our world views (Weimann, 2000) – have addressed the framing process (the selection of which aspects to emphasize in news coverage) of news in general and of foreign news in particular, there is still a need to widen our understanding of this process. Different indicators were found to have an impact on the way journalists and editors choose to frame the news; for instance, the event itself (e.g. Wolfsfeld, 1997, 2011; Yarchi et al., 2013) and the political environment (e.g. Wolfsfeld, 1997, 2003; Norris et al., 2003) were both found as predictors of the coverage. This study seeks to further contribute by adding another indicator – the political cues within the news story (the topics discussed) – and examining its impact on the coverage while controlling for the political circumstances. We analyse whether wartime dramatically increases negative tone towards a political actor that is perceived as supporting the other side of the conflict, or whether the context presented in the news story itself is more influential. The current study examines the Israeli coverage of Qatar as its case study, with an emphasis on examining the impact of the political circumstances (using summer 2013 vs summer 2014, during the war in Gaza, as a case study) and the political context presented in the news story (mentions of Qatar in relation to the Palestinians, Palestinian terrorism and of global terrorism) on the tone of coverage. In other words, we aim to investigate the role of the political circumstances in which the media operates on one hand and the main topics under which Qatar is mentioned (which provides contextual cues) on the other; that is, the way Qatar, a country with complex relations with Israel, is being presented in the Israeli online press. In order to achieve this goal, we conducted a content analysis of the Qatari coverage in seven leading Israeli news sites during two time periods: summer 2013 and summer 2014 during the 2014 war in Gaza.

Framing

The way the media frames foreign news has significant implications for its audience’s perceptions. The framing process is basically one of choice and emphasis: journalists and editors choose not only which events to cover, but also which aspects of the events to emphasize. To frame is to select certain aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, so as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and treatment recommendation for the item described (Entman, 1993). Thus, a media frame is an ‘interpretive package’ that prioritizes a certain explanation or significance of an event, characterizing public issues and events from a specific angle (Entman, 2004; Gamson and Modigliani, 1989). The media can portray the same occurrence in several different ways: the information is presented by purposeful choice and emphasis of certain elements of the reality, and suppression of other elements, all of which is achieved via the choice of a certain media frame (Entman, 1995).

The reasons for choosing one media frame over others in news coverage are not always clear (Norris et al., 2003; Wolfsfeld, 2011). Studies dealing with the framing process have found different factors that can help us better understand and predict the ways in which the media would frame news stories. For instance, scholars (e.g. Norris et al., 2003; Wolfsfeld 1997, 2003; Yarchi et al., 2013) have argued that the political environment in which the media operates has an impact on the framing of news stories: for example, the political proximity between two countries was found to have an impact on the way one of the countries covers the other (Sheafer et al., 2014); countries which had suffered from terror attacks were found to frame other countries facing terrorism in a more sympathetic way (Yarchi, 2014; Yarchi et al., 2013); and a 2013 analysis of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict’s coverage during calm periods versus conflict periods found that conflict dramatically increased the tone and volume of anti-Israel stances (Elmasry et al., 2013). Another indicator that was found to have an impact on the news framing process was the events covered (Wolfsfeld, 1997, 2011; Yarchi et al., 2013); events were found to narrow down the frames journalists can use while covering the occurrences: for example, the type of attack covered, the number of casualties and the type of action taken by a country that is dealing with terror attacks were found to have an impact on the foreign media’s framing of the conflicts covered (Yarchi et al., 2013), and a 2016 study examining the foreign media coverage of two Israeli operations in Gaza found differences in the framing of the events according to the circumstances – the coverage during an Israeli ground invasion was more critical of Israel in comparison to an operation without a ground invasion (Yarchi, 2016). Various studies have examined the interaction between the topics presented in the coverage and the framing process (e.g. Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2010; Puglisi, 2011). The topics that the media selects to cover and focus on can also influence the framing of news stories since they serve as political context cues within which journalists operate while covering a specific issue (Price and Tewksbury, 1997); thus, journalists think of a particular issue within specific associations. The goal of this study is not only to understand the factors that influence framing of foreign news, but also – and equally important – whether the tone of coverage of foreign news is being intensified and aggravated during conflict or whether it remains relatively similar, which could indicate that the topics covered are more influential to the extent that the coverage is less affected by major crisis such as war.

Accordingly, this study aims to contribute to the knowledge of political framing by examining the Israeli media coverage of Qatar – a foreign topic, which as such is less likely to receive extensive media attention – as its case study. Specifically, in line with the aim of understanding the role of factors influencing political framing, we examine whether the 2014 war in Gaza, where Qatar sponsored the Palestinians, influenced the traditional framing of Qatar as measured during a period of calm.

To put the study in better context, the following sections review the complex Israel–Qatar relations, which are an important factor in the Israeli media framing of Qatar, our selected case study subject.

Israel–Qatar relations

Between 1996 and 2008, relations between Israel and Qatar seemed promising as Qatar established trade relations with Israel, opening a bureau of commerce following a meeting between Qatar’s Emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and Shimon Peres (Israel’s foreign minister at the time) during the 1996 Oslo Accords. Moreover, throughout this period, a number of prominent Israeli politicians met with Qatari officials, with several politicians flying out to Doha, including Peres and former Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni (Ravid, 2010).

However, relations grew cold following the 2008 rise of the Hamas government in the Gaza strip, which served as a turning point to the worse in Israeli–Qatar relations (Rabi, 2009). Indeed, the rise of Hamas in the Gaza strip was closely followed by the 2008–2009 Israeli Operation Cast Lead¹ in Gaza, which led Qatar to sever all ties with Israel, hosting a summit with Iran, the Palestinian Islamic organization Hamas and Islamic Jihad, dismissing Israeli government representatives residing in Doha and closing down the Israeli trade bureau in Doha. When tensions eased again, Qatar tried to re-establish trade relations with Israel on two separate occasions, on the condition that Israel allow Qatar to send building material into Gaza to help restore infrastructure that had been destroyed during the war. Qatar also asked that Israel publicly acknowledge the Qatari role in mediating the peace process. Fearful that the aid would be redirected to reinforce positions from which to target Israel, and also not wanting to get involved in Qatar and Egypt’s battle for influence in the region, Israel rejected this initiative twice.

Although Qatari relations with Israel have been considerably more positive than many other Arab nations, Qatar has also, paradoxically, been a zealous supporter of Hamas, an organization acknowledged by Israel and several other Western countries as being a terrorist group, one that is dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel and with whom Israel has found itself at war on many occasions.

For the last decade, however, Qatar’s endorsement of Hamas has become difficult to overlook. For instance, in 2006, after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections, prompting the United States to cut its funding to the Palestinian Authority, Qatar offered to provide Hamas with $50 million towards the creation of a Hamas government (Blanchard, 2014). After the 2008–2009 Israeli Operation Cast Lead, Qatar announced a $400 million donation to repair Gaza as well as a large supplementary natural gas donation. Relations between Qatar and Hamas reached an apex after the eruption of Syrian turmoil in 2011. With its external headquarters located in Damascus, Hamas faced the painful choice of supporting the Assad regime’s ruthless butchering of Sunni Arabs (including Palestinians), or deserting its long-standing alliance with the Iranian axis (Bronner, 2011). When Hamas’ decision to support the Syrian rebels became public, it immediately paid the price: Iran quit its funding of the organization while Hamas’ leaders were forced to search for new headquarters and sponsorship (Schanzer, 2012). For the nearly decade-long leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, the search did not take long. Thanks to his long-standing relations with Qatar, he quickly found Doha to be a convenient headquarters substitute. Since then, Qatar has become the patron, arms dealer, political ally and funder of Hamas (Gartenstein-Ross and Lischin, 2014; Rosen, 2014). Indeed, there are indications that Qatar recruited all its resources to become one of the forefront supporters of Hamas, including drafting the Qatari-sponsored leading regional channel Al-Jazeera to support Hamas enthusiastically; thus, a comparative study of Qatar-backed Al-Jazeera versus Saudi-backed Al-Arabiya portrayal of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict found that although both channels are biased towards the Palestinian side, Al-Jazeera proved a much more avid supporter of the Palestinians. In other words, while both the Saudis and the Qataris maintain no contemporary formal contact with Israel, Qatar’s Al-Jazeera proved far more biased than its comparable Saudi channel in terms of the extent of its supportive treatment and coverage of Hamas (Elmasry et al., 2013).

These complex relations between Qatar and Israel led us to choose the coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press as the focus of our study, understanding that, for the most part, the tone of coverage tends to be negative. While various factors can affect the Israeli media’s coverage of Qatar, including economic relations and hidden diplomatic relations that the media might be familiar with, in our attempt to broaden our understanding of the framing-creation process, we decided to focus on the focal factors most likely to affect the coverage: the impact of the political circumstances (Elmasry et al., 2013; Norris, 2003; Wolfsfeld, 1997) – specifically during a time of calm (summer 2013) versus a time of war between Israel and the Palestinians (summer 2014) on one hand, and the contextual cues appearing in the news coverage (Price and Tewksbury, 1997) on the other. This study’s hypotheses are:

H1: The coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press will be more negative in times of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

H2: The coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press will be more negative when a political context which relates Qatar to controversial topics is presented in the news story:

H2a: The coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press will be more negative when Qatar is mentioned alongside the Palestinians in the news story:

H2b: The coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press will be more negative when Qatar is mentioned alongside Palestinian terror activity in the news story:

H2c: The coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press will be more negative when Qatar is mentioned alongside global terrorism in the news story.

Method

In order to attain the research goals, a content analysis of Qatar’s media coverage in the Israeli online press was conducted. Our analysis includes 1,199 articles appearing in the mainstream online Israeli press (including the following news websites: Ynet, Nrg, Haaretz, Walla, the Marker, Globes, and Calcalist), in two time frames: June, July, August and September 2013 and 2014. The decision to focus on these two time frames was made in order to obtain a better understanding of the Israeli coverage of Qatar in different political circumstances, which serves as one of the study’s independent variables: summer 2013, in which the issue of Qatar is expected to receive a typical coverage, and summer 2014, in which the political circumstances were anti-Qatar. In summer 2014, during the war in Gaza, Qatar was accused of supporting and even assisting the Palestinian terror organizations – mainly Hamas (Blair and Spencer, 2014) – an issue that is expected to have an impact on the media’s coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press. The analysis includes 496 articles from 2013 (all of which concern Qatar) and 703 articles from 2014 (a random sample of about 48% of the 1452 articles dealing with Qatar, which includes all the media outlets mentioned above). All the articles were retrieved using Ifat web mining software, while searching for any mention of Qatar in the Israeli online press.

In line with the study’s hypotheses, the time frame of the coverage (summer 2013 vs summer 2014, during the war in Gaza) will serve as an independent variable. Additionally, the political context cues presented in the news article will be examined as an independent variable, using three indicators: (1) whether the article mentions Qatar alongside the Palestinians; (2) whether the article mentions Qatar alongside Palestinian terror activity; and (3) whether the article mentions Qatar alongside global terrorism. The tone of the coverage of Qatar serves as the study’s dependent variable, while we examine it both in the headline and in the whole article, and was measured on a 5-point scale, from 1 (a very negative tone) to 5 (a very positive tone; 3 indicates neutral coverage). The tone of the coverage will be examined both in the headlines and in the articles.

The content analysis was conducted by two trained students using a coding sheet. A reliability test based on a random sample of 180 articles showed high levels of agreement between the coders (Krippendorf’s Alpha coefficient no lower than .816).

Results

The results section will begin by examining the study’s hypotheses separately, followed by a multivariate analysis that will examine the shared effect of the independent variables on the coverage of Qatar in the Israeli online press. As mentioned previously, the coverage tone towards Qatar in the Israeli online press will be measured using two indicators: (1) the tone towards Qatar in the headline; and (2) the tone towards Qatar in the article.

The study’s first hypothesis (H1) claims that the coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press will be more negative in times of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. In order to test this hypothesis, an independent sample T test was conducted, measuring differences in the tone of coverage (both in the headline and the article) between summer 2013 and summer 2014 (a time when a war between Israel and Hamas was taking place). The findings are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Differences in the coverage of Qatar.

Variables		N	M	SD	T
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – headline	In times of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians (2014)	164	2.25	1.30	2.655**
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – headline	Not during a conflict (2013)	91	2.70	1.31
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – article	In times of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians (2014)	656	2.34	1.28	4.020***
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – article	Not during a conflict (2013)	473	2.66	1.33
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – headline	Qatar is mentioned alongside the Palestinians	95	1.72	1.17	7.077***
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – headline	Qatar is not mentioned alongside the Palestinians	160	2.83	1.23
Tone of Qatar’s coverage –article	Qatar is mentioned alongside the Palestinians	297	1.50	.97	16.700***
Tone of Qatar’s coverage –article	Qatar is not mentioned alongside the Palestinians	832	2.83	1.24
Tone of Qatar’s coverage –headline	Qatar is mentioned alongside Palestinian terrorism	74	1.45	.92	8.426***
Tone of Qatar’s coverage –headline	Qatar is not mentioned alongside Palestinian terrorism	181	2.81	1.25
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – article	Qatar is mentioned alongside Palestinian terrorism	231	1.13	.50	32.206***
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – article	Qatar is not mentioned alongside Palestinian terrorism	898	2.82	1.23
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – headline	Qatar is mentioned alongside global terrorism	48	1.33	.72	9.600***
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – headline	Qatar is not mentioned alongside global terrorism	207	2.66	1.30
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – article	Qatar is mentioned alongside global terrorism	185	1.20	.64	24.319***
Tone of Qatar’s coverage – article	Qatar is not mentioned alongside global terrorism	944	2.73	1.27

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

The findings indicate that the tone of coverage towards Qatar was more positive (higher) in summer 2013, both for the headlines and articles. Those findings are in line with our hypothesis (H1), indicating that the coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press is more negative in times of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Compatible to previous studies (e.g. Elmasry et al., 2013; Wolfsfeld, 1997), we found the political circumstances to have an impact on the way the media covers foreign issues.

The study’s second hypothesis (H2) claims that the coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press will be more negative when a political context which relates Qatar to controversial topics is presented in the news story. For the examination of the political context presented in the article, we used three indicators: (1) articles that mention Qatar alongside the Palestinians (H2a); (2) articles that mention Qatar alongside Palestinian terror activity (H2b); and (3) articles that mention Qatar alongside global terrorism (H2c). Here, too, the findings are presented in Table 1.

Regarding Qatar’s mentions alongside the Palestinians (H2a), the findings indicate that the tone of coverage towards Qatar is more negative (lower) in articles that mention Qatar alongside the Palestinians, both for the headline and article. Similar trends can be found while dealing with articles that mention Qatar alongside Palestinian terror activity (H2b) and global terrorism (H2c); the findings indicate that the tone of coverage towards Qatar is more negative (lower) in articles that mention Qatar and Palestinian terrorism and global terrorism, both for the headlines and articles. In accordance with H2, the evidence shows that when a political context which relates Qatar to controversial topics is presented in the news story, the tone is more negative. If so, the contextual cues appearing in the news articles while covering Qatar has an impact on the ways the country is framed in the Israeli press. Such findings correspond with those of previous studies (e.g. Price and Tewksbury, 1997) presenting the impact of topics covered on the framing process.

Next, using a regression model we will test the impact of all four variables together (time of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians; mentions of Qatar alongside the Palestinians; Palestinian terror activity; and global terrorism) on the tone of coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press. Table 2 presents two models: model 1 deals with the tone of the headlines (R² = 0.268), and model 2 with the tone of the articles (R² = 0.39).

Table 2.

Regression model for the tone of coverage of Qatar in the Israeli online press.

Variables	Model 1 – headline tone		Model 2 – article tone
	β	SE B	β	SE B
Times of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians (=1)	–0.012	0.162	0.014	0.068
Qatar is not mentioned alongside the Palestinians (=1)	–0.169*	0.214	–0.221***	0.098
Qatar is mentioned alongside Palestinian terrorism (=1)	–0.236**	0.247	–0.290***	0.110
Qatar is mentioned alongside global terrorism (=1)	–0.252***	0.203	–0.338***	0.087
N	255		1129
Intersect	2.963		3.023
Adjusted R²	0.268		0.39

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

The findings (Table 2) of both models are similar; for both the headlines and the articles, the tone used for Qatar is significantly more negative in news stories in which political context cues are presented. All three political context variables (mentions of Qatar alongside the Palestinians, Palestinian terror activity and global terrorism) were found to reduce the tone of Qatar’s coverage while controlling for the rest of the variables in the model. Interestingly, however, while controlling for the political context cues presented in the news story, the fact that the coverage is done in times of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians (the political circumstances) does not have a significant effect on the tone of the coverage. The evidence suggests that, although political circumstances play an important role in the news framing process, the topics discussed are more influential. In other words, even in more supportive political circumstances, a news story that presents a political actor (or a country) in association with a controversial topic will be framed in a negative way.

Conclusions

While dealing with the Israeli media’s coverage of Qatar as our case study, this study aims to broaden our understanding regarding the various aspects involving the framing process during conflict and the interplay between these factors. This study strengthens the existing notion concerning the high impact of the political environment in terms of both the political circumstances and the contextual cues appearing in the news stories on the tone of coverage. An even more important, unique and interesting contribution is the finding regarding the interplay between the political circumstances and the contextual cues, an issue rarely examined in the past. The study’s findings highlight the importance and centrality of contextual cues for understanding the framing process, as indicated in the findings of the multivariate analysis. The evidence shows that the 2014 war in Gaza did not negatively influence the tone towards Qatar’s more than during other times, which indicates that political cues have a significant influence on the tone of coverage, and may even be more influential than the political circumstances in which the media operates. In other words, this study demonstrates that the tone towards Qatar is persistent and less affected by political events, suggesting that contextual cues within the coverage itself, rather than the political circumstances, may be key in understanding determinants of foreign news coverage.

The findings regarding the centrality of the contextual cues could also be applicable to other important and relevant aspects and circumstances in political studies. For example, in analyses of candidates’ framing, future studies should re-examine our findings concerning the centrality of cues and check whether, during campaigns, particular events (which have an impact over the political circumstances) dramatically change the tone towards the candidate and what is the impact of contextual cues (the topics presented while covering the candidate). We hope, then, that our findings would lead scholars to follow up on our study and examine its validity in other political situations. If future studies can support our findings in other circumstances, this could lead to a clearer understanding of the factors that come into play during the framing process of political actors in general, and during non-crisis and conflict periods, in particular.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biographies

Moran Yarchi is a Senior Lecturer at the Sammy Ofer School of Communications, and the Co-Head of the Public Diplomacy program, at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel. Her main area of research is political communication, especially the media’s coverage of conflicts and public diplomacy

Tal Samuel-Azran is the Head of the International Program at the Sammy Ofer School of Communications. His main fields of research are political communication, new media, public diplomacy and media globalization.

Yair Galily is an applied sociologist, mass media and management researcher at the Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya. He is the founder and head of the research unit at the Israeli Football Association (IFA) and a member of UEFA club licensing committee.

Ilan Tamir is a sport and mass media researcher and lecturer at Ariel University in Israel. Ilan is the Chair of the School of Communication in the University and he is writing for the sport section of the Israeli most popular website (walla!).

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