International Communication Gazette

The article investigates news coverage and media framing of the Syrian refugee debate as a public opinion issue in US local news in 2015. The sheer number of refugees created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis as millions of civilians settled in neighboring countries, and a significant number of them embarked on a perilous journey to seek refuge in European countries. The political response to the Syrian refugee crisis was divided, but public attitudes shifted after the terrorist attacks on Paris in November 2015 with calls for more restrictive immigration policies and smaller refugee quotas. In the US, GOP leaders demanded “extreme vetting” and “screening” of refugees and many opposed resettling the modest number of refugees the Obama administration promised to let in. The study analyzes local news coverage variation across the States that welcomed, not welcomed or did not commit to accepting Syrian refugees at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016. The findings of the study demonstrate that the editorial framing of the Syrian refugee crisis downplayed the global responsibility and international commitment of the US, highlighted the administrative costs and framed them as security threats. The implications of these frames are discussed.

This study examines how media representations of Palestinian-Israeli politicians, can help community members realize their capabilities. The study’s database is comprised of 1,207 interviews conducted with Palestinian-Israeli politicians on news and current affairs programs on the three national television channels and the two national radio stations in Israel, for 24 months (2016-2017). We identified and analyzed the differences in the modes of representation between national and local Palestinian-Israeli politicians and between Palestinian-Israeli parliament members in the Joint List and Palestinian-Israeli parliament members in Zionist parties, all through the capabilities prism. In this study, we demonstrated how different types of Palestinian-Israeli politicians may potentially affect the realization of different political functions and capabilities. Analyzing political representations in the media through the theoretical framework of the ‘capabilities approach’ contributes to a more comprehensive insight into the roles the media can play promoting people’s wellbeing and human rights, relative to traditional media theories.

As the hyped concept of post-truth began occupying various discourses of politicians, commentators and journalists in the recent years especially in the West, this article attempts to bring a critical reflection to the concept by carrying out an integrative literature review. Our aim is to critically examine and analyse the literature and main perspectives and relationships of the issue. Therefore, different perspectives of scholars and journalists who are well-versed in their domain/tradition are combined and integrated together. On the grounds that the emerging themes create a broader dichotomy and a field of tension between two broader views- post-truth as a new era and post-truth as time-immemorial or post-truth as unfolding through the years, the article will be divided into two main sections. This will be followed by further critical elaboration and discussion on the responses being taken regarding the “truth” of the “post-truth” phenomenon principally from the perspective of democracy, power and free speech.

Media representations have significant power to shape opinions and influence public response to communities or groups around the world. This study investigates media representations of Islam and Muslims in the American media, drawing upon an analysis of reports in the New York Times over a 17-year period (from Jan.1, 2000 to Dec. 31, 2016) within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis. It examines how Islam and Muslims are represented in media coverage and how discursive power is penetrated step by step through such media representations. Most important, it investigates whether Islam and Muslims have been stigmatized through stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. The findings reveal that the New York Times’ representations of Islam and Muslims are negative and stereotypical: Islam is stereotyped as the unacclimatized outsider and the turmoil maker and Muslims as the negative receiver. The stereotypes contribute to people’s prejudice, such as Islamophobia from the “us” group and fear of the “them” group but do not support a strong conclusion of discrimination.