Bottlenecks in the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the coverage of the first and second intifada in the Flemish press

Various authors suggest that the public's knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is inadequate. As it is generally accepted that public opinion on international news items is mainly formed by media content, the international media are often held responsible for sustaining the prevailing misconceptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by covering the conflict parties in a biased and imbalanced way. This study focuses on the representation of Israelis and Palestinians in the news coverage of the First and Second Intifada by the Flemish press. By way of a content analysis evolutions and discrepancies in the coverage of both Intifadas are described in a longitudinal analytical perspective. We conclude that the portrayal of the Palestinian actors shifts from a rather positive view during the First Intifada period to a more critical portrayal during the period of the Second Intifada. At the same time, there is an opposite move in the representation of the Israeli actors in the conflict. Although our results show differences in the distinct portrayals, they do not provide sufficient evidence to conclude unequivocally that the coverage of the First and Second Intifada is imbalanced. Indeed, we find that while some variables definitely favour the Israeli point of view (e.g. the use of sources), others clearly sustain the Palestinian side (e.g. the individualisation of victims). In other words, the Flemish dailies cover the First and Second Intifada in quite a balanced way, contrary to what international studies on the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have concluded regarding the media in different national settings

How Issues Become (Re)constructed in the Media: Discursive Practices in the AstraZeneca Merger

In this article, we put forward a novel way of exploring difference and contradiction in merging organizations. We examine how the media (re)constructs meanings in a major cross-border merger. Based on an analysis of press coverage, we attempt to specify and illustrate how particular issues are (re)constructed in media texts through interpretations of ‘winning’ and ‘losing’. We also show how specific discourses are drawn on in this (re)construction. In the merger studied, discourse based on economic and financial rationale dominated the media coverage. Discourse promoting nationalistic sentiments, however, provided an alternative discursive frame to the dominant rationalistic discourse. We argue that the two basic discourses are enacted in three analytically distinct discursive practices in the media: factualizing, rationalizing and emotionalizing. We suggest that the ability of different actors such as top managers to make use of different discursive strategies and resources in promoting their ‘versions of reality’ in the media (or public discussion) is a crucial avenue for research in this area