Building on rigorous research by the world-renowned Glasgow University Media Group, More Bad News From Israel examines media coverage of the current conflict in the Middle East and the impact it has on public opinion. The book brings together senior journalists and ordinary viewers to examine how audiences understand the news and how their views are shaped by media reporting. In the largest study ever undertaken in this area, the authors focus on television news. They illustrate major differences in the way Israelis and Palestinians are represented, including how casualties are shown and the presentation of the motives and rationales of both sides. They combine this with extensive audience research involving hundreds of participants from the USA, Britain and Germany. It shows extraordinary differences in levels of knowledge and understanding, especially amongst young people from these countries. Covering recent developments, including the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, this authoritative and up-to-date study will be an invaluable tool for journalists, activists and students and researchers of media studies.
Acknowledgments Introduction Final Status map
1 Histories of the conflict
2 Content Studies 2000-2002
3 Audience Studies 2001-2002
4 Why Does it Happen?
5 Conclusions on the 2000-2002 Content and Audience Samples
6 News Content and Explanations of the 2008-2009 Gaza attack
7 Audience Understanding of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict and the Gaza attack 2008-2009
8 The Attack on the Gaza Flotilla, 2010
9 Conclusions Appendices Notes References Index
willyvan
Posted September 14, 2011
I Also Recommend:
This fine book is an expanded and updated edition of Bad news from Israel, 2004. The authors ask that the media give an accurate account of the perspectives of both sides to the conflict. Presently, both BBC and ITV tend to present the Israeli version of events as fact, while the Palestinians have only 'claims' or 'beliefs'. The Israelis are swift to supply the media with clear consistent accounts. They blame the Palestinians for starting the conflict and assert that Israel merely 'responds' to Palestinian violence, so any casualties are really the Palestinians' own fault. By contrast, the media never give a clear account of the Palestinian case. The authors analyse how the TV news bulletins described the conflict's causes, the casualties and the motives of the contending parties. They found that the bulletins gave little background to the conflict's causes. So even in 2009, two-thirds of the sample of British social science students still did not know who was occupying the occupied territories. The new sections of the book take the history of the conflict on from the first edition: Hamas wins the Palestinian elections, the 2006 Lebanon war, Hamas takes control of Gaza, the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, the 2008-09 Gaza war, the Goldstone report, the second Netanyahu administration and Israel's 2010 attack on the Gaza aid flotilla. There are also new chapters on the news content and competing explanations of the Gaza war, the audience understanding of the conflict and the Gaza attack, and the attack on the Gaza flotilla. The UN report on the Gaza war, the Goldstone report, accused Hamas of war crimes: "where there is no intended target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population'. But the UN found that Israel had committed by far the most breaches of international law. The report concluded that Israel had carried out "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability." The United States Congress passed a resolution condemning the UN report. The resolution, wrongly, stated that the "report makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks" by Palestinian groups. The Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla killed nine passengers and wounded 54. The UN report into the attack stated that the Israeli blockade of Gaza was 'unlawful' and that the Israeli action of intercepting the aid ship Mavi Marmara was 'clearly unlawful'. After securing the top deck, Israeli soldiers fired at the passengers below on the bridge deck. The report found that "none of the four passengers who were killed, including a photographer, who at the time of being shot was engaged in taking photographs and was shot by an Israeli soldier positioned on the top deck above, posed any threat to the Israeli forces." The UN report found that the Israeli forces had used torture and that at least six passengers had been subjected to 'extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions'. The report concluded that Israeli forces had used force that was 'disproportionate to the occasion' using 'totally unnecessary and incredible violence' which 'betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality'. The BBC lunchtime, early evening and main news never mentioned the report.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Overview
Building on rigorous research by the world-renowned Glasgow University Media Group, More Bad News From Israel examines media coverage of the current conflict in the Middle East and the impact it has on public opinion. The book brings together senior journalists and ordinary viewers to examine how audiences understand the news and how their views are shaped by media reporting. In the largest study ever undertaken in this area, the authors focus on television news. They illustrate major differences in the way ...