The Guardian and El Watan’s Coverage of October 2023 Gaza Attacks: A Social Semiotic Comparative Study
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Date
2025
Authors
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Publisher
Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou
Abstract
The study examined the coverage of the October 2023 Gaza attacks in two ideologically and
culturally different newspapers (The Guardian and El Watan) in terms of journalistic framing
strategies. The research investigated how media discourse shaped and ordered conflict,
focusing on the contribution of ideological, cultural, and geopolitical factors to journalistic
representation. Through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) informed by Michel Foucault‘s
Discourse Theory and Stuart Hall‘s encoding/decoding model, the study analyzed verbal as
well as visual aspects of the news reports. The analysis was further supported by social actor
representation frameworks articulated by Van Leeuween Kress & Van Leeuwen. The
findings revealed that El Watan adopted a frame based on anti-colonial discourse, imperial
violence, and criticism of Israeli military actions, while largely excluding Israeli voices.
Conversely, The Guardian employed a humanitarian frame that emphasized Palestinian
suffering, but also incorporated the values of liberal democracy. The results demonstrated that
media framing, source choice, language, and imagery differed within and between regions,
shaping public perceptions of conflict. This comparison between Western and Arab media
contributed to the literature of media studies, communication studies, and conflict journalism
by underlining the importance of critical media literacy in understanding the ways in which
global events are represented in different social and political contexts.
Description
67p. ; (+CD-Rom)
Keywords
media framing, Gaza conflict, critical discourse analysis, The Guardian, El Watan
Citation
Language and Communication