Arab News and Conflict

Book excerpt: The Arab-Israeli struggle is not only a struggle over land, but a struggle over language representations. Arab reporters as well as politicians believe that their political discourses about the Middle East conflict are objective, accurate, and credible. Arab News and Conflict critically examines the role of language in the representations of events and ideologies found in news media. Drawing on socio-political-linguistic approaches combined with real-case studies, the author offers a unique discourse analysis model for analysing politically sensitive language in the media. The focus in this study is on the Arab media discourse in times of conflict with Israel and the US, spanning the years 2001 to 2009. Using rich examples from outspoken Arab media outlets, the study explores ideological and language facts about the Arab-Israeli conflict. This book is compelling reading for students and researchers of media and cultural studies, discourse analysis and sociolinguistics, and translation. It is of equal interest to political analysts, political speakers, journalists, and news editors who need to understand more about the ideological function of the language they use or the political-journalistic-linguistic nexus of power.