Page 144 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

128 Media Studies

then, because words generate images in our minds that tap into presupposi-
tions and interpretations based on past experience that may not always be
relevant to new experiences or that may not be applicable to a whole group.
To get a more concrete sense of how frames and interpretations work
in news, let ’ s consider the example of the Middle East.
When polled, most Americans side with Israel, but most Europeans side
with the Palestinians. Clearly, each group or population has a very different
picture in their minds of what is transpiring in the Middle East. How did
those differing pictures get painted?
First a few facts. Jews once lived in the Middle East, and were driven
away by the Romans. They began to return in the late nineteenth century
and eventually controlled about one third of the territory of what was then
called Palestine. In 1948 the United Nations partitioned Palestine into two
parts, a new state of Israel and a state called Palestine. A civil war followed
that Israel won, and many Palestinians were driven out of Israel and have
continued to live in refugee camps in adjacent countries. After a war in
1967, Israel occupied all of Palestine. After many years of occupation, it set
aside certain areas for the Palestinians to control. It allowed Israelis to
establish settlements in Palestine; built new Israeli neighborhoods and
towns on Palestinian territory around Jerusalem, a Palestinian city; and
exercised violent military repression against any Palestinian who objected
to the policy of colonization.
Europeans see the Palestinians as the victims of Israeli colonialism. That
is because European news describes the situation differently from the US
news media. To get a sense of what form these differences take, it is instruc-
tive to compare news accounts of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, a Palestinian -
controlled area, in 2008.
The coverage in the New York Times portrays the Palestinian defenders
against the Israeli invasion as practicing trickery that gets civilians killed.
They dress as civilians and hide near schools from which they attack invad-
ing Israeli soldiers. These discursive strategies or ways of describing the
events make the Israeli invasion appear justified. The Hamas or Palestinian

defenders appear to be in the wrong. In one news story, an Israeli attack
on a school is excused because it occurred in a “ densely packed Jabaliya

refugee camp ” that is “ in a crowded neighborhood full of Hamas fighters. ”
Israeli sources are given priority over others, and the newspaper reports

that “ mortar fire from the school compound prompted Israeli forces to
return fire. The Israeli mortar rounds killed as many as 40 people outside

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the school. ” Information about the bombing that might incriminate the