The study has examined the similarities and differences in the coverage of two Palestinian news agencies Ma’an and Palestinian Information Center (PIC) on the reactions of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s regarding relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The study has also aimed to explore the use of four function of framing by Entman 1993 in the news stories of both agencies. Qualitative content analysis has been adopted to achieve the aim of this study. The total sampling number was 9 news stories; 3 stories have been retrieved from Ma’an, and the other 6 have been retrieved from PIC. The time frame has started from December 5, 2017 which marked the day of informing Abbas by Trump’s decision to move the Embassy until December 22 2017 which was a day after gaining a sweeping victory in UN by president Abbas through a resolution that rejected the decision. Both of the news agencies were supportive to President Abbas in their coverage and none of them has any negative coverage about him. From the sampling number it can be seen that PIC has paid more attention for the coverage of this issue than Ma’an. However, PIC has ignored the success of President Abbasfor achieving UN resolution against Trump’s decision. Moreover, all the news stories has included “define the problem” while excluded “diagnose causes” functions. However both“make moral judgment” and “suggest remedies” have been included in all news stories of Ma’an, and only half of news stories of PIC.
Keywords: Abbas, Trump, US embassy, Jerusalem, Palestine
Abstract
The study has examined the similarities and differences in the coverage of two Palestinian news agencies Ma’an and Palestinian Information Center (PIC) on the reactions of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s regarding relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. [...]
The main focus of this study is the coverage of New Straits Times (NST) of the first Palestinian General Elections for two presidential candidates namely, Yasser Arafat and Samiha Khalil. This study aimed to explore if any of Entman’s 1993 framing functions was used in the coverage of this issue and to explore whether the tone of NST coverage was negative, positive, balanced or neutral. To achieve the aims of this study, qualitative content analysis of elections stories from NST has been adopted. The number of news stories was eight, and the time frame started from 19th January to 13th February 1996, where three of these stories were published on the same day of 22nd January, two days after holding the elections on 20th January. Defining problems and diagnosing causes werethe most prominent of Entman’s four framing functions presented in all the articles. The moral judgment function was included in four news stories, and suggesting remedies was included in two news stories out of eight. The findings revealed that Yasser Arafat received 50% balanced coverage, followed by 37.5% positive coverage, and only 12.5% negative coverage, while Samiha Khalilreceived 67% balanced coverage, compared to 33% positive coverage.
Keywords: Arafat, framing, media coverage, Palestine, presidential elections
Abstract
The main focus of this study is the coverage of New Straits Times (NST) of the first Palestinian General Elections for two presidential candidates [...]