The Discursive Representation of Social Groups through Lexical Choices in Headlines: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Western and Arab Online Reporting on Gaza War

This study offers a critical analysis of the representation of Israelis and
Palestinians in headlines of the selected articles from Cable News Network
(CNN), New York Times (NYT), Al-Ahram Weekly Online and Al Jazeera
English online (AJE) coverage of the 2008 War on Gaza (Appendix 1). This
analysis examines the way language is used to represent social actors involved
in this conflict, and attempts to reveal the way lexical choices are politically
and ideologically employed to affect the ideological stance of the reader.
Headline analysis will be guided by Fairclough’s (2003) three – dimensional
Critical Discourse analysis (CDA) framework, and van Leeuwen’s (2008)
Social Actor Approach. In order to have a better understanding of media
manipulation of its readers, certain aspects of the headline need to be
addressed by trying to answer some questions such as: Which words are
chosen to appear in the headline and what is the purpose of such choices? How
are social actors represented through lexical choices? This analysis aims to
compare the representation of Israeli and Palestinian actors in selected
headlines of the four websites under study to show how political and
ideological orientations of media organizations are reflected in discourse and
the ideological construction of social actors