Abstract:
The objective of this Master thesis was to conduct a narrative analysis of the news
coverage of the Gaza War in 2008/9 between Israel and Hamas. More specifically, this
work discusses the application of Israeli and Palestinian historical-national narratives in
English language online (version) newspapers from the U.S., Israel as well as the
Palestinians and the Arab world. The purpose is to improve the reader’s understanding of
narratives and their media applicability in a conflict context and especially in light of
Israeli-Palestinian issues. For this qualitative research, numerous articles published in
different newspapers on several days during the start, middle and end phase of the war
were analyzed. Results show amongst others that in terms of Israeli narratives there are
certain recurrent themes and historical references (e.g. the Six Day War) frequently
applied in the media. With respect to Palestinian narratives, the picture is less clear and
one comes rather across what you may call a counter-Israel narrative than a clear
Palestinian one.
