Tribune News Network
Doha
Amid the attack by the Israeli occupation, the dominance of the Israeli narrative raises questions about its formation and its global influence, as well as why the Palestinian and Arab narratives worldwide impact is more limited, and how it can be amplified.
In this interview, Dr Ibrahim N Abusharif, an associate professor in Residence at Northwestern University in Qatar – a Qatar Foundation partner university – explores how the prevailing media narrative surrounding the situation in Palestine is shaped.
What is the impact of media narratives in shaping public perception? And when it comes to Palestine, what are the key elements that comprise a media narrative?
Media narratives are a fundamental part of how information is communicated and ultimately understood. ‘Narrative’ is a broad term that includes everything from telling fictional stories to conveying real-life events.
In the context of violence and attack, such as the heartbreaking reality in Gaza, media narratives refer to the repeated, and often uncritical, presentation of certain talking points that, over time, have become accepted as facts for no reason other than their sheer repetition. This recurring cycle maintains stereotypical understandings of the region and its people. It is critical for journalists to at least recognise this and avoid contributing narratives that oversimplify a complex situation and hobble the prospect of authentic learning.
What factors should journalists consider when reporting on the Palestinian situation to provide a more accurate and comprehensive perspective?
It’s always been the case that journalists and news organisations bear a great responsibility when covering violence and the loss of civilian life, especially children. This necessarily includes avoiding terminologies that dehumanise a people and humanise others. Journalists need reliable knowledge of historical and ideological contexts that animate violence narratives and their uneven news coverage.
When covering the Palestinian-Israeli context, it behooves Western reporters, editors and publishers to apply basic rigour to comprehend historical threads, political and economic strangleholds, occupation, and other contemporary factors that influence policies and responses. Without this context, reportage is separated from context, resulting in a narrative that lacks connection to the past and the future — and ultimately lacks connection to what is real.
Why does the Israeli narrative seem to overwhelm the Palestinian narrative, particularly in Western societies?
When it comes to Palestinians, as well as the broader Middle East, the impact of colonialism significantly influences perceptions, which trickles down to Western journalistic attitudes, as media scholars have shown. The legacies of empire were built on stripping the members of these societies of their cultural distinctions and, in fact, their very humanity. To justify resource exploitation, colonial powers claimed to be developing an underdeveloped or humanity-impaired people. Though colonialism on the ground has largely ended, the ideational foundations of colonialism remain, and they continue to influence media narratives and journalistic praxis manufactured in Western climes and the Global North more generally. Edward Said convincingly showed how the West’s history of viewing the East through a perch of superiority and exoticism ultimately affects narrative construction. This perspective can influence journalistic attitudes by perpetuating stereotypes or misunderstanding the nuances of the Palestinian issue.
Does this explain the characterisation, in some quarters, of Palestinians as "human animals”?
Dehumanising Palestinians goes beyond mere insults. The results are lethal and produce international deafness to their suffering. To claim people to be "human animals” paves the way for the worst kind of violence and disables popular backlash against such blatant violence. Creating an intellectual and epistemological media ecology that permits the claims of "human animals” is conducive to exploitation and committing acts of ruthless carnage with little backlash. Forget the cliché here, but we must accept as our guide for what we do and say that we are all humans, and we must fathom the inherent value of each one of us — regardless of borders, religion, ethnicity, ideology and culture. This has to be a universally applicable ethic. Otherwise, it is a useless cliché.
Has a narrative built on the concept that Palestinians are somehow "less human” contributed to making such descriptions appear self-evident and capable of avoiding criticism?
Yes, the media narrative in Western public consciousness makes it normative and permissible to convey and repeat narratives that ultimately create categories of humanity: those who deserve vehemence and those who deserve exclusive sympathy.