Language of Violence in the Arab Press

Language of Violence in the Arab Press

GOKSUN, Yenal
BUYUKASLAN, Ali

Key words: Arab Press, Middle East, Critical Discourse Analysis, Language of Violence ABSTRACT The news in the international press about the Middle East mostly cover acts of violence like clashes or wars taking place in the region. The language of violence used in the news creates the Middle East perception and prejudicies against Arabs in different countries. Contrarily in our research, the coverage of violence in Arab press and its discourse will be analysed. The Middle East region is passing through a period of rapid change and this change leads instability in many Arab countries. Mass demonstrations, clashes between political groups or with security forces and cross-border acts of violence are a few examples of the consequence of the instability in the region. The language of violence in the Arab press is as sensitive as the political situation in the region. In our research, language of violence in the Arab press will be questioned. For this purpose, news stories covering acts of violence from Al-Ahram newspaper in Egypt, An-Nahar newspaper in Lebanon, Az-Zaman newspaper in Iraq, SANA news agency in Syria and the Pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat from London will be analysed with the perspective of critical discourse analysis. We will seek answers to following questions:  What kind of acts of violence does the press cover?  Is the press biased when covering the violence?  What are the dynamics effecting the bias in the language of violence?  Are there any difference in the language of violence among different Arab countries?  If there are differences, what are the reasons? Macro and micro level discourse analysis of texts will bring out the ideological background of news stories and express the differences between the newspapers’ approaches. On the other hand, the research will give the opportunity to analyse the language of violence from the “local” newspapers’ point of view. As these are the main sources which inform the Arab population in the region and have –a discussible- effect on the masses, analysis of the language is expected to make a positive contribution to possible revisions.

Article
PeerReviewed

IBU Publishing

2013-05-03

2071