THE BBC'S DISCURSIVE STRATEGY AND PRACTICES VIS-[Agrave]-VIS THE PALESTINIAN–ISRAELI CONFLICT

Abstract

This paper examines the BBC's strategy and discursive practices with regard to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. It triangulates critical linguistic analysis of the BBC's English and Arabic online reports, with the results of extensive interviews with BBC editors, articles by mainstream media as well as the BBC's guidelines and the editors’ blogs. The aim behind the triangulation is to see whether the corporation's beliefs, norms and assumptions vis-à-vis the issue have a hand in the shaping of its discursive features. In order to understand why and how news is differently structured and patterned, Fowler urges critical linguists to contextualize their studies by examining discourse-related moments other than the text itself. The contextualization of the linguistic representations of the conflict demonstrates that BBC language reflects to a large extent the views, assumptions and norms prevalent in the corporation as well as the unequal division of power and control between the two protagonists despite the corporation's insistence on impartiality, balance and neutrality in its coverage of the conflict.

Keywords:

• BBC
• contextualization
• critical linguistics
• linguistic representation
• Palestine and Israel
• power and control

Notes

1. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/.

2. See the report of the independent panel for the BBC governors on impartiality of BBC coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (http://www.bbcgovernorsarchive.co.uk/docs/reviews/panel_report_final.txt) and the report by BBC News Management on the coverage of Israel and Palestinians (http://www.bbcgovernorsarchive.co.uk/docs/reviews/bbcnews_middleeast_strategy.pdf).

3. See http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/report/index.htm.

4. The samples were collected from the BBC archives since I could only spot one Israeli fatality in the period I studied.