Newspapers and Opposing Ideologies The Case of Killing a Jordanian Judge by Israeli Soldiers

Abstract

This study employs van Dijk’s concept of ideology within the framework of semantic discourse analysis to analyse two newspapers’ editorial coverage of the killing of the Jordanian judge Raed Zueter on March 10, 2014 at King Hussein Bridge by Israeli soldiers. A semantic discourse analysis of the coverage of the incident in the Jordanian English daily newspaper the Jordan Times and the Israeli-English newspaper Haaretz has revealed that the different discourses presented in the articles published in both newspapers embody different ideologically-governed opinions and attitudes towards the incident. The analysis has found out the underlying opposing ideological attitudes and views of both newspapers towards the incident are articulated and manifested by different semantic discourse structures such as topic, backgrounding, foregrounding, propositional structures, and lexicalization. The study has emphasized the role of newspaper ideology in labelling, presenting, and identifying the event and actors involved in it in a way that promotes particular opinions, ideas, and views according to the ideology of each newspaper.