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29 - 30 November

2025

29 - 30

November

2025

Conference

International Media and the War on Gaza: Modalities of Discourse and the Clash of Narratives

Concept Note

The trajectory of news coverage of the genocide and war crimes committed by the Israeli army for more than 20 months reflects the perspective of Israeli media and international networks on the roots of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as the ethnic cleansing policy targeting the eradication of the Palestinian people and the oppression of their civil and political rights. The different stages of coverage also reveal this media’s vision of the context of the war on Gaza and the dimensions of the conflict in the region; the narratives produced were shaped by the dimensions of this conflict and influenced by the positions of journalistic institutions, media networks, and their owners regarding the actors involved in the war. As a result, most Western media, and even some Arab media, promoted, especially in the early months of the war, the Israeli narrative and its false reports about “the burning of children” and “the raping of Israeli women” during the Hamas attack on settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip. These outlets justified “Israel’s right to self-defence” and legitimised the war against what they called “Hamas’s terrorism”.

Conference Objectives

  • To identify the modalities of discourse and narrative patterns produced by Israeli and international media about the Palestinian and Israeli selves and the trajectories of the war on Gaza
  • To understand the role of media during wars and the contexts of symbolic conflict in controlling global public opinion
  • To determine the role of translational editing in promoting the Israeli narrative and obscuring the Palestinian narrative
  • To highlight forms of Israeli and Western propaganda manipulating international public opinion
  • To identify the structure of hate speech in Israeli and international media
  • To showcase the role of Israeli media, press institutions and international networks in fuelling genocide in Gaza
  • To shed light on the militarisation of social media networks and the incitement of genocidal acts
  • To compare genocide media in contemporary experiences (e.g. Rwanda, Cambodia) with genocide media in the war on Gaza
  • To determine the role of media in documenting war crimes and its impact on respecting human rights, enforcing international law and peacebuilding
  • To recognise the challenges facing international media in adhering to professional ethics and codes of conduct during wars and conflicts

Key Themes

  • The process of news framing of the Gaza war in Western media discourse
  • News models in the Coverage of the War on Gaza
  • Propaganda in Israeli and international media during the Gaza war
  • Patterns of propaganda discourse in international media and its impact on global public opinion
  • Decolonising communication and media studies
  • Fake news and media misinformation in the Gaza war
  • The production of narratives and the battle of stories during wars and conflicts: Methods and objectives
  • Transediting and its role in promoting and obscuring narratives
  • Lexical and semantic construction in Arabic-language foreign news sites covering the war
  • Genocidal media discourse in the Gaza war: Propositions and characteristics
  • From hate speech to incitement to genocide: Israeli media as a model
  • The role of Western media in institutionalising genocide in public discourse and journalistic practice
  • Social networks and content production strategies during the war
  • The role of social media networks in the digital genocide of Palestinian content
  • Professional ethics in conflict coverage and the documentation of war crimes
  • Media and conflict resolution: Methodological and theoretical trends
  • International experiences of the media’s role in comprehending conflict and enlightening global public opinion
  • The role of media in protecting human rights, realising justice and peacebuilding
  • The status of media within the framework of international humanitarian law
  • The role of media in documenting war crimes and its influence on implementing international law