CONSTRUCTING NARRATIVES, SHAPING PERCEPTIONS: EVALUATING ROLE OF MEDIA IN NARRATIVE BUILDING AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT

Abstract

This study aims at analyzing narrative building through media biases in political power play and polarized global discourses, how different media outlets frame the relevant events and how the actors consolidate their discourse in order to legitimize their decisions and policies or to justify their existence plus resistance. Using qualitative approach and drawing upon secondary data collected from academic books, peer-reviewed journals, governmental publications, historical archives and think-tank reports, this research delves into the scholarly and theoretical foundation of media narrative building amid polarized political discourses. The study explores the strong-footing of media architecture propagating the information based upon agenda-setting parallel with gatekeeping, in order to manufacture the public perceptions regarding general events and Israel-Palestine conflict in particular. This research adds to the literature the discursive practices utilized by media outlets in the coverage of Palestinian crisis particularly and the major instances changing the course due to Israel’s subsequent war along with corresponding shift in the public opinion internationally over the time.