Welcome!

The objective of this class is to look at war rhetoric in media.
Our focus is the representation of Middle Eastern Crisis of Palestine in US media. We will surely open discuss and analogies to most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, the Middle Eastern crisis presents a solid platform of a vivid intercultural discussion for the following reasons: 1) The US is "indirectly" involved in the war; 2) the nature of the occupation and its evolution throughout the years; 3) the involvement of different parities in the war at many levels (humanitarian, economic, political, social, religious, etc).

We will use these articles as a support for class discussion:
-Joined Forces: The IDF and the Israeli Press Reporting of Intifada by Alina Korn
-Arab Public Opinion in the Age of Satellite Television: the case of al-Jazeera by Mohamed Zayani
-Framing the other: Worldview, Rhetoric and Media since 9/11 by Lawrence Pintak
-Bad News and Public Debate about the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Greg Philo and Mike Berry
All the articles are from "Muslims and the News Media" edited by Elizabeth Poole and John E. Richardson.

Guiding questions:
-How does media report the war? (let's focus on basic dictionary definitions of war and compare them with media accounts. For instance, ponder on these questions: is the number casualties reported accurately? Where does war usually take place?)
-How are war reports designed?
-What factors are taken into considerations in building a story?
-Is media a solution (a means to find a solution) or else part of the problem?
-How are self-declared independent media acting vis-à-vis "traditional' media corporations?
-How should a technical communicator act (for instance a journalist or a reporter)? Do they have room to abide by ideals of unbiased media?

As this class is designed around media materials, please try to familiarize yourself with as many items as you can from written, audio or audiovisual press. You can find below a number of videos which act either as report samples or bloggers' views on rhetoric.

Suggested References:
A YouTuber's views on news reports on war
Al-Jazeera's Director on the daily show
Al-Jazeera anchor on "Western" media (Faisal al-Qassem hosts one of the most popular and successful debate shows on Al-Jazeera)
Michael Moore on Political Correctness
Random videos on anti war in Palestine and Noam Chomsky a Jewish for Palestine