Product Description

Based on rigorous research by the world-renowned Glasgow University Media Group, this authoritative and well-referenced book examines media coverage of the current conflict in the Middle East and the impact this coverage has on public opinion. It begins with a history of the present crisis from the period of the British mandate in Palestine through to the creation of Israel, the refugee crisis, the wars, attempts at peace, Oslo and Wye Accords and the intifadas, In the largest study ever undertaken in this area the authors then examine media coverage of the conflict, focusing on television news. They illustrate major differences in the way Israelis and Palestinians are represented, including how casualties are shown and the presentation of the motives and rationales of both sides. This is combined with a very extensive audience study involving hundreds of participants from the USA, Britain and Germany. It shows extraordinary differences in levels of knowledge and understanding, especially amongst young people from these countries. The study also uses new techniques to identify trends in public understanding and belief. Uniquely, it brings together senior journalists and ordinary viewers who work jointly to examine how audiences understand the news and how public belief and opinion have been shaped by media reporting. The book includes sections on theory and methods and shows the processes which shape the news. It looks at patterns of ownership and at how public relations, information control and the close political links between the USA and Britain affect what we see and hear in the media.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #318211 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Edward S. Herman, co-author (with Noam Chomsky) of Manufacturing Consent
This superb study ... is extensive in scope, and scrupulously fair. It will be a landmark.

Professor Lucrecia Escudero Chauvel, Université de Lille III and Paris VIII
A remarkable book.

Professor Frank Webster
Bad News from Israel reveals remarkable levels of ignorance about what and why things are as they are.

Customer Reviews

A guide to misunderstanding Israel-Palestine
Greg Philo, Professor of Communications at Glasgow University, carried out a three year study into the relationship between television and the construction of public knowledge - how we understand foreign events etc. What he found was that 80% rely mainly on TV news, and that people (esp. young people) were very confused about events.

Philo DOESN'T claim that reporters and news organisations are deliberately biased, but that a lack of historical perspective causes confusion. A huge majority of the British public thought that the 'settlers' were Palestinian, and that the 'occupied territories' were Israeli land being occupied by Palestinians. They thought that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was just another border conflict - they didn't realise that a people had been dispossessed.

This loss of the origins of the conflict has interesting consequences. Palestinians were always seen as initiating violence, and Israelis as responding. Palestinian action was never understood as a 'response' to occupation and repression and loss of land. People assume suicide bombs are the result of 'mad-men', rather than emerging from a particular set of social conditions.

Reporters' subconscious use of words like 'hit-back', 'retaliate', 'pay-back time' were only used in terms of the Israeli action; while 'atrocity', 'murder' and 'cold-blood' were only used to refer to Palestinian action. This use of words tacitly endorses Israeli action while condemning Palestinian action. Can you imagine a suicide bomb being described in a news report as 'Palestinians hit back for 35 years of occupation? Or an Israeli raid into a refugee camp being described as 'cold-blooded killing'?

This different semantic treatment for the Palestinians and Israelis produced some odd results. A group of people were asked to write a script for a set of pictures used in a news report a few years ago. The pictures were of Mohammed Al-Dura, the 12 year old boy, who's father claims was shot by Israeli snipers, but who Israelis claim was caught in the crossfire. The group said that 'this boy was caught in the crossfire' and worryingly, they went on to say 'in retaliation for a Palestinian suicide bomb'. But Mohammed Al-Dura was shot at the start of the current intifada, before the first suicide bomb!

Philo is NOT a pro-Palestinian campaigner, he makes it clear at the outset that he is not endorsing any killing - Israeli or Palestinian. He is interested in how people misunderstand events, and what the cause of that knowledge was. Despite this, he has been the target of letter-writing campaigns, and malicious reviews in international publications which have clearly not read his work.

An eye-opening insight into how the public misunderstands Palestine, and how reporters are subconsciously responsible.

Bad News from Israel
It is disturbing to discover that the British nation (and undoubtedly others too) has been continuously and consistently deceived by our respected media in its reporting from Israel and Palestine.
Greg Philo's well-researched and eloquent study reveals that for decades we have been denied the truth and that a deeply flawed perspective on the conflict has been provided.
The justice of the Palestinian cause has been denied a proper explanation; the war-crimes of the Israeli occupiers have been concealed and the sufferings of the poor and the oppressed have not been reported accurately, if at all.
I urge all those interested in learning the truth about Palestine and in confronting the bias of the media to read this book.

If you read the Economist, then read something else - this.
I am a social scientist used to reading studies which use many of the methods applied here to study the impact of BBC news stories on the understandings and perceptions of the public to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

I can't comment on how balanced the history of the conflict is, as it is laid out in the first part of the book. However it is clear to me as a left-oriented scientist, that they went very far including perspectives from both sides to fill out the more recent contested versions of history. Ultra-right wing Netanyahu is given air as are pro-palestinian accounts. It is hard to feel that the Palestinians (who on the BBC rarely get a fair picture presented) are over-supported here, though pro-Israeli's may feel so since they are part of a dominant cultural camp in that respect.

The title here is in response to the Economists review of this book which slated it using 'quotes' from the book which do not exist. I suggest that you read this book rather than the economist, which I have never rated as a serious intellectual journal anyway.
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