Author(s): Eliza Lewis
Mentor(s): Jared Colton
Institution USU
The First Intifada in 1987 led to 1600 Palestinians killed by Israelis while 200 Israelis were killed by Palestinians. However, journalism during the five years of Palestinian uprising had a distinct Israeli bias. While pointing out that bias is interesting, the goal of this presentation is to analyze deeper motives at work in journalism. In order to deduct these motives, I will apply Kennet Burke’s Rhetorical Theory of Dramatism to analyze how guilt and processes of seeking purification function in three news articles. Questions I will address in this presentation include how does society get rid of guilt from international conflict? What is the rhetor’s purpose? What method are they using to purify this guilt? Using Burke’s terms of act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose, I will analyze these articles as journalists try to dissuade their readers from experiencing guilt in worldly conflict. In his Language as Symbolic Action, Burke discusses this relationship of guilt and Dramatism as, “…if drama, then conflict. And if conflict, then victimage. Dramatism is always on the edge of this vexing problem, that comes to a culmination in tragedy, the song of the scapegoat.” (55) Burke is arguing that communities seek perfection, which creates order, disorder occurs, guilt is formed, and then there is a response to produce purification. The results of this study will illuminate how complex and nuanced bias is in journalism, specifically through the examples of the First Palestinian Intifada.