MANIPULATING NEWS LANGUAGE ON GAZA WAR: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

t The present study is a Critical Discourse Analysis of the media language related to positive-self representation and negative-other representation projected through the coverage of Gaza war. It aims at finding out the ideologies of positiveself representation and negative-other representation in media discourse related to Gaza war. The present study employs van Dijk’s (2005) analytical framework, including van Dijk’s ideological square and van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model to explore the ideologies of positive-self representation and negative-other representation in the news language on Gaza war. This study analyzes 25 samples taken from 10 international media outlets and websites to expose their manipulation practices on the discoursal and linguistic levels, influencing people’s minds, increasing their polarity, altering the Gaza war’s conception. The findings of the study indicate that media discourse regarding the Gaza war is biased. This is because anti-Israel actors are always stereotyped as extremists and terrorists, which participated in altering the perception of the international outlets of the conflict in Palestine from a war against Palestinians to a war against ‘terrorism’ i.e. Hamas. That is, Israel is always positively represented (positive-self representation) and Palestine is negatively represented (negative-other representation).