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" Der (Un)Bürgerliche Krieg Medienframing und Gedächtnisaufbau in Kriegszeiten und im Nachkriegslibanon "
Dib, Amal
Richter, Carola
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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1053328
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TL52445
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| Main Entry
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Dib, Amal
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| Title & Author
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Der (Un)Bürgerliche Krieg Medienframing und Gedächtnisaufbau in Kriegszeiten und im Nachkriegslibanon\ Dib, AmalRichter, Carola
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| College
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Freie Universitaet Berlin (Germany)
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| Date
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2019
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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2019
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| Note
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236 p.
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| Abstract
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This study traces the media and intellectuals’ framing of Lebanon’s war during wartime and postwar. It aims to illuminate the interplay of media and memory in a post-conflict context by investigating the role and agency of both media and intellectuals in memory construction. It examines 202 opinion articles published in two local newspapers with opposing viewpoints during the unofficial annual commemoration of the war from 1976 to 2013. It is grounded in the theoretical approach that the media reveal the narratives of the dominant conflict and construct collective memory. The complexity of the war in Lebanon materialized in an equally complex surfeit of meta-frames about the war. This study raises questions about the nature of the narratives of the war in the public sphere, in the specific context of a multifaceted war. It also questions the role of both media and intellectuals in constructing and shaping collective memory and national identity in a post-conflict society. The three research questions this study poses are: (1) How did An-Nahar and As-Safir approach the discourse of the war in wartime and postwar? (2) How was the war framed by An-Nahar and As-Safir in wartime and postwar? And (3) How did the media and intellectuals play their role as memory agents in Lebanon? To answer these questions, the study employed framing analysis and adopted a mixed-methods approach: a quantitative approach of content and frame analysis to answer the first two research questions, and a qualitative approach of textual analysis to add depth to the second research question and respond to the third research question. Findings in regard to the first research question illustrate the varying approaches An-Nahar and As-Safir took in addressing the discourse of the war both in wartime and postwar. Despite their active partaking in addressing the war and its memory around its anniversary, each newspaper tackled the discourse from a different standpoint. In wartime, An-Nahar conveyed its editorial voice, while As-Safir prioritized op-ed insights. In postwar, both newspapers gave more weight to guest contributors, thus reducing their editorial control. The study of peak and drop points in publishing throughout the years reflected the changing political circumstances and the press attitudes towards the war and its discourse. In general, both newspapers showcased peace journalism tendencies in wartime as their extensive publishing focused on suggesting conflict-resolution strategies. In postwar, drop points reflected the adherence of the press to the state-sponsored amnesia towards the war in the early years of fragile peace, the shell-shock trauma society was facing, and the no-war-no-peace state with its newly imposed realties. Soon after, in the early 2000s, peak points mirrored the press’s engagement in the ‘intellectual awakening’ to the necessity of breaking the public silence around the war, society’s readiness to deal with the brutal past, its frustration with the political status quo, and its fears amid the sporadic re-emergence of conflict. The quantitatively-reconstructed frames of the war seldom interpreted it as a simple occurrence. Despite the differences in each newspaper’s stance on the war in the two periods, various local, regional and international layers always seeped into simple and complex frames. Simple frames described the war as a civil war, a regional war, or a proxy war, and complex frames encompassed two or more of these dimensions. An-Nahar, for the most part, framed the conflict as a ‘war of others’ on the Lebanese land and echoed Christian right-wing sympathetic conspiracy theories of a Palestinian threat to the historical Lebanese miraculous existence. As-Safir, on the other hand, reflected a left-wing understanding of the war as a class-struggle fueled by sectarianism, and a pan-Arab/pro-Palestinian Muslim scenario of an Israeli/American conspiracy against the Palestinian ‘resistance’ and its Lebanese nestle. In spite of evidence supporting peace journalism tendencies, both newspapers revealed war journalism tendencies by always showcasing a dichotomy of warring fronts and reducing the complex conflict into a brawl between two ethno-national groups. The qualitative analysis of a sample of 20 articles reflective of the reconstructed frames uncovered layers of narrative that shed additional light on the complexities of the frames, revealed the existence of an additional frame in An-Nahar, and untangled the liaisons between the newspapers and the intellectuals. Findings underlined the changing nature of frames over time according to circumstantial needs and political interchanges. Over time and across outlets, the attribution of blame, in particular, proved to be a contested issue between victimizing the Lebanese, vilifying some of them, and externalizing the responsibility to outside powers. Identity too was disputed, as each outlet summoned up the war to reinforce its own group identity. This was reflected in the belonging of the intellectuals featured in the press to the same ideological camp of the respective outlets. The ‘other’ voice was absent in a fragmented media landscape that fostered the intellectuals’ recycling of their own ideological standpoints and hindered collective memory and identity reconstruction in a volatile post-conflict milieu. The findings of this study prompt a re-thinking of the role of the media and intellectuals in wartime and peacebuilding and contribute to the ongoing academic debates within the framework of media and memory construction.
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| Descriptor
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Journalism
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Mass communications
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Middle Eastern history
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Military history
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Rhetoric
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Richter, Carola
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Freie Universitaet Berlin (Germany)
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