The Implication of Priming and Framing Effects for News Coverage of Gaza’s the Great March of Return in Arabic News Websites: A Comparison between Aljazeera and al-Arabiya

Abstract

The aim of this study is to probe for ideological construction of news within the structure of news websites’ reporting. The study focuses on news reports relating to the Great March of Return has received attention in two Arabic official websites: Aljazeera and al-Arabiya. The analysis of these news reports adheres to Entman’s (1991) taxonomy of news framing. The qualitative analyses of the news of both websites showed the applicability of general characteristics of the frame including importance judgment, agency, identification, categorization and generalization. This is followed by a comparative quantitative analysis of two news reports in terms of priming, which surfaces evidence of the effect of ideology manifest in news reporting and reflected in the audiences’ responses. The study concludes that the priming effect existed but in different degrees due to the different factors that might play a role.