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CAM
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 Posted: Fri 14 Jan, 2005 12:06 am Post subject: Cartoons on Al Jazeera |
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| Lately I've taken to looking at the front page of the news on Al Jazeera. http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage. If you scroll down, you will see their political cartoons. Some of them are very interesting -- very different perspectives from what we see here in the West.
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Mats
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| Posted: Fri 14 Jan, 2005 9:48 am Post subject: Not all that different |
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| I guess the 'perspective' is different (i.e. bad guys are switched); still, seems like the same sort of fantasy propaganda the west puts out with the roles reversed. Palestinians are sweet children and Jews and Americans are monsters.
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MicheleCerulli
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| Posted: Fri 14 Jan, 2005 10:29 am Post subject: Re: Not all that different |
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| MEF wrote: | | I guess the 'perspective' is different (i.e. bad guys are switched); still, seems like the same sort of fantasy propaganda the west puts out with the roles reversed. Palestinians are sweet children and Jews and Americans are monsters. |
Do you mean that in the west side Americans and Jews are sweet children and palestinians are monsters?
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CAM
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| Posted: Fri 14 Jan, 2005 11:51 am Post subject: Re: Not all that different |
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| MicheleCerulli wrote: | | MEF wrote: | | I guess the 'perspective' is different (i.e. bad guys are switched); still, seems like the same sort of fantasy propaganda the west puts out with the roles reversed. Palestinians are sweet children and Jews and Americans are monsters. |
Do you mean that in the west side Americans and Jews are sweet children and palestinians are monsters? |
Yes, MEF, the frame of reference in most of the Al Jazeera cartoons does appear to be the enemy-oriented "fighting frame" in mirror image. (the "fighting frame" of much media reporting is discussed in the Canadian Journal of Communication http://www.cjc-online.ca/viewarticle.php?id=599&layout=html)
Speaking of general media emphasis about the mid-east, the Canadian (and American?) newspapers do not tend to portray the middle east conflict as Palestinians good, Israelis/Americans bad. Rather, the media in the West has (at least in the past several years) tended to give quite a lot more attention to violent deaths/abuses against Israeli people/children than to violent deaths/abuses against people/children in the Palestinian territories. Yesterday we heard prominentaly about the suicide bombing in Gaza that killed six Israelis, but I don't remember seeing any Canadian news on Jan 13 about the Palestinian civilian death in a Gaza refugee camp by military helicopter shelling, or on Jan 13 about the Palestinian civilian killed by troops who opened fire on his car while he was taking a pregnant woman to the hospital, or on Jan 12 about the shelling of houses in Palestinian neighbourhoods, arresting of many civilians, and expropriation of their lands. Or on Jan 12, some people killed in Ramallah by troops. Compare Al Jazeerah's coverage of some of these events at http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage (which covers both the Israeli deaths and the Palestinian deaths) with the less balanced coverage at a Palestinian news service at http://www.zajel.org/ which does not cover the suicide bombing. Then take a look at the Haaretz coverage http://www.haaretzdaily.com/ which does not cover the military incursions/expropriations in the Palestinian territories (or at least I couldn't find any). Compare with the BBC world news. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/default.stm
MEF is right about his observation about the enemy-images fostered by the media, though. There is very little attention given to local grass-roots cooperation and peace efforts by people on both sides of the Palestinian conflict (or indeed, the Iraq conflict).
And speaking of Al Jazeera, have you seen Control Room, the interesting documentary about Al Jazeera?
Last edited by CAM on Fri 14 Jan, 2005 7:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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llizard (aka ejm)
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| Posted: Fri 14 Jan, 2005 12:34 pm Post subject: |
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The Aljezeera cartoons are anything but subtle, n'est ce pas?
Yes, I saw the Control Room. It was pretty fascinating. (thread in this forum about Control Room)
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CAM
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| Posted: Fri 14 Jan, 2005 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, pretty graphic. But I did think there was also a fair bit of subtle nuance in some of the cartoons. They made me think. e.g. the one about the Palestinian election had some references that many people in the West might not get, e.g. the little kid's slingshot -- harkening back to the first intifada which was very considerably nonviolent, and the violence largely comprised children and teens throwing stones at soldiers. Of course the violence has now escalated on both sides!
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