Violent World

Images are the core of television news, particularly in the coverage of terror events and war, where pictures often overwhelm the verbal commentary. A Violent World analyzes images on global CNN, Israeli IBA, and Palestinian PATV that contribute heavily to how the current violence in the Middle East is framed. Nitzan Ben-Shaul draws from critical media theory, and from qualitative and aesthetic approaches out of cinema studies, to examine how dominant ideologies are embedded in mainstream TV news. Specifically, he focuses on the American elites' global ideology and the conflicting dominant national-peripheral ideologies of Israeli-Palestinian elites. His in-depth study, of particular interest to scholars of Middle East studies and international communication, further offers a new model of analysis for contemporary television news.