The representation of the Syrian conflict in the Syrian online news: A critical discourse analysis

Department of Management and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia

^* Corresponding author: kais.amirkadhim@utp.edu.my

Abstract

This study investigates the usage of Syrian media tools in manipulating people’s perception towards the uprising in Syria. The language of the Syrian media is analyzed using a critical discourse analysis. For this purpose, two frameworks are combined: the historical approach by Wodak (2002) and the socio-semantic network of social actors by Van Leeuwen (2008). The study particularly focuses on the way the Syrian government and the rebels are represented in the Syrian online news Cham press which is a pro-government news agency. The two research questions of this study are: (i) What are the referential and predication strategies used by Cham press in reporting the Syrian conflict? (ii) How do these strategies reflect the ideology that surrounds the representation of rebels in the Syrian news? Three hundred and ninety-seven articles were selected from Cham press based on the most relevant keywords. These articles were taken for a period of six months that is from June to October 2012 and May 2013. The study reveals that the Syrian uprising is negatively represented using terms with negative connotations like terrorism, foreign conspiracy, against the law, foreign fighters that are targeting people and responsible for the massacres that happened in the country.