O conflito Israel–Hamas sob o olhar da mídia: enquadramentos e disputas de sentido sobre Oriente e Ocidente

Abstract

This study seeks to examine how the Israel–Palestine conflict takes shape in international media coverage and how such coverage contributes to the construction of the social imaginary surrounding the issue. As journalism constitutes part of individuals’ frameworks for understanding the world, the way the conflict is portrayed in national and international media tends to perpetuate how the population interprets the “war” and the actors involved. This research aims to investigate media approaches to events related to the geopolitical situation between Israel and Palestine, specifically analyzing how the outlets O Globo (Brazil) and Al Jazeera (Qatar) covered the attacks on the Gaza Strip in October 2023 and their subsequent developments. The relevance of this study lies in the need to observe how narratives are mobilized by major media organizations from the Global South, particularly regarding the construction of reality surrounding this conflict. The corpus of analysis consists of news articles published during the first week following October 7, concerning the attacks in the Gaza Strip involving Hamas and the Israeli Army, as well as other significant episodes of the conflict, such as the Flour Massacre and the one-year anniversary of October 7 (always including articles published on the day of the event and in the following days, when the topic is addressed). The materials are analyzed through a hybrid methodological approach combining Content Analysis (Bardin, 2011), which examines elements of news composition in order to identify implicit messages, and Framing Theory as proposed by Robert Entman (1993), since frames can define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgments, and suggest solutions. This approach aims to identify the main issues addressed and the interpretive constructions produced by each media outlet. The results indicate that O Globo presented coverage centered on immediate events and based primarily on institutional sources, with limited historical and humanitarian contextualization. This pattern tends to reinforce hegemonic frames of the conflict. In contrast, Al Jazeera quickly shifts the focus to the Israeli retaliation and the humanitarian impacts in Gaza. In doing so, the outlet broadens the temporal frame of the conflict and situates it within a historical perspective of occupation and asymmetry of power.