Israeli Propaganda Techniques and Themes used on Facebook During the October 7th War: An Analytical Study of 'Israel Speaks Arabic' Page

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Mass communication Department- Faculty of Arts. Tanta University.

Abstract

In the framework of the recent events in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that have extended over the past months, specifically since October 7, 2023, this study was conducted, which aims to analyze the posts on the "Israel Speaks Arabic" page. The analysis was conducted over a month, and the number of posts analyzed was 208. Three methods were applied: content analysis, thematic analysis, and discourse analysis. The main results are as follows: great interaction on the page's posts, whether emojis or comments. The majority of the analyzed comments were negative. The posts also employed nineteen propaganda techniques such as “name calling", "testimonial", "slogan", and "loaded language". The posts contained seven main topics, which in turn contained several subtopics. The most important are: “Condemning the Iranian regime and its allies for cultivating terrorism in the region” and “Israel is a strong independent state with roots internationally supported.” The discourse analysis also showed that the most important actors in the posts were the State of Israel, followed by Hamas and Iran. At the same time, the political framework of reference dominated half of the analyzed posts. The posts relied on argumentation pathways, whether logical or emotional, by using many tools and evidence.

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References

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