Death portrayals can not only influence memories, identify enemies, and prompt moralistic judgments, but can also fuel conflict. Whereas non-Western media are more likely to disseminate death photographs, Western outlets tend to utilize impending death photographs as alternatives to graphic imagery of corpses. Using a hybrid methodological approach, this study cross-culturally compares death and impending death depictions in seven global news outlets’ reporting on the 2023 Israel–Gaza War. More specifically, it examines all such photographs and captions in almost 2,000 articles by the US’s Voice of America, UK’s BBC, France’s France 24, Germany’s Deutsche Welle, Qatar’s Al Jazeera English, Turkey’s TRT, and China’s CGTN on the war. The findings reveal a visual competition, with non-Western media putting the horrific and graphic scenes of death resulting from Israeli military actions in Gaza on full display, while Western media shied away from this, opting instead to amplify Israel’s narrative of the fight against Hamas.
AdayS (2005) The real war will never get on television: An analysis of casualty imagery in American television coverage of the Iraq War. In: SeibP (ed.) Media and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 141–156.
3.
AguiarL (2009) Framing a global crisis: An analysis of the coverage of the latest Israeli–Palestinian conflict by Al-Jazeera and CNN. Estudos em Comunicacao6: 1–16.
4.
Al-JenaibiB (2010) The competition between Al-Jazeera’s Arab news diversity and US channels: Content analysis of Iraq war. Canadian Social Science6(4): 81–96.
5.
AlkallinyS (2017) Framing of media coverage of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict in CNN and FoxNews. International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences2(4): 161–165.
6.
AlmahallawiWZanuddinH (2018) 50 days of war on innocent civilian: Ma’an news agency coverage of Israeli and Palestinian conflict. International Journal of Engineering and Technology(UAE)7(4): 145–150.
7.
AlwanAA-H (2022) News coverage of the Arab websites of the Israeli aggression on Gaza: Analytical study for Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.net websites. Journal of the Iraqi University56(2): 525–533.
8.
AmerMMA (2022) BBC and New York Times’ coverage of the May 2021 Israeli onslaught on Gaza: A critical discourse analysis. International Journal of English Linguistics12(5): 1.
9.
AnwarBFajarZ (2024) Representation of Gaza War in Pakistani and British Newspapers Editorial cartoons : A semiotic analysis. Qlantic Journal of Social Sciences5(4): 1–8.
10.
AraujoTLockIVan de VeldeB (2020) Automated visual content analysis (AVCA) in communication research: A protocol for large scale image classification with pre-trained computer vision models. Communication Methods and Measures14(4): 239–265.
11.
ArchibaldDMillerM (2012) Full-spectacle dominance? An analysis of the Israeli state’s attempts to control media images of the 2010 Gaza flotilla. Journal of War & Culture Studies5(2): 189–201.
12.
ArtzL (2014) Banal balance, selective identification and factual omissions: The New York Times coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza. Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research7(2/3): 97–112.
Bacallao-PinoLM (2014) Mediatized solidarity, governmental support and metacommunicational narratives: The war on Gaza in leftist Latin American media. Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research7(2/3): 113–126.
15.
BarryAM (1997) Visual Intelligence: Perception, Image, and Manipulation in Visual Communication. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
16.
BarthesR (1981) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang.
17.
BhowmikSFisherJ (2023) Framing the Israel–Palestine conflict 2021: Investigation of CNN’s coverage from a peace journalism perspective. Media, Culture & Society45(5): 1019–1035.
18.
BlondheimMShifmanL (2009) What officials say, what media show, and what publics get: Gaza, January 2009. Communication Review12(3): 205–214.
19.
ButlerJ (2009) Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?London: Verso.
20.
ChouliarakiL (2013) The humanity of war: Iconic photojournalism of the battlefield, 1914–2012. Visual Communication12(3): 315–340.
21.
CookmanCH (2009) American Photojournalism: Motivations and Meanings. Northwestern University Press.
22.
CourtoisCFrissenT (2023) Computer vision and internet meme genealogy: An evaluation of image feature matching as a technique for pattern detection. Communication Methods and Measures17(1): 17–39.
23.
DahmenNSMielczarekNPerlmutterDD (2018) The influence-network model of the photojournalistic icon. Journalism & Communication Monographs20(4): 264–313.
24.
DamanhouryK ElGarud-paktarN (2021) Soft power journalism: A visual framing analysis of COVID-19 on Xinhua and VOA’s instagram pages. Digital Journalism, 31August. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1957969
25.
DamanhouryK ElSalehF (2024) Mediated clash of civilizations: Examining the proximity–visual framing nexus in Al Jazeera Arabic and Fox News’ coverage of the 2021 Gaza War. Digital Journalism. https://doi/org/10.1080/21670811.2024.2332614
26.
DamanhouryK ElWinklerKLokmanogluA, et al. (2026) Visual framing in the AI era: Lessons from manual approaches for computational methods. Computational Communication Research8: 1. DOI: 10.5117/CCR2026.1.2.ELDA.
27.
DobernigKLobingerKWetzsteinI (2010) Covering conflict: Differences in visual and verbal news coverage of the Gaza crisis 2009 in four weekly news media. Journal of Visual Literacy29(1): 88–105.
28.
DoufeshBBrielH (2021) Ethnocentrism in conflict news coverage: A multimodal framing analysis of the 2018 Gaza protests in the times of Israel and Al Jazeera. International Journal of Communication15: 4230–4251.
29.
ElmasryMH (2024) Images of the Israel–Gaza War on Instagram: A content analysis of Western Broadcast news posts. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990241287155
30.
ElmasryMHShamyAElManningP, et al. (2013) Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya framing of the Israel–Palestine conflict during war and calm periods. International Communication Gazette75(8): 750–768.
31.
El-NawawyMIskandarA (2003) Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network That Is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism. Cambridge University Press.
32.
FahmySSAl EmadM (2011) Al-Jazeera vs Al-Jazeera: A comparison of the network’s English and Arabic online coverage of the US/Al Qaeda conflict. International Communication Gazette73(3): 216–232.
33.
FahmySNeumannR (2012) Shooting war or peace photographs? An examination of newswires’ coverage of the conflict in Gaza (2008–2009). American Behavioral Scientist56(2): NP1–NP26.
34.
FeldmanA (1994) On cultural anesthesia: From Desert Storm to Rodney King. American Ethnologist21(2): 404–418.
35.
FriisSM (2015) ‘Beyond anything we have ever seen’: Beheading videos and the visibility of violence in the war against ISIS. International Affairs91(4): 725–746.
36.
GondweGWalcottC (2024) Victims or villains? How editorial cartoons depict the 2023 Israel–Palestine war. Online Media and Global Communication3(1). https://doi.org10.1515/omgc-2023-0061
37.
GreenL (2015) Advertising war: Pictorial publicity, 1914–1918. PhD dissertation, Manchester Metropolitan University. Available at: https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/600404/1/Leanne Green PhD with corrections September 2015.pdf (accessed 30 Septemeber 2024).
38.
GriffinM (1999) The great war photographs: Constructing myths of history and photojournalism. In: BrennenBHardtH (eds) Picturing the Past: Media, History, and Photography. University of Illinois Press, pp.122–157. Available at: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39800768 (accessed 6 February 2025).
39.
GriffinM (2010) Media images of war. Media, War and Conflict3(1): 7–41.
40.
HagopianP (2006) Vietnam War photography as a locus of memory. In: KuhnAMcAllisterKE (eds) Locating Memory: Photographic Acts. Berghahn Books, pp.201–222.
41.
HanuschF (2010) Representing Death in the News: Journalism, Media and Mortality. Palgrave Macmillan.
42.
HanuschF (2012) The visibility of disaster deaths in news images. International Communication Gazette74(7): 655–672.
43.
HarimanRLucaitesJ (2007) No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy. University of Chicago Press.
44.
HilbertMAhmedSChoJ, et al. (2018) Communicating with algorithms: A transfer entropy analysis of emotions-based escapes from online echo chambers. Communication Methods and Measures12(4): 260–275.
45.
HoonLL (2024) A content analysis of the 2023 Israel–Palestine conflict news reporting in the star online, Malaysia. Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities21(3): 211–221.
46.
JungblutMZakareviciuteI (2019) Do pictures tell a different story? A multimodal frame analysis of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. Journalism Practice13(2): 206–228.
47.
MahmoudSNessilMAAmraniDE (2024) Al Jazeera coverage of the Israeli War on Gaza 2023: A Critical Discourse Analysis. Akofena13(3): 167–182.
MalinskyA (2015) Death is in the eye of the beholder: A study of casualty count framing in the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. Critical Studies on Terrorism8(3): 491–502.
50.
McClancyK (2013) The iconography of violence: Television, Vietnam, and the soldier hero. Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal43(2): 50–66.
MorseT (2018) The Mourning News: Reporting Violent Death in a Global Age. Peter Lang.
53.
MortensenM (2015) Connective witnessing: Reconfiguring the relationship between the individual and the collective. Information Communication and Society18(11): 1393–1406.
54.
MunayyerY (2014) Crisis moments: Shifting the discourse. Journal of Palestine Studies44(1): 97–105.
55.
NabiRL (2003) ‘Feeling’ resistance: Exploring the role of emotionally evocative visuals in inducing inoculation. Media Psychology5(2): 199–223.
56.
NewhagenJEReevesB (1992) The evening’s bad news: Effects of compelling negative television news images on memory. Journal of Communication42(2): 25–41.
57.
OhlJJ (2015) Nothing to see or fear: Light war and the boring visual rhetoric of U.S. drone imagery. Quarterly Journal of Speech101(4): 612–632.
58.
PengYLockISalahAA (2024) Automated visual analysis for the study of social media effects: Opportunities, approaches, and challenges. Communication Methods and Measures18(2): 163–185.
59.
RamamurthyA (2016) Contesting the visualization of Gaza. Photographies9(1): 31–50.
60.
SeatonJ (2005) Carnage and the Media: The Making and Breaking of News About Violence. Allen Lane.
61.
SontagS (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others. Picador.
62.
TahaYAAl-KhanjiR (2020) A critical discourse analysis of Gaza marches of return coverage in selected newspapers. International Journal of Linguistics12(6): 163.
63.
WelchD (2003) Atrocity Propaganda. In: CullNJCulbertDWelchD (eds) Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present. ABC-CLIO, pp.23–25.
64.
WinklerCDamanhouryK ElDickerA, et al. (2018) Images of death and dying in ISIS media: A comparison of English and Arabic print publications. Media, War & Conflict. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635217746200
65.
ZelizerB (2005) Death in wartime: Photographs and the ‘other war’ in Afghanistan. Harvard Journal of Press/Politics10(3): 26–55.
66.
ZelizerB (2010) About to Die: How News Images Move the Public. Oxford University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
