Skip to content
1981
Volume 18, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1751-9411
  • E-ISSN: 1751-942X

Abstract

This study employed a computational framing analysis to examine media representations of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict between 7 and 14 October 2023. This study integrated media framing, media bias and geopolitical framing literature to examine if these factors could explain how this global tragedy was framed and if variations exist between established news and social media. Based on the analysis of a corpus of 3864 articles, we found that the media’s political biases played a less explanatory and consistent role in reporting the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. Instead, we observed media ideologies interacting with proxy geopolitical framing influence from outside could have shaped how Taiwanese news and social media organizations represented the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. This study reported statistically significant and consistent variations in Taiwanese media representations of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict between pro-China/unification, pro-Kuomintang and conservative/right-leaning news organizations and pro-Taiwan independence, left-leaning, pro-incumbent Democratic Progressive Party . Using a topic modelling technique, we found that pro-China/conservative news media sided with China to hold a more pro-Palestinian stance by framing the conflict as a result of Israel’s long suppression of people living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as the cause of the conflict and place much emphasis on Israel’s actions on humanitarian casualties. On the other hand, the pro-Taiwan news media aligned with the United States to focus more on pro-Israel news coverage, its attacks and counterattacks, and global responses. Additionally, social media netizens’ comments centre on the underlying causes of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict but do not align with the mainstream news media and are less affected by the proxy geopolitical framing effects.

© 2025 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/jammr_00093_1
2025-02-14
2026-04-22

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Ad Fontes Media (2024), ‘Interactive Media Bias Chart®’, https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/. Accessed 20 February 2024.
  2. Ahadh, Abdhul, Binish, Govind Vallabhasseri and Srinivasan, Rajagopalan (2021), ‘Text mining of accident reports using semi-supervised keyword extraction and topic modeling’, Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 155, pp. 455–65.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Ahmed, Saifuddin, Cho, Jaeho and Jaidka, Kokil (2018), ‘Framing social conflicts in news coverage and social media: A multicountry comparative study’, International Communication Gazette, 81:4, pp. 346–71, https://doi.org//10.1177/1748048518775000.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. AllSides (2024), ‘Media bias’, https://www.allsides.com/media-bias. Accessed 20 July 2024.
  5. AllSides Staff (2024), ‘Introducing similarity hub: A research tool for finding agreement’, AllSides, 25 April, https://www.allsides.com/blog/similarity-hub-research-public-opinion-allsides-more-like-us. Accessed 20 July 2024.
  6. Basmatkar, Pranjali and Maurya, Mahesh (2022), ‘An overview of contextual topic modeling using bidirectional encoder representations from transformers’, in V. Bindhu, J. M. R. S. Tavares and K. L. Du (eds), Proceedings of Third International Conference on Communication, Computing and Electronics Systems, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol. 844, Singapore: Springer, pp. 489–504, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-8862-1_32. Accessed 20 December 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Bhowmik, Sima and Fisher, Jolene (2023), ‘Framing the Israel–Palestine conflict 2021: Investigation of CNN’s coverage from a peace journalism perspective’, Media, Culture & Society, 45:5, pp. 1019–35, https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437231154766.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Box-Steffensmeier, Janet and Moses, Laura (2021), ‘Meaningful messaging: Sentiment in elite social media communication with the public on the COVID-19 pandemic’, Science Advances, 7:29, p. eabg2898, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abg2898.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Bozarth, Lia, Quercia, Daniele, Capra, Licia and Šćepanović, Sanja (2023), ‘The role of the big geographic sort in online news circulation among U.S. Reddit users’, Science Report, 13, pp. 6711–23, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-33247-3.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Britannica (2023), ‘October 7 attack’, https://www.britannica.com/event/October-7-attack. Accessed 20 December 2023.
  11. Brown, Benjamin (2019), ‘The Israeli–Palestinian conflict’, World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, 23:3, pp. 58–65, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48531050. Accessed 20 December 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Bush, Richard C. (2021), ‘Commentary: Taiwan’s democracy and the China challenge’, Brookings Institute, 22 January, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/taiwans-democracy-and-the-china-challenge/. Accessed 20 December 2023.
  13. Caballero-Julia, Daniel and Campillo, Philippe (2021), ‘Epistemological considerations of text mining: Implications for systematic literature review’, Mathematics, 9:16, p. 1865, https://doi.org/10.3390/math9161865.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Choi, Jinhyuck, Kim, Kwangmi Ko and Kim, Yanggon (2020), ‘Emotional analysis with news using text mining for framing theory’, in R. Lee (ed.), Computer and Information Science: ICIS 2019, Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 849, Cham: Springer, pp. 95–108, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25213-7_7.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Clark, Cal and Tan, Alexander C. (2012), ‘Political polarization in Taiwan: A growing challenge to catch-all parties?’, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 41:3, pp. 7–31, https://doi.org/10.1177/186810261204100302.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Datt, Angeli and Huang, Jaw-Nian (2023), ‘Beijing’s global media influence 2022’, Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/country/taiwan/beijings-global-media-influence/2022. Accessed 20 December 2023.
  17. Duffy, Clare and Maruf, Ramishah (2024), ‘Student protesters have a history of pushing for Columbia University to divest in different movements’, CNN Business, 27 April, https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/university-protests-palestine-04-27-24/index.html. Accessed 20 May 2024.
  18. Ekman, Paul (1992), ‘An argument for basic emotions’, Cognitive Emotion, 6:3, pp. 169–200.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Elejalde, Erick, Ferres, Leo and Schifanella, Rossano (2019), ‘Understanding news outlets’ audience-targeting patterns’, EPJ Data Science, 8:16, https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-019-0194-8.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Erlanger, Steven (2024), ‘Signs suggest that invasion of Rafah is all but inevitable’, New York Times, 24 April, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-rafah-invasion.html. Accessed 20 May 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Franco, Jonathan (2023), ‘The Palestine Commission: The forgotten chapter in United Nations peacemaking and peacekeeping in the Arab-Israeli conflict’, Middle Eastern Studies, 60:5, pp. 763–76, https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2023.2280232.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Gentzkow, Matthew and Shapiro, Jesse M. (2005), ‘Media bias and reputation’, NBER working paper series, Working paper 11664, Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Gentzkow, Matthew and Shapiro, Jesse M. (2013), ‘Ideology in the news media’, The Reporter, 1 June, https://www.nber.org/reporter/2013number2012/ideology-news-media. Accessed 20 December 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Gjevori, Elis (2024), ‘Why Israel and Taiwan are forging a closer relationship’, Middle East Eyes, 22 June, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-taiwan-forging-closer-relationship. Accessed 20 July 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Goldman, Adam (2024), ‘In Rafah, we saw destruction and the limits of Israel’s Gaza strategy’, New York Times, 7 July, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-war-rafah-destruction.html. Accessed 20 July 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Haddadan, Shohreh, Cabrio, Elena, Soto, Axel J. and Villata, Serena (2023), ‘Topic modelling and frame identification for political arguments’, in A. Dovier, A. Montanari and A. Orlandini (eds), AIxIA 2022: Advances in Artificial Intelligence, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 13796, Cham: Springer, pp. 268–81, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27181-6_19.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Hale, Erin (2023), ‘Pro-Palestine or a trend? China’s stance on Israel-Hamas war splits opinion’, Al Jazeera, 24 November, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/24/pro-palestinian-or-following-trends-chinas-stance-on-israel-hamas-war. Accessed 20 December 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Harvard Library (n.d.), ‘News media across the political spectrum’, Research Guides, https://guides.library.harvard.edu/newsleans/thechart. Accessed 10 July 2024.
  29. Hassell, Hans J. G., Holbein, John B. and Miles, Matthew R. (2020), ‘There is no liberal media bias in which news stories political journalists choose to cover’, Science Advances, 6:14, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay9344.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Hjelmgaard, Kim (2024), ‘Reporter’s notebook: College campus protests over Gaza spread overseas’, USA Today, 26 April, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/04/26/israel-hamas-college-campus-protests-overseas/73421746007/. Accessed 20 December 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Hong, Junhao and Hou, Cheng-Nan (2023), ‘Media environment in Taiwan from the 1950s to 2000’, in J. Hong and C.-N. Hou (eds), Alternative Media and Taiwan’s Socio-Political Transformation, 1970s–1990s, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 57–77, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-2477-6_4.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Hou, Philip (2023), ‘A diplomatic tightrope: Taiwan’s stance on the Israel–Hamas war’, The Diplomat, 17 November, https://thediplomat.com/2023/2011/a-diplomatic-tightrope-taiwans-stance-on-the-israel-hamas-war/. Accessed 20 December 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Hsiao, Russell (2023), ‘Assessing the knock-on effects of Taiwanese perceptions toward the Israel–Hamas war’, Global Taiwan Institute, 15 November, https://globaltaiwan.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/GTB-11.13.23-1.pdf. Accessed 20 December 2023.
  34. Huang, Ching-Lung (2009), ‘The changing roles of media in Taiwan’s democratization process’, CNAPS visiting fellow working paper, Washington, DC: Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Ignatow, Gabe (2015), ‘Theoretical foundations for digital text analysis’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 46:1, pp. 104–20, https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12086.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. International Court of Justice (2023), ‘Surge in Israeli–Palestinian violence must be “wake-up call” for global community to redouble efforts towards achieving peace, delegate tells Security Council’, in 9387th Meeting, SC/15368, New York, 27 July, New York: United Nations, https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15368.doc.htm. Accessed 20 March 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Kim, Patricia M., Dong, Kevin and Prytherch, Mallie (2024), ‘Chinese narratives on the Israel-Hamas war’, Brookings Institute, 22 January, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinese-narratives-on-the-israel-hamas-war/. Accessed 10 July 2024.
  38. Korenčić, Damir, Ristov, Strahil and Šnajder, Jan (2018), ‘Document-based topic coherence measures for news media text’, Expert Systems with Applications, 114, pp. 357–73, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2018.07.063.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Leeper, Thomas J. and Slothuus, Rune (2019), ‘How the news media persuades: Framing effects and beyond’, in E. Suhay, B. Grofman and A. H. Trechsel (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion, Oxford Handbooks, Oxford: Oxford Academic, pp. 151–68, https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28311/chapter-abstract/215011347?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false. Accessed 10 July 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Leung, Zoe and Yang, Alan H. (2022), ‘Taiwan provides powerful lessons on democratic resilience’, The Diplomat, 27 January, https://thediplomat.com/2022/2001/taiwan-provides-powerful-lessons-on-democratic-resilience/. Accessed 20 December 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Lin, Lihyun (2022), ‘Taiwan’, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 15 June, https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2022/taiwan. Accessed 20 December 2023.
  42. Luhn, Hans Peter (1958), ‘The automatic creation of literature abstracts’, IBM Journal of Research and Development, 2:2, pp. 159–65.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Maizland, Lindsay (2024), ‘Why China-Taiwan relations are so tense’, Council on Foreign Relations, 8 February, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-relations-tension-us-policy-biden. Accessed 20 March 2024.
  44. Mazur, Lucas B. (2021), ‘Where the violence happened matters. Geopolitical framing and assessments of collective responsibility for historical violence’, Political Geography, 85, p. 102312, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102312.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Miladi, Noureddine (ed.) (2023), Global Media Coverage of the Palestinian–Israeli Conflict, London, Dublin and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Miladi, Noureddine and Miladi, Aaya (2023), ‘Digital media and the war of narratives in reporting the Palestinian–Israeli conflict’, in N. Miladi (ed.), Global Media Coverage of the Palestinian–Israeli Conflict, London, Dublin and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 11–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Mulyanto, Randy (2024), ‘Young Taiwanese go against the tide to amplify Palestinian voices’, Arab News, 6 February, https://www.arabnews.com/node/2453726/world. Accessed 10 July 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Murel, Jacob and Kavlakoglu, Eda (2024), ‘What is bag of words?’ IBM, 19 January, https://www.ibm.com/topics/bag-of-words#:~:text=Bag%20of%20words%20featurization%20quantifies%20the%20frequency%20of,for%20word%20frequency%20across%20a%20corpus%20of%20documents. Accessed 10 July 2024.
  49. Naor, Moshe (2008), ‘Israel’s 1948 war of independence as a total war’, Journal of Contemporary History, 43:2, pp. 241–57, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009408089031.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. National Post Staff (2023), ‘These are the graphic photos Israel released of burned babies to reveal horror of Hamas attack’, National Post, 13 October, https://nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/warning-graphic-content-hamas-terrorist-attack-israel. Accessed 20 December 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Noubel, Filip and A, Mariam (2024), ‘Navigating misconceptions and supporting Gaza from Taiwan’, Global Voices, 4 April, https://globalvoices.org/2024/04/04/navigating-misconceptions-and-supporting-gaza-from-taiwan/. Accessed 10 July 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. OCHA (2024), Occupied Palestinian Territory, New York: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Papagiannopoulou, Eirini and Tsoumakas, Grigorios (2018), ‘Local word vectors guiding keyphrase extraction’, Information Processing & Management, 54:6, pp. 888–902, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2018.06.004.
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Powell, Tori B., Sangal, Aditi, Salahieh, Nouran, Faheid, Dalia, Said-Moorhouse, Lauren, Smith-Spark, Laura and Vogt, Adrienne (2024), ‘Pro-Palestinian protests continue at colleges across the US’, CNN Business, 27 April, https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/university-protests-palestine-04-27-24/index.html. Accessed 20 December 2023.
  55. Provalis Research (1989–2014), ‘WordStat 7: User guide’, https://provalisresearch.com/uploads/WordStat7.pdf. Accessed 20 November 2023.
  56. QDA Miner (n.d.), ‘Qualitative data analysis software’, Provalis Research, https://provalisresearch.com/products/qualitative-data. Accessed 20 December 2023.
  57. Ratliff, Joseph (2024), ‘“Anti-Israel agitators”: Fox News uses unique language to describe Gaza protester’, AllSides, 24 April, https://www.allsides.com/blog/anti-israel-agitators-fox-news-uses-unique-language-describe-gaza-protesters. Accessed 10 July 2024.
  58. Rawnsley, Ming-yeh T., Hu, Yuan-hui, Chen, Victoria Y. and Lin, Lihyun (2022), ‘A sketch of Taiwan’s digital news media landscape in the twenty-first century’, Taiwan Insight, 23 May, https://taiwaninsight.org/2022/05/23/a-sketch-of-taiwans-digital-news-media-landscape-in-the-twenty-first-century/. Accessed 25 July 2024.
  59. Reporters without Borders (2023), ‘Taiwan’, https://rsf.org/en/index. Accessed 20 December 2023.
  60. Rodelo, Frida V. and Muñiz, Carlos (2019), ‘Government frames and their influence on news framing: An analysis of cross-lagged correlations in the Mexican context’, Global Media and Communication, 15:1, pp. 103–19, https://doi.org/10.1177/1742766518818862.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Shultziner, Doron (2022), ‘What happens in the eye of the storm? News ideology during media storms’, International Journal of Communication, 16, pp. 3646–68.
     [Google Scholar]
  62. Succar, Rayan, Ramallo, Salvador, Das, Rishita, Ventura, Roni Barak and Porfiri, Maurizio (2024), ‘Understanding the role of media in the formation of public sentiment towards the police’, Communications Psychology, 2:11, pp. 1–17, https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00059-8.
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Sumida, Nami, Walker, Mason and Mitchell, Amy (2019), ‘News media attitudes in France: 3. The role of social media in news’, Pew Research Center, 23 April, https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2019/04/23/the-role-of-social-media-in-news/. Accessed 24 July 2024.
  64. Tessler, Mark (2009), A History of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, 2nd ed., Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1d10hf6.
     [Google Scholar]
  65. The Center for Preventive Action (2024), ‘Israeli–Palestinian conflict’, Council on Foreign Relations, 13 March, https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinian-conflict. Accessed 6 October 2024.
  66. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2024), ‘Wang Yi: China supports Palestine’s full membership in the U.N. and calls for working out a timetable and road map for the two-state solution’, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 7 March, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zxxx_662805/202403/t20240308_11256419.html. Accessed 20 December 2023.
  67. Thomas, Cat (2020), ‘Taiwan: Tycoon media owners, sensationalism, and political polarisation’, N3MAG, https://n3con.com/magazine/archives/2783. Accessed 20 December 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  68. Thomson, Jono (2024), ‘Taiwan donates NT$15.9 million to Israel’, Taiwan News, 19 March, https://taiwannews.com.tw/news/5118340. Accessed 10 July 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  69. United Nations (2024a), Israel-Gaza Crisis, New York: United Nations.
     [Google Scholar]
  70. United Nations (2024b), Rights Expert Finds ‘Reasonable Grounds’ Genocide Is Being Committed in Gaza, New York: United Nations.
     [Google Scholar]
  71. Wang, Jianghao, Fan, Yichun, Palacios, Juan, Chai, Yuchen, Guetta-Jeanrenaud, Nicolas, Obradovich, Nick, Zhou, Chenghu and Zheng, Siqi (2022), ‘Global evidence of expressed sentiment alterations during the COVID-19 pandemic’, Nature Human Behaviour, 6:3, pp. 349–58.
     [Google Scholar]
  72. Ware, Gemma (2024), ‘Bias hiding in plain sight: Decades of analyses suggest US media skews anti-Palestinian’, The Conversation, 29 February, https://theconversation.com/bias-hiding-in-plain-sight-decades-of-analyses-suggest-us-media-skews-anti-palestinian-216967. Accessed 10 July 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  73. Wilson, Rachel, Acosta, Rosa de, Matthews, Alex Leeds and Newman, Alex (2023), ‘These charts show the scale of loss in the Israel-Hamas war’, CNN, 7 November, https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/middleeast/palestinian-israeli-deaths-gaza-dg/index.html. Accessed 20 December 2023.
  74. Workman, Michael (2018), ‘An empirical study of social media exchanges about a controversial topic: Confirmation bias and participant characteristics’, The Journal of Social Media in Society, 7:1, pp. 381–400.
     [Google Scholar]
  75. Ylä-Anttila, Tuukka, Eranti, Veikko and Kukkonen, Anna (2021), ‘Topic modeling for frame analysis: A study of media debates on climate change in India and USA’, Global Media and Communication, 18:1, pp. 91–112, https://doi.org/10.1177/17427665211023984.
     [Google Scholar]
  76. Yu, Lingli and Yang, Ling (2024), ‘News media in crisis: A sentiment and emotion analysis of US news articles on unemployment in the COVID-19 pandemic’, Palgrave Communications, 11:854, pp. 1–9.
     [Google Scholar]
  77. Zvornicanin, Enes (2023), ‘When coherence score is good or bad in topic modeling?’, Baeldung, 31 May, https://www.baeldung.com/cs/topic-modeling-coherence-score. Accessed 20 December 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/jammr_00093_1
Loading
Examining media bias and geopolitical proxy framing effects on media representations of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict in Taiwan: A computational framing analysis
Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research 18, 133 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1386/jammr_00093_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jammr_00093_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jammr_00093_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): computational methods; framing analysis; geopolitical framing; journalistic biases; sentiment analysis; social media; text mining; topic modelling

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test