Critical Media Literacy and Palestine: Educators Analyzing Media Discourse to Humanize Palestinian Voices

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender Roundtable: The Digital Age and Its Discontents, Critical Media Literacies

Abstract

This study examines the dehumanization of Palestinians in U.S. mainstream media, focusing on The New York Times’ coverage of the war on Gaza following October 7, 2023. Using critical discourse analysis and grounded in Orientalism and anticolonial critical media literacy, the authors demonstrate how biased headlines rely on passive voice, Orientalist tropes, and emotional framing to obscure Palestinian suffering and justify Israeli state violence. The study introduces the “4V Framework”—Voice, Visibility, Validity, and Verification—as a pedagogical tool for educators to critically engage with media and teach current events with historical context, justice, and care. This work contributes to social studies and media literacy scholarship by offering educators tools to challenge erasure and racialized narratives in media about Palestine.

Authors

• Hanadi Shatara, California State University - Sacramento

• Amanda Najib, New York University