Imagecide of Palestinian Women: The International News Channel i24News as a Case Study: A Multimodal Semiotic Analysis

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the role of i24News, a transnational news network, in the visual representation of Palestinian females. Under the lens of Strategies of Transnational Media: Contaminations and Hybrids, based on the theoretical framework as a theoretical approach to understanding the dynamics of meaning and representation reproduction.

Methodologically, this descriptive study employs a non-probability purposive sampling technique to select a sample of 4 news images published onto i24NEWS’s English-language Facebook page from a research community of 116 images, all related to the channel's coverage of issues concerning Palestinian women, whether using their images, or images representing them, in news items conjured by news coverage about them.

Using semantic narrative analysis and multimodal social semiotic analysis, the study reveals that i24News employs Adaptation and Reification of images depicting coexistence or individual achievements to reinforce alternative ideological symbols and representations, leading to the creation of hybrids or new Palestinians. Meanwhile, Sedimentation, Mollification, and Depolarization are applied across all sample images—whether those related to negative framing or hybrids—to separate Palestinian women from their political motives, conceal their original identity, and misrepresent them. This results in the distortion of Palestinian prototypes through cultural hybridization, leading to the visual erasure (Imagecide) of the Palestinian people under occupation by denying their existence and misrepresentation. This becomes attainable through the creation of negatively framed females or hybrids that are concurrently generalized and exaggerated.