Framing the shooting of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in English and Arabic news headlines: a critical discourse study

Media plays a powerful role in shaping knowledge, values, and perspectives and can also fuel polarization and misperceptions. Headlines, as the most prominent element in contemporary online journalism, are crafted within linguistic, cultural, social, and political contexts. Ideology and hegemony are central to how media frames events, especially in long-standing conflicts such as the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11, 2022, became a focal event that headlines framed around three elements: the act of killing, the identity of the victim (Abu Akleh), and the perpetrator. The study adopts Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive framework to analyze microstructure (text-level linguistic features) and macrostructure (broader discourse-level features) in Arabic and English headlines, exploring how they construct identities and shape audience cognition within the conflict’s broader discourse. Research questions: (1) What linguistic selections does the microstructural analysis reveal for Arabic and English news outlets in crafting headlines related to the killing of Abu Akleh? (2) What identities do the lexical choices construct for the victim and perpetrator? (3) How does the macrostructure analysis cognitively frame interpretation and perception of the news, particularly regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict?

The review situates the study within Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) traditions (Fairclough, Wodak, Van Dijk), emphasizing media power to shape cognition and social relations. Prior research has examined ideological manipulation and rhetorical devices in headlines across languages and outlets (e.g., Constantinou 2024; Bonyadi & Samuel 2013; Haider & Hussein 2020), discrepancies between headlines and article content (Tymbay 2022), gender representation (Dragaš 2012), and framing of violent events (Lombardi 2018). Other work explored portrayals of refugees/migrants (Haider & Olimy 2019), LGBTQ topics in Arabic news (Al‑Abbas & Haider 2021), headline impacts on audiences (Hassan 2018), and immigrant labeling (Torkington & Ribeiro 2019). Studies also show how headlines shape cultural perceptions (Al‑Zaman 2023). However, few studies explicitly link linguistic choices to readers’ cognitive processing and holistic perception. This study addresses that gap by combining CDA with Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach to examine how micro-level linguistic choices align with target audiences’ mental and context models, focusing on the internationally salient case of Abu Akleh’s killing. The authors note constraints in corpus size (200 headlines) due to limited peak-period availability.

The study uses Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive framework of CDA, which situates discourse within interactions among society, cognition, and text. Key concepts include mental models (subjective representations of events) and context models (current communicative situations) that guide production and interpretation of discourse, and the ideological square highlighting polarization in group representations. Corpus: 200 online news headlines (100 Arabic, 100 English) published from May 11, 2022 (the day of the killing), through September 2022. Headlines were collected via Google using keyphrases such as “the killing/murder of Abu Akleh,” “the killing/murder of Palestinian/Al Jazeera journalist,” and were sourced from major outlets. English outlets included CNN, The Guardian, BBC, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Times, The Telegraph, CBS News, Sky News, Reuters, Fox News, NBC News, NPR, The Intercept, The Australian Jewish News, The Star Toronto, The Daily Star, and Nation World News. Arabic outlets included CNN Arabic, BBC Arabic, Al Arabiya, Sky News Arabia, Al Sharq, Jordan News Agency (PETRA), Watan Agency, Al Mamlaka, Al Ghad, Al Hurra, Al Emarat Al Youm, Al Bayan, Al Khaleej, Youm7, and Al Jazeera. Analysis: Microlinguistic analysis examined sentence types, speech acts, voice (active/passive), nominalization, modality, lexical choices for the act of killing, the victim, and the perpetrator, and rhetorical devices (numeration/emphatic language, litotes, metaphor, sarcasm). Macrolinguistic analysis examined how headlines align with social structures, ideologies, and audience cognition, assessing how selective framing influences mental models and public opinion within the Israeli–Palestinian conflict context.

Microlinguistic results: Speech acts and syntax: Declaratives dominated both corpora. Distribution (Table 1): Arabic—Declarative verbal 58%, Declarative nominalized 36%, Interrogative 5%, Imperative 0%, Exclamatory 0%. English—Declarative verbal 93%, Declarative nominalized 7%, Interrogative/Imperative/Exclamatory 0%. English examples emphasized declarative claims/attributions; Arabic included both verbal and nominalized declaratives and a small proportion of interrogatives used rhetorically to broaden discourse (e.g., justice for journalists). Voice: Arabic headlines predominantly used active constructions (e.g., “killed”) that foreground agency and imply intentionality; English headlines frequently used passive constructions (“killed by,” “shot by”) that downplay or obscure agency. Vocabulary—act of killing: English often used hedging/mitigating adverbs/adjectives (likely, probably, unintentional) suggesting uncertainty. Frequency of key terms (Table 3): Arabic—مقتل (killing) 69%, اغتيال (assassination) 23%, استشهاد (martyrdom) 6%, اعدام (execution) 2%. English—killing 62%, death 21%, slain 17%. Vocabulary—victim identity (Table 4): Most frequent referent was her proper name in both languages (Arabic 67%, English 41%). Arabic more often used “the Palestinian journalist” (19%) and culturally charged terms like “martyr” (≈3% combined), while English more often used “Al Jazeera journalist/reporter” (34%) and “Palestinian American journalist” (12%); “American journalist” (5%). Arabic rarely referenced her American nationality; English frequently highlighted dual nationality, potentially fostering identification with the audience. Vocabulary—perpetrator: Both corpora used terms like Israeli forces/fire/soldier/bullets; Arabic more explicitly foregrounded the agent (often sentence-initial with active verbs), while English frequently relegated or omitted agency (passives or inanimate agents such as “gunfire”). Rhetorical devices: Arabic headlines commonly used numeration and emphatic descriptions (e.g., citing numbers, “new evidence,” “expert analyses,” “compelling evidence”), metaphors (e.g., “voice of war and peace,” “a prolific media career assassinated by Israeli bullets,” “the face of a new generation”), and occasional sarcasm (e.g., colloquial phrasing implying skepticism about U.S. intervention). English headlines frequently used litotes/understatement (e.g., “likely responsible,” “inconclusive,” “bullet too damaged”) to introduce ambiguity and mitigate claims. Macrostructure: Arabic headlines framed the killing as intentional, linking it to the broader Palestinian struggle and shared cultural values (e.g., martyrdom, war/peace), reinforcing certainty and accountability. English headlines often framed the event with uncertainty or unintentionality, using hedges and passive constructions that cognitively cue skepticism about agency while also highlighting the victim’s American identity to connect with audiences and project neutrality.

Findings address the research questions by demonstrating distinct linguistic and rhetorical preferences across Arabic and English headlines that shape readers’ cognitive interpretations. Arabic headlines favored active voice and culturally resonant lexical choices that foreground agency and intentionality, constructing the victim primarily as “Palestinian” and invoking collective identity and struggle. English headlines relied more on passive voice, hedging, and litotes, emphasizing uncertainty or unintentionality and often highlighting the victim’s dual nationality or institutional affiliation (Al Jazeera) to foster audience identification and perceived neutrality. Both corpora constructed perpetrator identity, but Arabic more explicitly foregrounded the agent, whereas English frequently mitigated or concealed agency. These patterns align with Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach: headline choices interact with readers’ mental and context models, shaping interpretation and public opinion, and reflect ideological stances embedded within media institutions.

The study shows how micro-level linguistic features (syntax, voice, lexical choices, rhetorical devices) and macro-level discourse practices jointly frame public understanding of Abu Akleh’s killing within the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the global debate on press freedom. Arabic headlines tended to assert intentionality and agency, linking the event to national struggle and employing emphatic devices, metaphors, and occasional sarcasm. English headlines often framed uncertainty and potential unintentionality via passive voice and litotes while emphasizing the victim’s dual nationality to build audience rapport. The work contributes a cross-linguistic, socio-cognitive account of headline framing, offering insights for linguists, media analysts, and educators into how headlines shape cognition and ideology. It underscores the role of media power—especially in government-influenced contexts—and highlights the importance of critical literacy to interrogate headline framing. Future research could expand corpora across longer time spans, include more outlets/regions, quantify additional rhetorical/semantic features, and examine audience reception experiments to validate cognitive effects.

The corpus was limited to 200 headlines (100 Arabic, 100 English) collected during the peak coverage period (May–September 2022), constraining generalizability and the quantification of some linguistic features. Reliance on Google search and available online headlines may introduce selection bias. The qualitative focus limits causal claims about audience cognition without direct reception data.