4. Results and Discussion
4.2. Semiotics analysis of the texts
events who are the Israeli military, the doctor and his daughters. The text presented condemnation towards the Israeli army, as seen in the statement in P7 that says “The military expressed sadness at the deaths but did not admit to a mistake in identification.”
tank shells that killed the doctor’s daughters but instead gave the impression to the readers that the incident was accidental and no human wrongs either intended or not were involved.
Whereas The Guardian titled their news with Israeli army says shelling of house where girls died was ‘reasonable’. This title presented a better picture for the readers of who were the subject and object from the event. The word
“says” in the title implied that the statement was based on the Israeli army’s judgment and not the author’s.
Aljazeera simply captioned Israel: Girls’ killing ‘reasonable.’ This heading would magnetize the readers more as it reflected the Israeli army as the executors who possibly regarded killing girls as sensible. The colon “:” after the word “Israel” in the headline also indicated that the statement of “Girls’
killing ‘reasonable’” was also from the Israeli army’s, not the author’s.
Lexical choice
Matheson (2005) argues that the lexical choices are principally significant in building up the meaning of a text in the news story. A reporter can choose the appropriate vocabulary items by looking at the range of possibilities, in order to evaluate the one that are to be used several times in the news stories.
From the headlines, the words to describe the loss of the girls were used differently by each news text. The Jerusalem Post had used the word “killed”
from ‘Tank shells killed doctor's daughters.’ Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English (2008) defines this verb as (1) cause the death of, (2) put an end to. The Guardian chose the word “died” in Israeli army says shelling of house where girls died was ‘reasonable.’ Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English (2008) defines this verb as (1) stop living, (2) (die out) become extinct. Lastly, Aljazeera employed the word “killing” in their headline Israel: Girls’ killing ‘reasonable.’ Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English (2008) defines this noun as an act of causing death.
From the three words above, we connote that the word “killing” used by Aljazeera has the strongest meaning. It is a noun and the meaning reflected that the girls’ loss were due to ‘the act that causes death.’ This word also has synonyms of ‘murder’ and ‘assassination.’ The word “killed” which was used by The Jerusalem Post also demonstrated severity, thus the phrase “tank shells” before it had supported its meaning to be less harsh. It exemplified that the doer was not directly by human but by machine which created a depiction that was less spiteful. The Guardian provided the less severe word “died,”
even though in its P1 it did mention “Israel’s military last night admitted that one of its tanks killed three girls at their home in Gaza during last month’s war in a case that shocked the Israeli public, but said the shelling was “reasonable,””
thus the word in the headline suggested a softer implication that the girls
“had stopped living.” The word “died” being represented in the headline implied a meaning that is notably milder than the word “killed” in the news text.
From the news texts, the word “reasonable” was also attentively salient. This word is an adjective and Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English (2008) defines it as (1) fair and sensible, (2) as much as is appropriate or fair; moderate, (3) fairly good; average. It was presented in different styles by each of the news media. The Jerusalem Post had presented the word almost to the end of the story. After a chronology of the event is written, this word is used to describe why the killings were considered sensible. The word “reasonable” were not intended directly to the Israeli army in shooting the girls by accident, but to “the forces’ action and the decision to fire towards the building were reasonable” as written in its P7.
Differing from the style of The Jerusalem Post, The Guardian and Aljazeera presented the word “reasonably” each in their first paragraphs and further emphasized it near the end of their stories. Furthermore, both of the news media embedded quoting marks (“….”) for the word reasonable ՜
“reasonable” but The Jerusalem Post did not. Another phrase that these two media put quoting marks was on “suspicious figures” where The Jerusalem Post did not. By putting the quoting marks, it can be interpreted that these words had other or hidden meanings. These meanings could be intended to convert the words to positive or negative connotations. Consequently the readers would focus in interpreting the meaning, as the authors would have wanted them to.
Language use
The greater part of the text in political news stories comprises of direct or indirect quotations such as the examples previously provided above.
Generally, political journalists are not engaged to gather information so much as to collect quotations. Generally the news writing holds the verbs to be active, but to get the participants to the start of the sentence; passivization is quite common in news discourse now (Bell, 1998). The Jerusalem Post and The Guardian were modestly similar in their use of language with detailed information on every event that they had presented. However, both differ from Aljazeera where the explanation was in the manner of straightforward.
The Guardian presented a regrettable statement from the military towards the victim described in the quotation by the military in P5 as “The IDF is saddened by the harm caused to the Abu el-Eish family…,”Aljazeera also provided a short statement on this matter as “The military expressed sadness at the deaths...” in its P7. The Jerusalem Post however did not include any
regrettable statement from the Israeli army.
Aljazeera also wrote a statement that the other news media did not mention, which can be found in its P5 that stated “Abu al-Aish, who has worked for years in Israeli hospitals, has denied there were any fighters at his house.” The word
“denied” in this report implied that Abu al-Aish could firstly be accused that there were fighters in his house. Perhaps the media wanted the readers to find that this accusation might have caused additional unhappiness in the midst of his grief. On the contrary, The Jerusalem Post mentioned how the victim accepted the tragedy. This was found in its P11. The Guardian also provided a similar statement made in direct quotations by the victim in its P6.
As mentioned earlier, news texts are written by different writers with not just different of views towards one particular event, but also due to the different backgrounds and cultures. This can be seen on the way each writer had presented and spelled the victim’s name in the introduction of the story. The Jerusalem Post had written his name as Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, while The Guardian spelled it Izz el-Deen Abu el-Eish, and Aljazeera with Dr Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish. Notice also how The Jerusalem Post and Aljazeera presented his name in the beginning of their stories with his title “Dr.” while The Guardian did not. This is found to be one of the cultural signs which their readers that are from different countries would be able to relate to.
4.2.2. Graphic signs
Every newspaper differs in the manner of presenting their written text (Danesi, 2002). This involves the type font, size of fonts and types of photography used. The findings from graphic signs are further discussed below.
Typography
Typography is the appearance, style, and arrangement of text. It is a very important aspect in the news production. If readers have difficulty in reading the content, there is a possibility that they will not read the news text at all.
Every news text needs to accommodate news readers who want to get through the news in a relatively short time.
All three web texts had used bolded headlines but with different type of fonts and sizes. The use of bold serves to direct the reader in making transparent meaning of the following text in the story. The Guardian differs drastically to The Jerusalem Post and Aljazeera as it presents the biggest size fonts among the three, which is Times New Roman size 24. To use bigger letters to start the news text is to attract the readers to further read the news story. The text of the story itself was in Times New Roman size 12. The Jerusalem Post had used Arial size 16 for the headings with the story font of 9. Aljazeera had
chosen Verdana size 13.5 thus this is almost similar to Arial size 16. Hence Aljazeera’s story font size is Verdana 10, which is slightly bigger than that of The Jerusalem Post.
The web news texts have unlimited possibilities of type of fonts and sizes in the Internet. Thus space for availability is also considered in their presentations of news texts. The Jerusalem Post had presented more advertisements in its web newspaper compared to The Guardian and Aljazeera; accordingly this might had been the reason why its font size was smaller compared to the other two news texts. As this paper only confers the different representations and semiotics of the news texts, therefore semiotics in the advertisements are not discussed.
Photographs
Graphic signs presented in the news ought to be seen as photographs engrossing connotations (Gambles, 1998). Therefore, the photographs were studied in these three different news texts together with the caption beneath each of them. Bignell (2002, pp. 95-96) says that “these captions provide a set of linguistic meanings which shape our reading of the picture and functions as the ‘proof’ that the text’s message is true.”
Photographs presented to accompany the news text always refer to some meaning. Bignell (2002) explains that the concentration in decoding their meanings is the connotations which photographs produce. He further acknowledges that the implying idea of these iconic symbols rely on what is denoted and goes beyond in presenting a mythic importance which holds and forms the decoding of a photograph’s connotations.
The Jerusalem Post presented a photograph of the victim with his surviving son. Beneath the picture was a simple text of “Dr. Abuelaish with his son.” This emphasized the information that even though its news text was defending the Israeli army in accidentally killing the victim’s daughters, the journalist too had a concern over the loss felt by the victim. Therefore to create a sense of connection between the readers and the victim in the story, the Doctor’s photograph was presented. His facial expression in the photograph presented as if to say, ‘I’m sad my daughters have died, but there is nothing that I can do about it.’ The journalist also supported this image by writing in the last paragraph, P11, “Abuelaish, speaking on Channel 2 Wednesday, thanked all those who worked to find the truth about the incident and accepted the findings, saying that mistakes can happen.”
Aljazeera posted a bigger photograph of an Israeli army man looking at a distance of what seemed to be a bombed area. The photograph representation dominated a great section of the available space for the news text on the page. The text for the picture reads “The Israeli military said the
decision to shell the doctor's home was “reasonable”” and no further comments were made. This effort by the paper is what as Bignell (1997, p. 99) suggests that the caption underneath the picture allows the reader to “load down the image with particular cultural meanings and the photograph functions as the proof that the text’s message is true.” To show further support for the victim’s loss, a video titled Doctor’s loss caught on film was also provided. Here, the writer would like the reader to connote sympathy, tragedy and injustice for the victim in the event. The connotations of the victim that was seen crying in the video suggested that ‘I cannot accept the fact that my daughters have died.’ The photograph and video were to further create a distance between the readers and the Israeli army suggesting that the readers should involve no empathy with the army who brought loss to an innocent man.
Not much comment can be made for The Guardian as it did not present any photographs or videos to accompany their news text. Thus this could be due to the fact that web news texts get their daily articles quickly circulated on a daily basis, therefore any photographs or videos may be posted up in the next updated news.