A critical discourse analysis of ideological positioning in Al Jazeera’s bilingual coverage of the 2023–2024 Gaza-Israel war

This study employs Critical Discourse Analysis to examine how Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA) and Al Jazeera English (AJE) construct ideologically differentiated narratives of the 2023–2024 Israel–Gaza war for distinct audiences. Adopting Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework, the study combines qualitative textual analysis with quantitative frequency mapping across a matched bilingual corpus of 94 news articles. The analysis focuses on lexical choices, grammatical agency, framing strategies, social actor representation, and patterns of source selection. The findings reveal systematic linguistic divergence between the two platforms. AJA employs religiously resonant terminology (e.g. martyrs 89% and resistance 81%), active voice in representing Palestinian casualties (79%), and explicit pro-Palestinian framing (89%). In contrast, AJE uses neutral lexical items (e.g. killed, militants), higher levels of passivization (68%), and strategic balance (81%). Source analysis shows that AJE incorporates a wider range of perspectives, including Israeli officials and Western actors, whereas AJA prioritizes Palestinian and Arab sources. These patterns demonstrate that ideological positioning is not uniformly expressed but is strategically calibrated to audience expectations. The study contributes to research on transnational journalism by showing how objectivity operates as a culturally situated discursive strategy.