Constructed Reality : A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Texts Surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict After the United States’ Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel

Constructed Reality: A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Texts Surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict After the United States’ Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel. Within hours the American announcement was international news with an almost unanimous UN Security Council condemning the act. The purpose of this study is to examine how the conflict is constructed in news articles from Sweden's two largest daily newspapers as well as two largest evening papers, ranging a week from the US recognition of Jerusalem. The study is conducted with a starting point in theoretical perspectives that deal with the media’s influence of people's perceptions of reality and their world view. The methods applied are first and foremost the overarching model of critical discourse analysis, with a combination of quantitative content analysis and qualitative text analysis. The study concludes that overwhelmingly, the newspapers represented the parties involved (Israelis and Palestinians) in a balanced, neutral fashion. The newspapers were however not as balanced and neutral when it came to which sources were cited