Announcing peace and framing conflict. The role of the media in challenging the status quo of Israeli-Palestinian relations and the 1993 Peace Accord.

This is a study of media production and coverage of Israeli-Palestinian relations. It investigates how media production and coverage have developed alongside developments on the ground, political necessities and shifting perceptions of peace in relation to this conflict since the beginning of the Oslo peace process in 1993. The study presents a comprehensive historical analysis of the negotiations that led to the Peace Accord between Israelis and Palestinians in 1993. It highlights the elements that made the Accord a diplomatic achievement but which reestablished the imbalance of power that had previously defined Israeli-Palestinian relations. It also presents the results of a content analysis of The New York Times’ representation of the first months of that process. It then discusses the perspectives of subjects who have been involved in activities promoting dialogue to challenge dominant explanations for this conflict since the early nineties, comparing these with the views of journalists who have covered this conflict and the peace process for different media. In describing the interplay between media and these other contexts, as well as the ways through which this has been linked to discursive explanations of peace and the return to visible conflict, this investigation reviews the factors that prevented the media from becoming agents of change