Citation

Kirk MD. North. Lights 2021; 19(1): 43-58.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Intellect)

DOI

10.1386/nl_00022_1

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In the late twentieth century, the rise of the female suicide bomber phenomenon was prevalent in Chechnya, Lebanon and Sri Lanka. Arguably, in terms of academic engagement and visibility within the wider public consciousness, the first wave of Palestinian female suicide bombers during the second intifada (2000‐05) encapsulates particular notoriety in relation to the perceived deviance of Palestinian female participation in political violence. Key to this construction is the role of news media as an agent of power. This article examines coverage of Palestinian female suicide bombers during the second intifada period within the scarcely examined medium of British terrestrial broadcast news media. This article determines the impact of individual journalists' gender in producing forms of discourse that delegitimize political agency. In particular, it shall establish if female journalistic voices are complicit in communicating intersectional gendered and Orientalist frameworks.

Language: en

Keywords

female journalists; female suicide bombers; gender and war; Israeli‐; Orientalism; Palestinian conflict; UK broadcast news